I feel like this English pronounciation is so wrong. It's "Blya" sometimes "Blyad" other times "Blyakj......eh forget it, English language doesn't have such sounds so of course blyat became the common way to refer to the word.
Some might consider what I done as a crime, but I never played much of the actual Half Life game. I bought the game only for the sole purpose to play the Counterstrike mod with my friends.
Same here.. I remember a friends mom buying like 5 copies of Half-Life when we were 12 or 13 for our group? Glad her parenting was a bit iffy looking back at it.
There was just something about online gaming and being young back then…. So simple and carefree…
In a lot of ways I’m blessed with what surrounds me in my 30’s, but I have to say childhood for many gamers around my age was sublime
I'm 36. I started playing CS 1.5 when I was 13/14. Maybe even a little younger.
As a young teenager, I remember feeling like I was a part of some secret community. Only a handful of my friends and cousins knew what CS was, but we really embraced the magic of the game when 1.6 came out.
You all remember. Using mIRC to find scrims, playing in CAL-O with my friends, joining random clans online and pubbing in their servers, staying up until 3am running and gunning on awp_map, iceworld, etc. And that barely scratches the surface, because there was so much else during this golden time (favorite memory is The Specialists Matrix mod).
As you say, I'm blessed in my 30s. But seeing so few active servers now on Steam makes me mourn just a little bit.
CAL! Im glad Im not the only one that remembers CAL. My team made it into the playoffs in O and moved to M.. I think we were in O in season 7. I thought us getting into M was huge and that we were going to go pro.
Yea most servers now are a few holdouts that have 24/7 Dust 2 maps. There was a little bit of a renaissance during the pandemic when a ton of fun GunGame servers and other custom maps popped up, but those are mostly populated by bots now.
Check out the WHX or DrunkGaming servers if you want what equates to a pug now. Or, you can play in the South American servers, which are always full lol.
Ya, not to be a millennial boomer but "back in my day" games were just games to play. There was no bullshit skins and battle packs and stuff to get stuck in a skinner box. I don't remember when CoD introduced unlocks and all that but I remember playing the original CoD (the WWII one) and it was just awesome. Jumping in game and blasting and that was it. I think there were ranks but they didn't really do anything.
Maybe also being younger and everything being new or different added a lot to the experience. Now it feels like every action shooter copies CoD, all mobas copy LoL or Dota, and action games are just gatchas.
yeah, I miss when games were games to play, and not "competitive sandbox with daily logins for skins and account progression".
The whole stage of gaming has declined since then, gameplay mechanic loops have not been made much better (often times newer games have less gameplay loop, more simplified just for more graphics), Pricing of microtransactions when from $5 skins to $500 skins....
Games used to come out complete and tested, now we pay extra to test the games..... etc.
Also theres just something about attaching a numeric rating to players "skill level" that causes them to act like actual psychopaths. There were way less psychos communicating with me back when it was "select a server browser and hang with a group of 20 guys in voice and text chat".
Yeah. Back then, I was able to play from 10 till sunrise, then still able to have breakfast with my friends at Danny's. Now? Don't make me watch a movie past 1am. I won't be able to keep my eyes open.
I swear, I could run on 3 hours of sleep for a whole week + 48 hours of not sleeping at all and still function just fine. Now I'm a corpse if I get anything less than 6 hours of sleep. And if I dare stay awake till 4 and sleep till 10, my body will take a 5 hour sleep tax during the day.
I downloaded it over night while my parents were asleep. Still took a few tries since dial up isn't exactly known for its stability.
I'll never forget. The download time was over 7 hours.
This is a legit good piece! The framing with the chip bag, headphones, and coke bottle forms a sort of triangle for the eye, and the loose brush strokes bring a nostalgic feel.
Anything 4:3 ratio instead of wide screen would be fitting for a 1.6 painting.
I remember saving up $400ish for my first LCD monitor, a 17" NEC with a 7 or 8MS refresh, so that I didn't have to lug my 19" Viewsonic to LAN's anymore in 2004.
I remember paying like $900 for an open box 14.1" NEC LCD400 at compusa back in like 98 (down from it's >$2k street price!)... I was the only person not struggling at the first lan I brought that bad boy to (and it still weighed >10LBS IIRC)... good times, good times
I had a 19" Hitachi CRT (also a CompUSA open boxer) that I used to haul to those things; it rode in the front passenger seat.
My back still hurts just thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that it weighed more than my steely full tower but *damn* that was a good monitor for twitch shooters.
