A Counter-Strike: Condition Zero server can be a confusing place. The aim is to defeat the enemy, but if you so much as point your gun at them you’ll be accused of cheating everything up to and including faking your own birth. That anybody of any skill, anywhere, ever, is using a hack is an article of faith for many CS:CZ players.
Unfortunately this is because Counter-Strike servers have the highest proportion of “filthy cheating scumbags” of any game since the 2000 Paralympics, when the Spanish entered ten perfectly healthy people in their twelve man “disabled” team. Here are five ways to spot cheating:


1. No deathcam

Many servers let you watch your smarter, non-dead team-mates play after you bite the dust. Presumably in the hopes you learn something from their amazing non-bullet-absorbing skills. When a server blacks the screen instead it might as well announce “We have cheats on this server” in bright neon text, because either

a) They don’t want you watching blatantly impossible events as a spectator and going “No way!”

B) They know that their own regular players will cheat with external voicechat programs like Teamspeak, passing on intel to their surviving colleagues like some kind of paramilitary poltergeist.


2. Order of magnitude score

When someone has a score a clear digit larger than everyone else, they’ll tell you it’s skill. In fact they’ll love to tell you that, and would probably pay money for the chance to do so because they have been stuck in this filthy pizza-box-encrusted room for years and they have no-one to talk to and they’re sooo lonely. Dominating a virtual space is the closest they have to friends coming round.

Except they are not dominating, their computer is. When you see scores of 161 over 7, he’s not “THAT good”. Other players are joining in, being headshotted with a Deagle through two doorways by a running opponent, saying “Screw this for a cheating game of soldiers” and leaving.* And now it’s your turn.


3. Wallhacking

In order to draw everything, your computer needs to know everyone’s location. Wallhacking is for those who think “why shouldn’t I know as well?” The answer is of course “Because that’s cheating”, but it doesn’t stop these X-ray excrescences from applying patches to make the walls transparent. It’s much easier to spot wallhackers on your own team than your opponent’s. Rounding a corner and instantly being shot is kind of what Counter-Strike is all about, but when you watch your own teammate walk parallel to the wall apparently entranced by a particular grain of sand on de_dust….

… then you know he’s wallhacking. Which is when you find out what kind of person you are: the kind that will be disgusted by this behavior and leave, or the type prepared to win at all costs. (P.S. If you’re the latter, then be advised that you’re pretty much everything that’s wrong with the world and FYI you should die in a fire).


4. “STFU GAYZORZ!!”

A cheater swears like a sailor who just slammed his testicles in a dictionary of expletives. This isn’t exactly odd online, but since the Counter-Strike cheat is the most hideously insecure exemplar of patheticitude in existence he really overcompensates.* Alas, just as in the game, his desire outstrips his skill and what he wishes was an ego-crushing tirade of wit and abuse is actually just “STFU HOMO!” x 100. It’s also the online equivalent of responding to an accusation with “What do you mean by that?” - a hideously obvious admission of guilt.


5. The Amazing Tracking Gun

The most blatant of all the cheats, you’ll see them running, strafing and hopping walls while their gun smoothly tracks a distant point like a NASA telescope. Another symptom is their mysterious ability to run around with a magnum sniper rifle scoring snap headshots like it was a pistol. These stains upon gaming download aimbots, external programs that deal with all the terribly tedious “Aiming and shooting” required in a shooter. The good news is that their crime is also their punishment - they’re basically chauffeuring their own PC around the map, watching as the computer plays with itself. And no matter how bad your life may be you’ll always be better than someone whose hobby is watching a computer masturbate.

So what should you do when you spot a cheat? Get out of there. You can try cursing them out for a bit, but I assure you’re they’re much better at swearing miserably over voicecomm than you. It’s like finding a card shark in your poker game - the only thing you can do is leave the table, and find another server with better admins. Or set up your own.