You sound like me. I disliked CS because of how slow and campy it was compared to Quake and we always had this banter in my friend group about Quake vs CS vs Unreal Tournament and which game requires more skill. I ended up playing for one of the best clans in Sweden and competed for a few years until Q3 eventually died.
I did try playing CS more serious for some time but I just couldn't stand it and I never had the patience. Got to respect that.
I still get a buzz watching the old Q2 / Q3 frag videos.
I was never that good, but have scored a handful of ridiculous flick rails over the time. I think Rocket Arena 3 was peak for me. I'm nearly 20 years out of practice now though. Feels like I'm getting closer to picking up some light hardcore PC gaming again though ;)
My niece is looking forward to having a crack at Portal 2 in the near future (yes, it's old, but it came up somehow or other recently, and she knows it from memes), so I'm aiming to enjoy that together. Gotta refresh myself through Portal 1 first.
RA3 is where I started my interests in first-person shooters. My family and someo of their friends had a clan, and they would hold LAN parties, playing matches against other clans. Sometimes I was allowed to play a bit, and got instantly hooked.
When I got my first personal computer, I stated playing RA3 a ton–and Unreal Tournament on the side. Later on it became Quake 3 OSP/CPMA (as well as Freeze Tag and InstaGib) and Quake Live Clan Arena, but never really competitively.
At the same time I also discovered CS 1.6. It was sort of a relaxation from all the fast-paced fragging for me. I liked the slower pace and different skill it required. I eventually joined some tournaments and started playing more competitively, hooking up with people in IRC.
I try to seek out games every now and then, but unfortunately there's less and less communities around Q3 and the likes, so it's becoming increasingly harder to find fun matches.
Playing Q3:RA3 felt like being dropped into a world full of crackheads with rail guns and telepathy. I still don't know if they were cheating or insanely talented.
That's bs. You will immediately notice the difference when going from let's say 120 hz down to 60 hz on a fast gaming pc even if you're just dragging windows around. Everything feels jarring to say the least compared to higher refresh rates and it has absolutely nothing to do with the CPU. It's because of the refresh rate.
It's same thing going from 120 hz to 60 hz on a phone while scrolling and swiping.
It's quite interesting though that there are people out there who won't notice the huge difference. But hey, at least they don't have to pay premium for the increase performance of the screen.