Counter-Strike.  I won’t be talking about it today, but it’s completely impossible to discuss the masterpiece that is Neotokyo without abording the subject of its ancestor, the venerable guru of gaming wisdom that is CS – a game that bore hundreds of gaming industry bastard lovechildren, stole their girlfriends, and ran off to Zanzibar.  More than ten years on, it remains the undisputed champion of team based first person gaming.  It’s spawned clone after clone, copy after copy, and mod after mod, and still emerged triumphant.

It isn’t surprising then, that most challengers to CS’ blood-soaked throne have done their utmost best to differentiate themselves from the reigning champion, the Sauron of the FPS world.  Not so with Neotokyo.  It takes on the master head on, guns blazing, and emerges, if not quite unscathed, with its head held high, a Rocky of the modding world against Valve’s Creed.

The comparisons to the modding world’s undeniable king CS is hard to avoid.  Two teams of special forces operatives with upgrading weapon choices, a slow, tactical pace that encourages teamwork and cooperation, and all but fatal headshots – the NT team knew exactly who they were facing up against when they wandered into this ring.

It would be completely misunderstanding Neotokyo however, to reduce it to a mere clone, as the entire mod is  heavily tinged with, if not completely covered in, its own unique flavour.  It’s the flavour of Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell, and Akira, and it’s masterfully melded with the otherwise relatively unoriginal core – but it all fits together so incredibly well, which is why Neotokyo is such damnably good fun.  More importantly, NT knows its audience – it caters to gamers, and it knows there are two things we gamers love above all: awesome gadgets, and ridiculous gadgets.

NeoTokyo’s toying with our technology fetish doesn’t end there though.  It knows what anybody who’s ever played Splinter Cell will know: awesome goggles are awesome.  Night vision goggles are awesome, thermal goggles are awesome, motion detection is awesome, and NeoTokyo will bend you over and use and abuse you and your love of goggles.  Hard.  And you’ll like it.  Not only does it give you all three of the awesomesauce goggles of awesome to pick from, but rarely have they looked so high-tec – while their Splinter Cell variants were at best functional, the thermal goggles making foes appear as blogs of angry red in a sea of freakish distortion, the NT goggles have style. Motion-vision will light enemies up as they run through clouds of smoke, highlighting them like neon bullseyes in some freakish dystopian shooting gallery, and thermal will highlight their bodily heat with a stunning red while colouring the decaying world around them in stunning, psychadelic hues of purple and yellow.

While you’re showered with a variety of technological wonders to toy and/or shoot people with, none will compare to the true trophy and crux of any Neotokyo game: the ghost.  It’s not hard to figure out why the NT team decided to make the ghost so important.  We all love robots, we all love topless ladies, and we all love seeing through walls.  Oh, and we all love winning.  The ghost combines all four in one disembodied cyborg package.  I’ll explain: unlike CS, in Neotokyo, the objective is not set.  Instead of being forced to assault or defend any particular area, you’ll need to retrieve the ghost – a robotic female torso you’ll find lying on the floor and return it to your capture area, and it isn’t as easy as it sounds.  For starters, you’ll have to hunt the ghost down – as she’ll spawn at a randomly decided spot somewhere between the two teams – and then, you’ll have to carry the poor lady back, which is an issue, seeing as she’ll severely restrict your firepower, by disallowing the use of your primary weapon.  It’s hard to shoot people while carrying some woman’s torso.

Thankfully, picking up the ghost isn’t all bad, as it also gives you one nigh on unbeatable advantage: you’ll detect all your foes.  Through walls.  The element of surprise, initially so crucial in a game like NT where death is all but instantaneous, is suddenly made all but irrelevant – but without your weapon, you’ll be forced to rely on your teammates to protect your precious burden.  In other words, unless you’re willing to get on voice and report enemy positions to your friends, then don’t pick up the damn ghost.  It’s a shockingly simple mechanic, but that’s also beautifully thought out, and can radically transform the balance of the game – a perfect example of why it’s garnered such a devout fan base, and why it’s still worth downloading the client today.

It’s hardly surprising.   Despite all I’ve said about Neotokyo being similar to its forefather, CounterStrike, it’s undeniably an entirely different animal.  From small but crucial tweaks, such as the inclusion of leaning and fireteams, to entirely new mechanics, from the ghost to cloaking, NeoTokyo has built on the foundations established years beforehand, and come back so much stronger.  It has all the appeal of its ancestry, combined with its own fascinating flavour.  It’s a testament to that appeal that we’ll still be playing NT for awhile to come.  You should be too.

NeoTokyo is a mod for HL2.  It is easy to download, and servers are still populated.  You can download the installer here, and the patch here.
For more info, visit the homepage or the ModDB page.