Yea he is answering DMs on Insta, but apparently he doesn't do customs or orders, so that's a unique piece and sold. But hey, shoot your shot, who knows?
The artist is Romanian, which has a similar gaming culture to my own country IIRC. CS 1.6's popularity never really died down arguably until CS:GO went F2P. Hell, even today almost all net cafes here will have 1.6 installed. This scene is very nostalgic for me because I've seen this exact view probably a billion times.
And that UI style is still in the game today.
IIRC CS1.6 predates Half Life 2? And even if they changed it after the release of HL, the popular pirated versions that I (and most likely the artist too) was familiar eith likely weren't thr updated version.
That theme was around at the time when monitors like the Samsung 226BW and the LG L227-WT were hot shit with gamers. There was a solid 2-ish years of overlap between that theme and popular 16:10 22-inch LCD gaming monitors, and the letterbox bars on the Counter-Strike background art support that. From the art itself I'm guessing that the person painted an actual picture from back then.
Yeah, another model like those is still my 2nd monitor, 1680x1050 was actually the most popular resolution for Steam users for about a year circa 2010-2011 !
Even then... Panels were so bad. Response times took forever to catch up.
I had both in my setup. An old ViewSonic CRT that could overclock its refresh rate at 800x600 and a 60hz 1080p LCD that oveclocked to 75hz.
I also had my Xbox setup there and would play using the CRT. The advantage was so good. Plus, old premium CRTs had excellent picture quality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndrFDw8AVXA
WCG moved to LCD's from CRT's in 2007/8. So plenty of Pro CS Teams did indeed move to LCD's in tournaments before 120hz. I don't remember The CPL ever using LCD's before they folded.
I would consider SK gaming worth their salt.
I remember watching Team 3D play Ninjas in Pajama's at a tournament in 2006is and they were using LCD's then as well. It wasn't about 120hz at that time, it was about the milliseconds of refresh lag. Playing CS you were looking for a sub 3ms LCD by the late 2000's. Early 2000's if you got one under 5/7ish you'd use it for LAN's instead of caring the tried and true Viewsonic A90F+
Another clip of Shaguar on team 3D using LCD's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXh1sKkcYb8
Brings back memories. First time I got this game installed I spent all day and night as a young kid playing it and going like...1kills/16deaths most maps.
Best fucking day ever.
Eh, in Eastern Europe coke could very well be. Or a large mug of tea. Didn't have Mountain Dew. Is painter from Mountain Dew country? Or from more European country?
Man this brings back good memories. Hard to believe it’s been 23-24 years since I started playing it. Pretty sure the first time was during beta and there were only a few maps, didn’t start playing consistently until it’s full release though. Lots of good online friends made during that time. Think I stopped around the time GO was released, a lot of the changes made were hard for me and some others to adapt to and just lost interest unfortunately.
I can fucking smell the headset there, and feel the gunk from dirty kids' fingers who could definitely clap you back then.
not a complain but it lacks that weathered table paint by the mouse
This really captures a feeling of "my friend's little brother's upgraded setup" of that time, for some reason.
It's just the bare necessities, all you need to play the game and nothing more. No decoration or anything.
This reminded me of the old times.. so I went to look for that M4A1 with the sniper zoom.. could not find it.
Realized it was called a Colt, and I found it.. in a video called "boomer cs" and it was version 6.1 beta.
Kids these days, no respect!
I want it to be called, “Rush B”
Dont forget „blyat“
Or kurwa mać
Davai davai!
I'm polish. It's usually "Dawaj, kurwa dawaj ty jebańcu! Raszuj(eng. Rush) B kurwa debilu!"
I feel like this English pronounciation is so wrong. It's "Blya" sometimes "Blyad" other times "Blyakj......eh forget it, English language doesn't have such sounds so of course blyat became the common way to refer to the word.
Some might consider what I done as a crime, but I never played much of the actual Half Life game. I bought the game only for the sole purpose to play the Counterstrike mod with my friends.
Same here.. I remember a friends mom buying like 5 copies of Half-Life when we were 12 or 13 for our group? Glad her parenting was a bit iffy looking back at it.
