Interview with Indian Pro CS Gamer Rahul Rohira

He’s a pro Counter-Strike player by day and a pro downloader by night. He’s Rahul Rohira and he’s India’s most well known CS player. Most people would unanimously agree that he is the also best in the country. He has represented India at the World Cyber Games for four years in a row. Truly a veteran of the game, he possesses an insane aim and sick weapon handling skills. GamersIndia.com brings you an exclusive interview with Rahul in which he talks to us about himself, his clan, Counter-Strike and the great gaming cafe that he runs.

AshR : Hi, Please introduce yourself to the readers.

Rahul : My name’s Rahul Rohira, I’m 21 years old and I run a gaming cafe called Skirmish at Andheri outside Bhavan’s college. In-game nicks keep changing and it’s usually aaa, 2413, r4id or Stormblast.

AshR : How is a usual day in Rahul’s life?

Rahul : Hmm, it’s usually breakfast then going to Skirmish, playing there for sometime, then coming back and hanging out with friends in the night.

AshR : How did you start playing games and how long has it been since your very first game?

Rahul : I don’t remember exactly but I think I started when I was in the 4th standard and my friend got an Atari. I used to play it all day long.

AshR : When did you find out about Counter-Strike? You were in India’s first ‘pro’ clan : TUA. How did you get together with the other guys who were spread across the country?

Rahul : Well, TUA wasn’t a CS clan at first, it was initially a UT clan. We were all UT players, who played the whole day on the kawabonka server. Then during the first Surfs Up tourney we all played CS version 1 for the first time and then a server was setup on kawabonka for it. So we started playing CS but we all got together playing UT. The name TUA just stuck on.

AshR : You have attended every single WCG that India has participated in. Could you describe the difference in the experience between the very first time and the recent times when your team had performed well?

Rahul : The first two times were with TUA. During that time, we got owned pretty badly there and managed to beat only Mexico, and beat New Zealand in the practice room. We were not that good then because even here in India, CS was starting to become popular so there were not many good clans then. The next 2 years with ACID was great, the competition here in India had increased & the level had gone up (but still cant compare it to foreign countries). We almost qualified to round 2 the third time I went but due to some sort of internal decission between Latvia and Slovakia (both teams had the same manager), their match ended up a draw and we lost by one point. There was no way Latvia could have drawn against Slovakia because the latter was in a different league altogether and we had already beaten Latvia (RSPN) & Italy (fellowship). We also beat many teams in the practice rooms including Indonesia, Taiwan and a few other countries, we also managed to draw against Russia (forze). In the 4th WCG, we got France as well as Germany in our group, so we didn’t stand a chance. There were no practice rooms this time around and so we couldn’t get a few games going. Overall the third WCG was the best because of our victory in India as well as abroad.

AshR : A lot of guys back home were rooting for ACID and were quite disappointed with your team’s performance at the 4th WCG. Many of them said that you people didn’t seem motivated enough. Was this true? Could your team have played better? Or was it the psychological factor coming into play after finding out that you were up against the French and German powerhouses?

Rahul : It just looks like that when you watch the demos because when the other team is better than you by a huge margin you cant help it. Also before the 4th WCG we didn’t practice at all here in India because nobody was willing to play against us. We even went to Pune to practice for 5 days but again nobody played. We managed to play 2-3 maps in 5 days. Also the lack of practice rooms there didn’t help. Even though we did actually try, it looks like we weren’t in the demos because we were losing pretty badly.

AshR : You just mentioned that the level of foreign teams are much higher than ours. It’s quite certain that Indian players do have the skills but there still exists a huge gap between us and teams from Europe or US. Would you be able to tell us what needs to be done to bridge this gap from a player’s as well as the sponsorship point of view?

Rahul : The level of gaming will only improve when there are lots of equally skilled clans who can practice against each other 3-4 times in a week. We need lots of big tourneys happening to encourage the top clans to keep practicing and trying to become better to win the tourney and the prizes. The sponsorship to the players will make a difference but not a lot. The events should give out big prizes so that everyone tries as hard as possible to win. The cs team here is good compared to many other countries but against the top US & EU teams, we are low in skill level. In practice we have seen many teams play. Most of the teams are not that great except for the top teams in the world. Unless the sponsors manage to send the teams here to other countries to practice against good clans the level wont improve. I doubt this will happen in any case.

AshR : When you say skill level, what exactly are you referring to? Aim, or something else perhaps? Also how do you go about improving it?

Rahul : Ya skill level meaning the aim. Only if your aim is good you can compete against someone who is as good as you. Yes CS is a team game but individual skill is all that matters when you need to win the clutch rounds whether its 1 v 3, 1 v 2 or 1 v 1. This will only improve when we play against someone who is better than us. Its not gonna improve if we keep playing against people who aren’t good. Also playing as a team also matters a lot. We (MA) play as a team only 2 days before the tourneys and before that we always play mix teams. As ACID we never played together at all because we were from different cities. We play mix teams because there isn’t anyone to play against. Not to improve.

AshR : Now that WCG has confirmed that they will be using CS:Source, what do you think WCG India will do?

