“Out of all the maps I've ever made, this is the one I am the most proud of.”
―David Johnston[1]
Radio Station (cs_radio)[2], or originally Radio RzE[3], was a hostage rescue map that was featured in Counter-Strike: Condition Zero during its development.
Overview[]
The setting of Radio Station was a multi-floor corporate building. As the name suggests, it housed radio broadcasting equipment.[4] This equipment was located on the second floor of the building.[5] Particular emphasis was put on interactivity with the environment in the map.
Development[]
The map was originally announced by David Johnston in September 2000 with the title Radio RzE.[3] At that point he was undecided on whether it would actually be a Counter-Strike map or possibly a map for Half-Life.[6] Inspiration for the map was taken from the map Office.[7] Johnston said that the map would take interaction with the environment to the next level by including answerable phones, fire alarms and the ability to put recording studios on air.[3][6] Initially Johnston planned that he would create the textures for the map himself[7] while enlisting the help of Chris Ashton for the skybox.[3] In January 2001 he announced that it would become a Counter-Strike map (cs_rdrze).[8][9]
When Gearbox Software took over the development of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, they decided to recruit community mappers to help in level design. One of these mappers was David Johnston.[10] Johnston decided to sell his unfinished level to Gearbox as a Condition Zero map.[9]
Johnston was quite pleased with the look of the map when he handed over further development of it to Gearbox Software.[11] At Gearbox, Mike Wardwell was primarily responsible for further edits to the map.[12] Eric Reuter was also responsible for some edits to the map.[2][5] The editing done at Gearbox included some quite major texture overhauls and tweaks to the playability of the level.[11] The name of the map was also changed into Radio Station (cs_radio).
Only a single cropped screenshot of the map is known to have been released during Gearbox Software's development of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. Curiously, the map was missing from the map listing the German magazine PC Games provided in a preview.[13]
The map was presumably scrapped once Ritual Entertainment took over development of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, and was therefore not included in the final version of the game. David Johnston thought it was because the map didn't play that well.[14]
Trivia[]
- The original name of the map, Radio RzE, was a reference to the nickname of the original webmaster of CS Nation.[8]
References
- ↑ Counter-Strike.PL - Radio RzE
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Fusion Creative Design: CounterStrike - Condition Zero
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Dave Johnston Homepage - Main. Archived from the original on 2000-11-09.
- ↑ Fusion Creative Design - Commercial Projects
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Fusion Creative Design - Resume
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Dave Johnston Homepage - Radio Station. Archived from the original on 2000-12-08.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Dave Johnston Homepage - Maps. Archived from the original on 2000-12-07.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 CS-Nation News - Radio RzE. Archived from the original on 2003-01-08.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Information Vault - David Johnston Interview
- ↑ GameSpy.com - Preview: Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (PC). Archived from the original on 2001-12-13.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 CS-Nation - interview with davej. Archived from the original on 2004-10-13.
- ↑ Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Information Vault - Josh Jeffcoat Interview
- ↑ PC Games 04/02 (2002) Computec Media GmbH.
- ↑ CS-Nation News - CS CZ Launch Party
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