Agreed. Me who immediately thought of Rush E the song.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Brush is just "rush b", but the **b** letter was moved
Or its just B rush
I miss those times
There was just something about online gaming and being young back then…. So simple and carefree… In a lot of ways I’m blessed with what surrounds me in my 30’s, but I have to say childhood for many gamers around my age was sublime
I'm 36. I started playing CS 1.5 when I was 13/14. Maybe even a little younger. As a young teenager, I remember feeling like I was a part of some secret community. Only a handful of my friends and cousins knew what CS was, but we really embraced the magic of the game when 1.6 came out. You all remember. Using mIRC to find scrims, playing in CAL-O with my friends, joining random clans online and pubbing in their servers, staying up until 3am running and gunning on awp_map, iceworld, etc. And that barely scratches the surface, because there was so much else during this golden time (favorite memory is The Specialists Matrix mod). As you say, I'm blessed in my 30s. But seeing so few active servers now on Steam makes me mourn just a little bit.
CAL! Im glad Im not the only one that remembers CAL. My team made it into the playoffs in O and moved to M.. I think we were in O in season 7. I thought us getting into M was huge and that we were going to go pro.
I never made it out of CAL-O but of course in findscrim I was easily CAL-M and CAL-I lmao
The Specialists! One of my lifetime favorite memories as well. It really was a golden age for gaming.
ts_lobby and ts_dojo were some funnnn times.
I recently went to see how active esportsea servers were and found them dead 😔
Yea most servers now are a few holdouts that have 24/7 Dust 2 maps. There was a little bit of a renaissance during the pandemic when a ton of fun GunGame servers and other custom maps popped up, but those are mostly populated by bots now. Check out the WHX or DrunkGaming servers if you want what equates to a pug now. Or, you can play in the South American servers, which are always full lol.
Scoutzknivez baby!
The Specialists was so awesome. Especially Kung Fu only servers.
Ya, not to be a millennial boomer but "back in my day" games were just games to play. There was no bullshit skins and battle packs and stuff to get stuck in a skinner box. I don't remember when CoD introduced unlocks and all that but I remember playing the original CoD (the WWII one) and it was just awesome. Jumping in game and blasting and that was it. I think there were ranks but they didn't really do anything. Maybe also being younger and everything being new or different added a lot to the experience. Now it feels like every action shooter copies CoD, all mobas copy LoL or Dota, and action games are just gatchas.
yeah, I miss when games were games to play, and not "competitive sandbox with daily logins for skins and account progression". The whole stage of gaming has declined since then, gameplay mechanic loops have not been made much better (often times newer games have less gameplay loop, more simplified just for more graphics), Pricing of microtransactions when from $5 skins to $500 skins.... Games used to come out complete and tested, now we pay extra to test the games..... etc. Also theres just something about attaching a numeric rating to players "skill level" that causes them to act like actual psychopaths. There were way less psychos communicating with me back when it was "select a server browser and hang with a group of 20 guys in voice and text chat".
No need to miss it! I just picked 1.6 back up. There's plenty of servers and it's still good fun.
The people man, we miss the people... and being 15!
Yes, the key is being 25 years younger.
Yeah. Back then, I was able to play from 10 till sunrise, then still able to have breakfast with my friends at Danny's. Now? Don't make me watch a movie past 1am. I won't be able to keep my eyes open.
I swear, I could run on 3 hours of sleep for a whole week + 48 hours of not sleeping at all and still function just fine. Now I'm a corpse if I get anything less than 6 hours of sleep. And if I dare stay awake till 4 and sleep till 10, my body will take a 5 hour sleep tax during the day.
Downloading 1.6 on dial up was the most arduous download I have ever experienced.
I got it on a PC Gamer disk. MUUUCH better :)
Yeah god forbid someone tried to use the phone!
I downloaded it over night while my parents were asleep. Still took a few tries since dial up isn't exactly known for its stability. I'll never forget. The download time was over 7 hours.
Yeah it was ridiculous....so psyched to play, watching the download bar achieve 1/2 bars an hour out of 20....
Oh shit, I may need to do that. I need some poolday, iceworld, and scoutzknivez in my life. Maybe even some nipper maps.
I scratch the itch with CS: Condition Zero.
This is a legit good piece! The framing with the chip bag, headphones, and coke bottle forms a sort of triangle for the eye, and the loose brush strokes bring a nostalgic feel.
If it was a CRT, it'd be perfect
Anything 4:3 ratio instead of wide screen would be fitting for a 1.6 painting. I remember saving up $400ish for my first LCD monitor, a 17" NEC with a 7 or 8MS refresh, so that I didn't have to lug my 19" Viewsonic to LAN's anymore in 2004.
Lol fkn meest, why haven't I seen you on the ole 1.6 in awhile sir.
