Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Take a good close look at your favourite multiplayer first-person shooter and chances are it owes much of its weapon balancing, map structure and pacing to Counter-Strike. A tactical, team-based Half-Life mod which first saw light of day in 1999 – having itself been influenced by the brilliant but glitchier Action Quake 2 – …
I'm really enjoying CS:GO, its got me back into it since not playing CS for years.
The original CS was great, then they made CS:S which was more of a test to make sure they could port a mod to their new Source engine, full with annoying movable barrels etc "because the new engine can do it".
CS:GO is the port to the source engine it should have been in the first place, it's great, smooth. Improvements are made where necessary. I think this is the version that will get people off playing the old version of CS.
I have to say, as a 1.6 user who couldn't get used to CS:S, CS:GO is a significantly well-executed modernisation. I have over 100 hours on it now, having been in the Beta. There's game modes in there that seem whimsical but are perfect for practice and warm-up (and were existing in mods for even 1.6), and to bring in a generation brought up on console games (but still not modes you can win by just running and spraying).
And the competitive mode (i.e. the "traditional" CS gameplay) is just as good, but prettier.
There are a few niggles and there are things that people won't like (hell, I still keep pressing the wrong radio messages because they removed "Storm The Front!") but as an iteration it's a very good update. Made by Hidden Path, who also made Defense Grid, so kudos to them.
But then, I actually enjoyed CS:CZ for adding flavour to 1.6-like gameplay (and, yes, some things were mistakes in that but it extended the life and enjoyment for me by quite a margin).
CS:GO is definitely way better than the shitpile that was CS:S. It looks better, plays better, and is much closer to 1.6. But it's all the same maps AGAIN. Seriously, can we knock this crap off? I know there are some new ones in there, but you'll never see them, mainly because of my other, much bigger problem with the game:
The players.
First game I played of CS:GO, I connected to a map running Italy....which was immediately changed to Dust. So I switched servers to one playing a different map....which was immediately changed to Dust. Several votes for other maps were launched, which were all immediately overridden by the admin for Dust 2.
I am so. Fucking. Sick. Of the sight. Of Dust.
Welcome to the public Internet, where your opinion counts for nothing against seven billion kids.
You want to play a different map? Make your own server where map voting is disabled for everyone else. That's how it was on CS 1.6, how it has been on every game since, and how it will be in the future too. Same for vote-kicking, "Go away, I only want to play with my friends", timewasters, AFK's, TK'ers and everything else.
And there are tons of maps, all being converted over to CS:GO. The problem is that there are too many and most of them are rubbish because it's HARD to make a good, balanced, fun map. The ones that are those things are being converted now and/or are already in place. There may even also be copyright issues (i.e. if someone ELSE made the map, surely you need their permission to convert it to CS:GO unless you want to try to recreate it from scratch?). And 99.9% of the map is actually making it look acceptable - there are a ton of texturing and other problems that would make even the simplest of map conversions look ugly without the original artists going back and retexturing the whole thing in greater detail.
Personally, I don't care about the maps. They are mere details. The maps I know, I've remembered in intricate detail already and they play little part in the game because they are so well balanced and you can just ignore them. Switching to new maps, I lose half my rounds just because I didn't realise you *could* hide up there, or come from behind, or snipe through that gap, or whatever else.
There is one, cast-iron, guaranteed way to solve both your problems. Run your own server. It costs hardly anything (I've never been in a clan but I've *ALWAYS* had my own server for CS 1.6 and CS:CZ), you can stop people voting the map changes and ruining your game, and you can have whatever maps you like on there. And there's nothing more satisfying, when that random idiot joins your server, than just booting them out - no questions asked, no votes required, no other-user participation necessary.
Rule #1 - if random users are annoying you, stop them getting in. Works for spam, port-scans, and idiots on game servers.
I promise you that NOTHING in the world of gaming that I've stumbled across has ever matched the feeling of being last on your team and winning, when you know that with the chasecam a lot of people are watching you play.
Except when you're the last and you down multiple terrorists and defuse the bomb.
Except when you're the last and you sneak past multiple terrorists who've run away from the bomb before the blast and you manage to defuse.
Except when you're the last you kill the last person on their team by dropping down behind them and silently knifing them. And you KNOW your whole team is - somewhere, scattered across the world - shouting unheard encouragement at their monitors.
So so much fun.... Then I got addicted and they all started playing other stuff so I went online to feed my hunger, and got my head kicked in so much. Still I persevered, and got better and better till I could hold my own. When the teamsters took it up again, I massacred so many players with diving round the corner headshots and pin point accuracy it really shows you how much harder it is when you go international after playing a local team!
