Once upon a time Valve announced that they would be creating their beloved Counter-Strike game on their newly developed Source Engine. Fans were ecstatic about it and couldn't wait to get their hands on it when Half-Life 2 released alongside with it. However, when they finally had the chance to play this new Counter-Strike game they realized something, it wasn't just the graphics that had changed. And throughout the years Valve has been updating Counter-Strike: Source to become less and less like the Counter-Strike everyone knew and love and more into a "realistic" game that a whole new market wanted.

Competitive players were outraged when it was released and professional players, such as legendary Counter-Strike player HeatoN of NiP, still prefer Counter-Strike 1.6 over the newly released Source game. During the years a modification team was developed to create "Counter-Strike Professional Modification (CS ProMod, as it is most commonly known as). It wasn't until Alex Garfield took over the project from original founder "Dex" that the project really started moving. After a few months under his wing new "beta" maps that resembled the past-1.6 maps on the Source engine were released to the public. However an official release of the modification has never been released after years of delay (from its initial announcement from Drax). That is, until now.

Alex Garfield, owner and manager of Canadian powerhouse Evil Geniuses and assistant general manger of the compLexity Los Angeles, has announced that a closed beta test has officially been released today. This finally means that the project's first releasable version is out and fully functional. The closed beta will be used by the mod team to tweak and perfect the gun behavior as well to find general bugs.

From compLexity's forums (by Alex Garfield):
"Tomorrow (Tuesday), we will officially be entering our first closed beta test. Yes, this means that the project is quickly nearing its first releasable version. All necessary aspects of Counter-Strike have been completed, and the mod is fully functional. We will be using the closed beta test primarily in order to further tweak and perfect gun behavior (as well as, obviously, to check for general bugs). Expect an official news post on Tuesday.

Alex"

So those who have been waiting for this mod can rejoice as it seems that the project is alive and well. No further detail on when the public beta or public release has been announced yet, but with a closed beta already underway you can expect it will be much sooner than initially expected. For more information on the mod go to CS Pro Mod dot com