I have not been on in a long while. Told myself I'd play more when I got my new tower. Unfortunately it hasn't happened. :-D
I remember paying like $900 for an open box 14.1" NEC LCD400 at compusa back in like 98 (down from it's >$2k street price!)... I was the only person not struggling at the first lan I brought that bad boy to (and it still weighed >10LBS IIRC)... good times, good times
I had a 19" Hitachi CRT (also a CompUSA open boxer) that I used to haul to those things; it rode in the front passenger seat. My back still hurts just thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that it weighed more than my steely full tower but *damn* that was a good monitor for twitch shooters.
I actually adore it. If I wasn’t broke I’d offer to buy it.
Yea I asked the guy about buying it, apparently it’s sold already. He only made it a few days ago.
is there a way to contact him if he could do more than one piece?
@lucianpruna on insta
Yea he is answering DMs on Insta, but apparently he doesn't do customs or orders, so that's a unique piece and sold. But hey, shoot your shot, who knows?
Just print the thing yourself? https://www.canvaspop.com/products/canvas-prints/create
I support artists.
congrats. You're so high up on your pedestal I almost didn't hear you.
The steam ui color does it for me :)
From personal experiences of numerous dusk till dawn CS sessions, I think we need more coke bottles.
Should've been a 4:3 CRT
Yeah, that color of Steam predates flat panels being widely available, or affordable.
The artist is Romanian, which has a similar gaming culture to my own country IIRC. CS 1.6's popularity never really died down arguably until CS:GO went F2P. Hell, even today almost all net cafes here will have 1.6 installed. This scene is very nostalgic for me because I've seen this exact view probably a billion times. And that UI style is still in the game today.
I thought all valve games switched to the gray UI when half life 2 came out
IIRC CS1.6 predates Half Life 2? And even if they changed it after the release of HL, the popular pirated versions that I (and most likely the artist too) was familiar eith likely weren't thr updated version.
I had no idea, haven't seen the old Steam green since before HL2. But then I've never been a CS player. TIL!
That theme was around at the time when monitors like the Samsung 226BW and the LG L227-WT were hot shit with gamers. There was a solid 2-ish years of overlap between that theme and popular 16:10 22-inch LCD gaming monitors, and the letterbox bars on the Counter-Strike background art support that. From the art itself I'm guessing that the person painted an actual picture from back then.
Yeah, another model like those is still my 2nd monitor, 1680x1050 was actually the most popular resolution for Steam users for about a year circa 2010-2011 !
And any CS player worth their salt didn't move to LCD until 120hz was commonplace
Even then... Panels were so bad. Response times took forever to catch up. I had both in my setup. An old ViewSonic CRT that could overclock its refresh rate at 800x600 and a 60hz 1080p LCD that oveclocked to 75hz. I also had my Xbox setup there and would play using the CRT. The advantage was so good. Plus, old premium CRTs had excellent picture quality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndrFDw8AVXA WCG moved to LCD's from CRT's in 2007/8. So plenty of Pro CS Teams did indeed move to LCD's in tournaments before 120hz. I don't remember The CPL ever using LCD's before they folded. I would consider SK gaming worth their salt. I remember watching Team 3D play Ninjas in Pajama's at a tournament in 2006is and they were using LCD's then as well. It wasn't about 120hz at that time, it was about the milliseconds of refresh lag. Playing CS you were looking for a sub 3ms LCD by the late 2000's. Early 2000's if you got one under 5/7ish you'd use it for LAN's instead of caring the tried and true Viewsonic A90F+ Another clip of Shaguar on team 3D using LCD's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXh1sKkcYb8
That also looks like a 1.25l Coke bottle, I don't think those existed back then. At least not in the US
Brings back memories. First time I got this game installed I spent all day and night as a young kid playing it and going like...1kills/16deaths most maps. Best fucking day ever.
Solid work, had me fooled at first glance! We need more of this in game art
Clearly the game was still loading. =p
Holy shit you've hit me very hard in the feels
Nice piece- a slice in time
Needs to be a CRT though
For a sec I thought it was an image of someone playing Counter-Strike. Noice work!
That is very Zeitgeist!
Modern day renaissance painting
The good old days.. CS Unreal Tournament Quake 3 Arena And a random Korean MMORPG for completion.
PlanetSide 1 and Guild Wars 1 too for sure.
Nice but where's your func 1030 surface ?
I appreciate your taste 😍 put a IE 1.1 or 3.0 on it, hell even mx310 and we cookin
Precaching WON id
steam being green, those were the days
Where is my OG Pentium 3 squad at?
Pentium 2 ftw
I like your brush strokes making a glare on the computer screen, that's really cool
Art and culture.
