Inspired modder makes Fruit Ninja but it's a Counter-Strike 2 aim trainer

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Ding ding ding!

A player shoots a piece of fruit in a Counter-Strike mod that replicates Fruit Ninja.
(Image credit: Lillykyu / Valve)

One of the earlier smartphone smash hits was Halfbrick's Fruit Ninja, released in 2010. It had that magic combination of simplicity alongside an irresistible difficulty ramp: Not to mention, slicing pieces of fruit with a virtual blade is just incredibly satisfying. Turns out, blowing them away with an AK-47 works, too.

Modder Lillykyu and artist Ethurs have brought Fruit Ninja to Counter-Strike 2, turning it into an aim trainer for the greatest competitive FPS on the planet. Available now in the Steam workshop, the Fruit Ninja aim trainer offers three modes, a variety of fruit, and naturally manages to incorporate the bomb.

Classic mode has you with an AK-47 facing a small window where (initially) watermelons are thrown in the air at different angles, you shoot them, and they explode into satisfying red chunks. You have three lives, losing one with each miss, and after a couple dozen watermelons smaller fruits and bombs begin to appear in the mix: Shooting a bomb, as in the original Fruit Ninja, loses a life.

I don't really know how to rate it as an aim trainer, but is it fun? Yes, and particularly when you start to mess around with the practice mode. In this you can switch between weapons and, more importantly, set spawn rates for the fruits and bombs, then ramp them up to ludicrous degrees: The result is a shooting range crammed with bits of fruit flying everywhere where you've got infinite lives, meaning you can blast away at your five a day.

The mod even has a third offering: 360 mode, which is the one part I kinda noped out of. It gives you 30 seconds in a circular arena, surrounded by tons of watermelons bouncing up and out of a moat, and you have to blast as many as possible. The background for this level is a little blurry and, with all the spinning I had to do and the din of splashing of watermelons returning to water, it didn't quite do it for me.

I just booted up practice again and unloaded full-auto into a satisfying cascade of fruit. This isn't going to change Counter-Strike 2, but I can easily see it slotting into my little rotation of warm-up maps: It's just very satisfying to shoot watermelons.

Rich Stanton
Rich Stanton

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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