Rahul : Well WCG has allowed the country qualifiers to be CS 1.6 so only Cyril will know what is going to be there. Hopefully it’s 1.6, cause CS:S is a waste, it’s not even fun to watch so I guess a lot of people will stop playing altogether if it’s Source.

AshR : Coming back to you, many regard you as India’s best CS player. How did you get this name?

Rahul : Dunno, people just say that to pull my leg.

AshR : haha! What are your opinions on all the big LANS in India that have been held over the past one year? Have they been productive?

Rahul : ya, because of these big tourneys happening, CS has gotten popular and there are lots of good clans in bombay now. Anyone can win it on any given day. Lots of people practicing to win tourneys… the level has also improved and good prizes also help. In my opinion, Urban Fury would be the best tourney conducted until now in two cities. The Bombay location at Hakone was also very good. Second would be Blitzkrieg ‘04, but the LCD monitors and the sound were problematic. Then comes Reliance Gamebox which was organized well this time. Each of us from the team received a bike as the prize for winning it. The Gaming Contest was setup nicely but it is not possible to complete a CS tourney in 2 days when there are 50 plus clans and a lot of players for other games as well.

AshR : What bikes did you guys win at Reliance Gamebox 2005?

Rahul : TVS Victor GLX 125. Anyone interested in buying one can contact me heh.

AshR : In CS, how would you best describe your style of play and what is your weapon of choice?

Rahul : We always have to play differently depending on the situation and the score. I prefer AWP, M4 or AK for rifles and when it comes to pistols I prefer desert eagles.

AshR : What is your favourite map?

Rahul : Aztec or Inferno.

AshR : What is your clan MA’s current lineup?

Rahul : MA consists of me, Jenil (stalker), Akshit (rogue), Ranjeet (zell), Nikhil (spoof) and Deepak (hellscream)

AshR : Who is the in-game leader?

Rahul : There is no in-game leader. We decide what we have to do before the game and if something else has to be done, sometimes I call otherwise either jenil or appu call.

AshR : Most memorable match?

Rahul : In no particular order, 1) ACID vs MA on inferno (WCG 2004 Bombay semi-finals). It was a knockout game since the city qualifiers aren’t double elimination, we were down 3-9 after the first half, ended up drawing the game 12-12, then won an important round 2 vs 5 in overtime to win the map. If we had lost that would have been knocked out. 2) ACID vs TUA on aztec (WCG 2003 finals best of three). We were down 5-0 as terrorists and decided to play FFA. Karan (quicksilver) started owning and drew the first half 6-6 and then we ended up winning the map. 3) ACID vs MOD (WCG 2004 finals best of three). We lost the first map badly, ended up winning the next two which were de_train and de_inferno.

AshR : why didn’t you play WCG 2003 with TUA?

Rahul : Well, TUA took all players from Pune so that they could practice together and so they didn’t want me in the clan for WCG 2003. I didn’t have anyone to play with and I wanted to play WCG with some team for fun so ACID was formed again since the old ACID players were inactive or had gone abroad for studies. The new ACID had only one original player, Karan (quicksilver). The rest of the members were all from different clans. Me from TUA, Jenil (stalker) from MA, Lalit (antidote) from NSA and Deepak (Hellscream) from rage. We took one good player from each clan and made a new clan. We ended up winning lol.

AshR : What do you think of the Indian competition? Are there any clans who are right at MA’s heels, trying to take over the top position?

Rahul : ya, there are two good clans from Pune and 3 to 4 good clans from Bombay. Any clan can win on any day.

AshR : What do you think about the future of cs 1.6? With WCG using CS:Source, it seems like it will continue in the future. However most people whine that CS:Source isn’t good. Do you think 1.6 will die out soon? If yes, will you be forced to switch to Source or will you look at another game?

Rahul : I doubt Source can take over unless there are some major changes made to the gameplay because at the moment it’s hopeless. ESWC & cpl still use CS 1.6. It will still remain alive in India surely, because I know a lot people and places where CS 1.5 is still played and is the favourite. I doubt I would switch over to Source unless they made it better. If Winning 11 or PES4 will be there for WCG then I can participate in those.

AshR : If you could alter a few things about CS 1.6, what would it be? Do you think the game is fine as it is?

Rahul : I would probably make the changes that were introduced in CZ. Those were great. 1) nades don’t hit through crates, walls or objects. 2) grenade damage increased. 3) you can pickup nades and smokes of the person you kill. These are the three changes that make the game a lot more interesting and this version was used in last years WCG.

AshR : Describe your current gaming PC.

Rahul : AMD 2800+ 64bit, Asus k8v-x motherboard, 512×2 DDR RAM @400mhz, XFX 6600 GT, Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical and Xtrac Ripper/Corsair gaming mat.

AshR : We’ll wrap up now. Thanks a bunch for your time and patience. Any shoutouts and greets to friends?

Rahul : No problem, shoutouts go to my teammates, people from kawabonka office (who are still working on their game), to everyone on frag-shack and others who I forgot to mention.

Ashwath Ravee