Valve’s Counter Strike series is one of the most popular online games. It’s pretty amazing to think that the online FPS came out of a modification of Half Life and then Half Life 2. Here are 20 simple ways to improve your play in CounterStrike Source, regardless of whether you’re playing as terrorists or counter-terrorists. Actually, I can’t take full credit for all of these tips - some of them are just good pieces of advice given to me by my cousin (a much better CounterStrike player than me).

1. Aim at barrels, bottles and cans as you run around. If you have spare rounds, perhaps in your secondary weapon, test your aim by shooting at these items.

2. Shoot at open doors and windows with your secondary weapon as you run past them. Nearby enemies will hear or see these shots and will make them think about what to do next. In effect it tells the enemy to keep their heads down, and tells them to try running in a different direction. The AWP, in particular, has a very distinctive, loud sound.

3. Playing on a public server? Turn off voice traffic. It’s very distracting and will just annoy you.

4. Turn off Anti Aliasing in your graphics options. This will boost your frames per second (FPS) rates, and means that enemies don’t blend as well into the background, especially when they’re far away. In any case, until CounterStrike 2 gets here, the graphics won’t be improving all that much and you could use the additional processing power.

5. Start your own private server and play against bots…

6. …and give them better weapons than you have. This is one way in which CS is better than Day of Defeat: using bots to help you learn how to play better.

7. Play on public servers that are not VAC-secured. This way, it’s much more likely you’ll be playing against cheaters who are using wallhacks, among other Counter Strike cheats. If you can figure out how to beat a player that uses cheats to see through walls and aim perfectly, you can beat an honest player.

8. If you’re scoping as a sniper, follow your team mates’ heads as they move around the map. This will give you practice for how real enemy players move around. You don’t get much time to practice when you’re fighting the enemy. This way, when an enemy player comes into view, you’ll be better prepared.

9. Play on Friendly Fire servers. This will teach you to rely on skills other than “spray and pray”. This includes taking care with grenades and aiming carefully with automatic weapons.

10. Play wearing headphones. Listen for sounds that signal someone approaching, reloading or getting injured.

11. Play against people who are better than you. Yes, you’ll end up at the bottom of the score list, but you’ll learn a lot about strategy, placement and weapon choice.

12. Reduce your voice commands to just four: “Yes”, “No”, “Enemy Spotted” and “Hold This Position”. I think many people don’t use voice commands because they’re hard to access and there are so many of them. You really only need these four - map them to F1 - F4. Use a key bind to quickly access these voice commands.

13. Encourage your team with voice commands and written comments. Be positive and congratulate other players when they’ve done something good. This improves teamwork, and will help your side win.

14. Occasionally use an ‘improve your aim’ website like this one or this one.

15. Don’t reload your weapon. I know that sounds crazy, but having fewer rounds in your magazine will encourage you to be more frugal with your rounds, and hence also use the rounds you do have more effectively. Day of Defeat will give you another view on this idea, where reloading your weapon can take a lot longer, and there are more areas where the enemy can find you on the map.

16. Run with your team mates when you are playing competitively. Run alone when you are training. This way you are more likely to find yourself outnumbered, and that will help you develop the skill of prioritising threats.

17. In general, groups are stronger than individuals. Note how many voice commands relate to team play (such as “Stick together, team!” and “Under fire, need assistance!”). There are no commands that say, “I’m running off on my own!”.

18. Select random assignment when choosing a team. This will prevent you from always picking the team with the advantage, or getting you used to only one weapon.

19. Invariably, everybody has a favorite Counterstrike map in the game. I’d say the most popular maps are cs_office, de_dust and de_dust2. Think about your least favorite map and why you dislike it. My least favorite maps are de_cbble because it’s such a visually dull map and cs_compound because there are only two ways into the superstructure. If possible, try and force yourself to play the maps you don’t like, all the while keeping in mind why you don’t like the map, and how you can use that dislike to help your play.

20. Don’t buy a primary weapon. Now, this isn’t just a strategy to save money (even though that’s a good idea with the recent credit crisis). By not having a powerful main weapon to rely on, you will develop the skills of using smaller weapons and actual play tactics (like moving and firing at the same time, hiding behind objects, being a team player, and distracting the enemy).