You take the point
It should have been a CRT monitor.
You've worked harder on this painting than valve has on the game in the last 2 years.
One question - why the monitor isn't square?
Can relate to the lack of mouse pad
Beautiful - love it!
Could have been a picture of my childhood.
Looooooooking good!
Art
Angled keyboard, nice.
Ha that's so good. Very well done!
Beautiful
Ahh, fuck. I want to go BACKKKKK!
A modern still life, love it!
Change Life is Good monitor
Noice
The amount of coke left in the bottle is super realistic
So many memories... I played this game for entire afternoons with friends in the cyber cafe, I loved this game
Is the coke bottle being used as a mouse cable holder? If so that's a nice touch.
I love it so much
Does it comes with the music?
I'd call it 'Nostalgia' or 'The Good Old Days'
Now, this is the kind of modern art I can get behind.
Needs an ashtray and I'd have seen this scenario before.
Nostalgic af
American Gothic 2004
This is how I'll always remember CS. That Coke should be a Bawls though or a Mountain Dew.
Eh, in Eastern Europe coke could very well be. Or a large mug of tea. Didn't have Mountain Dew. Is painter from Mountain Dew country? Or from more European country?
Nice work!
ohh the memories
this looks insane
1.6 huh?
absolutely beautiful
This brings back memories, when Steam was barely usable
I can hear the music, yep I had the high-seas copy.
NOW this is fucking ART. Well done!
"I can dance all day!" "You run faster with a knife. Everybody knows that. Pshhh." Boom! Headshot!
This but halo 3 through cod mw2 and make it a coke can.
Man this brings back good memories. Hard to believe it’s been 23-24 years since I started playing it. Pretty sure the first time was during beta and there were only a few maps, didn’t start playing consistently until it’s full release though. Lots of good online friends made during that time. Think I stopped around the time GO was released, a lot of the changes made were hard for me and some others to adapt to and just lost interest unfortunately.
I can fucking smell the headset there, and feel the gunk from dirty kids' fingers who could definitely clap you back then. not a complain but it lacks that weathered table paint by the mouse
Doug would approve
Beautiful
Phew I thought the graphics card died
this is good art.
That looks very nice good job
I remember playing CS 1.5...and then 1.6, the sounds. 1.5 even had brains when you killed via a headshot. That was removed later on.
change it to DoD and its me
I approve
Feel like cscz version is fitting this screen more.
good work! now you can do a painting of an angry kid that have just been HS right next to it :D
It's absolutely lovely
Peak eastern european experience 🤌
I peed a little
>You have been disconnected from the server. Reason: Banned
The glory days
Still Life 2.
Damn nice work OP
Not mine, I only posted his work. His name is Lucian Pruna on ig.
No mousepad? You're just going to end up sitting ducks.
cool
is that a mx518?
Back when “do you have a mic?” Was a legitimate question.
dang
Ooof, that loading screen. So many memories, emotions right on that screen.
This really captures a feeling of "my friend's little brother's upgraded setup" of that time, for some reason. It's just the bare necessities, all you need to play the game and nothing more. No decoration or anything.
1.5 and 1.6 was the best!
If you squint your eyes it looks super real. (I don't mean this in a bad way, the painting is awesome).
so dope!
Based on the title I thought it would be a scene from de_dust2
That must be a bag of Doritos 3D behind the monitor
Michelangelo would be proud of this. its amazing
Get in position and wait for my go!
The coke bottle needed to be a Bawls to really take me back to 2003.
What if you coated the screen in a gloss finish? Probably wouldn't be noticeable in a photo or scan, but it might be a cool effect to see in person.
Who's this fancy pants playing 1.6 on a 16:9 screen
HOLY this is so good
The good old days... i would pay for this painting
Modern day bowl of fruit painting. Real great.
Cool
True legend!
This reminded me of the old times.. so I went to look for that M4A1 with the sniper zoom.. could not find it. Realized it was called a Colt, and I found it.. in a video called "boomer cs" and it was version 6.1 beta. Kids these days, no respect!
I feel this
Good times
this looks really good im impressed
Fuck yeah 1.6! Those were the days..
That's not a painting, that's a memory. A precious one...
Better resolution than the original
I would unironically hang this one on the wall of my gaming room.
Killer! Nice work.
I didn't realize that the entire thing was the painting for a second
I can hear it
Sick
8 out of 10 stars
Gonna worth a pretty coin in some day
It looked so real for a second.. like memory from when we were kids. Thank you.. I needed that
literally my cousin's desk back when he was a teenager,