Contrary to what is written here, i prefer CS: S having played them all (competatively, for a long time, on CS: S). I don't like the way the guns feel in CS: GO, then again i didn't like the way they felt in CS 1.6 either so that's just me.
The graphics aren't the best (could everything look more round? It's almost like someone has attacked the screen with a brush to make damned sure you can never see a jagged edge on anything). The guns all look like twigs when you hold them, the rifles look like a damned joke, have any of you seen a rifle? They are big, not like some fisher price toy.
Gameplay wise, it's fine, more counterstrike, not much in the way of innovation going on there and as someone said it's the same maps but then, people love the maps so i don't have much of a problem with that. None of the guns seem to be accurate at all (yes, yes, ofcourse it's my aim, thanks for pointing that out) after the 20th time of scoping a guys head, firing and hitting nothing it gets old.
It's bad enough that it's gone on the stack of games i probably won't play again, still in it's defence, atleast it was cheap.
Flame away.
I agree with you too. CS:S player here, but CS:GO just doesn't feel right. I mean it's all on the source engine still, but everything's been tweaked to buggery. :(
The gun sounds are horrid, accuracy is questionable (mostly due to those tracers going no-where near where your bullets are actually hitting), no silencers, fancy graphics make it harder to distinguish friendlies/enemies/background, sprays disabled by default, even the reticle feels wrong (though console commands can fix it to some extent).
It's also quite clear it's aimed at the console market. Next to no options in the menu, server browser has been shafted in favour of a matchmaking system that's worthless for any kind of non-casual play. Where's the progress bar when you join a server? I don't want to sit there looking at the console trying to figure out why it's sat there for 5 mins not doing anything when we had a perfectly good progress bar in 1.6 and source (hell, the game is pretty much effectively CS:S with some tweaks, why remove the progress bar, why remove all the menu options?) Another shocker is the "turn 180 degrees" button, I can understand the need for that on console (though tbh do twitch shooters really work on console in the first place?), but why keep it in place on PC, that's just not right man, use some skill not hit a button!
I played it for a few hours then went back to CS:S.
The current/peak player count on Steam speaks for itself, note the respective positions of 1.6, CS:S, and GO.
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
I skipped all of the "new" CS games after the original but this has my interest peaked. Especially the new game modes, they sound like a blast. This is what I feel like Blizzard should have done with Diablo. When you have a fantastic game built on sound principles running 10+ years you try not to screw with it too much. Innovate too little and you fall behind, try to innovate too much and you lose the structure that made the game great. Hopefully this gets it just right. Off to start Steam.
I was hoping they would been dealing with exploits in this games as it's 'new'
It's not fun playing on a CS:S server with a player who keeps getting multiple headshots and tracks other players through walls (watching them as a spectator), then claim they are just better players when you call them on it.
My review is, yes at first it looks all new. But infact after a few maps it still has the same mechanics as source prolly more closer to 1.6. the molotovs are a nice edition. i think its a good game but when i play it i am looking at it thinking "this is just a CS graphics update" no new maps. But my fav quote i heard in game chat is "its worth a tenner though" which it most definitely is!
OK, so I played it for a solid five hours the other night after downloading it, so I suppose it can't be that bad. But WHY, WHY, WHY can't we have ironsight views? So sick and tired of the unrealistic aiming crosshair getting lost in the scenery, and it would be simple to introduce seeing as most of the weapons have now lost their alternate fire function. And the scoping is too fast - in DoD they have a delay between you going to scope and the picture coming into focus, which reduces the instances of AWPwh0res running around corners and instantly scoping you. And when are we getting silencers back?
On the plus side, the new incendiary grenades and Molotovs are fun (if a little unoriginal), and some of the new weapons are a hoot. The achievements are a good idea too as you can compare and brag, but that is tainted slightly by the fact many of them can be achieved against the bots in solo play.
Last point is a warning - it seems to set the verbal coms to max volume by default, meaning if you join a server with a screaming eejit you will get a painful earbashing before you manage to find the option to turn it down a bit.
"But WHY, WHY, WHY can't we have ironsight views? So sick and tired of the unrealistic aiming crosshair getting lost in the scenery"
uhhh was CS ever meant to be realistic? i've never heard of jumping around and spaying bullets in a real warzone
" And the scoping is too fast"
CS is a fast game, it is not about realism, it is about split-second reactions that make or break
wrt the rest i do agree :)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
