Counter Strike: Global Offensive is a team-based FPS shooter released in August 2012 by Valve. Since then it has been one of the most competitively played shooters of all time.
If you've played CS:GO before and would like to just find out why I'm still playing after all these years, click HERE or scroll down to the Why I Still Play section.
CS:GO, like every Counter Strike game before it, is a team-based shooter that pits the counter-terrorists against the terrorists. The terrorists attempt to plant a bomb while the counter-terrorists defend bomb sites. A round ends when the bomb is planted and explodes or defused, or if all the players on a team are killed. The basics of the game are extremely simple to understand.
What sets this game apart from most shooters however is the game's economy. Simply put, you get money for killing your enemies and winning rounds. You do get money when you lose around but it’s not as much. You use this money to buy weapons, armor and utility at the start of the next round. Because of the way that the guns are balanced, what you should buy depends on what you think your opponents are going to buy and what your teammates are buying. As you play the game more and more, you'll learn how to manage your economy to make effective decisions.
I've been playing this game off and on since the game came out, all those years ago. Some years, it's the only game that I'm playing, while in others it just casually being played when me and my friends want to do something different. The game hasn't changed very much since it was released. The same guns are being used and the same maps are being played. I think this lack of change is part of the appeal as many people believe the game is perfect the way it is. This consistency is also partly why CS:GO is such an accomplished eSport.
Like I said above, the game has hardly changed since it’s release. This is especially true for the weapons that are most commonly used, the AWP, the AK-47 and the M4. These guns have had minor tweaks over the years, but these changes haven't really changed the way the game was played at all. True, the AWP movement mechanics have changed, but have players that use this weapon often changed the way they play at all? No, not really. Maybe initially when this change first came out, people had to change the way they play, but from what I've seen, the game was essentially the same as it was before.
I think that this is because any of the changes are looked upon badly in the CS:GO community and tons of people complain endlessly about it. People feel that the weapon balance is perfect the way it is. Especially for the main three weapons mentioned above.
There are occasional changes to guns that aren't commonly used, but this is more to make them more in line with how effective they are to their cost. For instance, the CZ75-Auto has been changed many times because it was at one point almost as effective as some of the rifles and costs ridiculously less to purchase.
Valve has also tried to add new weapons into the game, but they have always come in broken upon release and effectively get nerfed to the point where they're never used. The R8 revolver comes to mind in this case. When the gun came out, it was super cheap and was as effective as an AWP. So, everyone was buying them all the time and the game was broken for a few weeks until it was nerfed into the ground.
This lack of change makes the game incredibly consistent and relies on you to improve your over game mechanics, such as aim and understanding of the in-game economy, to win games and rank up.
The maps in this game is where most of the long-lasting changes occur in this game. They are the same maps that have always been in the game, which is very surprising when you think about it because other games constantly need to add new games as content to keep their players engaged and playing. This isn't the case for CS:GO. The changes in the maps are to make them look better with slight changes for balancing purposes. Rarely is a map changed completely. One example of a complete change came from a map called Nuke. This map really needed a change because of the balance of wins between the two sides. It was a heavily counter-terrorist sided map that made it ridiculous unfun to play as a terrorist. To Valve's credit, they have been doing a good job with any map changes to make them more balanced. This is probably to do with making the maps more engaging to watch for eSports purposes.
The fact that I've been playing the same maps since the game's release is an interesting situation to talk about. In the past, they would occasionally add new maps, but because the original maps were so well designed for the way CS:GO is played that these new maps tended to not be consistent with the way the game is played. In CS:GO, you play the game by controlling angles. These new maps usually had the problem of having way too many angles to check for making them difficult to manage. These new maps were always an interesting experience and added more variety to the game. I really wish they would add new maps more often using the typical CS:GO map design.
The most popular map is called Dust 2. I hate this map, but for some reason it is the most played map in the game and I don't understand why. It’s not that the map is bad or favors one side over another. It’s one of the most balanced maps in the game and is the basis for every map to be designed around, but I don't like it. Maybe because I've played it too much and it’s just boring and much more predictable in my eyes, but I'd much prefer to play almost any other map. Even the rarely played maps like Office tend to have much more enjoyable games in my opinion.
The maps are also designed in a way that they are similar enough that call-outs for locations are relatively the same throughout the map pool, but different enough to make the way round play out differently. This consistency in map design allows for improvements in game mechanics to translate more evenly across all the maps.
This game is the king of requiring having good aim to win the game. Because of a mixture the way that the gun plays works and the hit detection, having good aim really sets you apart from other players in this game. This is great for players who are already good at aiming but is insanely tough for players who aren't. If you want to get good at CS:GO, you'll have to improve your aim. This may be off-putting for players who don't want to or don't have the time to improve their aim, but to me this is one of the game's most appealing factors. If your enemy kills you, it’s because you didn't click on his head first and not because of some other mechanics of the game. The learning curve of this game is steep outside of the aiming as well, but once you learn it all and you're at a rank where everyone knows how to use all the game's mechanics, you'll have a much more enjoyable time.
However, this game is one of the most rage inducing games I've ever played when it comes to aiming and the appearance to terrible hit detection. Because I don't play this game as much as I used to and don't spend as much time working hard on my aim as I used to, I sometime feel, in the moment, that I should have gotten a kill when I didn't. While playing the game I'll get insanely angry because of this, even if I know deep down that it’s because I missed and not because of terrible hit detection.
Like I said above, the in-game economy really sets this game apart from other shooter games. The need to manage your money and buy as a team is one of the most important aspects to winning this game outside of being a good shot. Because of the intricate balance between weapons and the economy, you need to make good purchasing decisions. When you should buy particular guns and not others and whether or not you should upgrade your current guns are constant decisions you'll have to balance and make for yourself.
One of my biggest issues with this game comes down to players on your team not understanding this economical balance and the need to make good choices to be effective. Money in this game isn't your own, it’s your teams. So, when you buy, when your team can't, or when you don't drop weapons for your teammates when they can't afford a full buy, you're actively trying to not win the game. Or at least that’s my opinion. I'll always do my best regardless, but these sorts of teammates are the absolute worst.
Cosmetic gun skins are a big thing in gaming these days. This all started with CS:GO. Back in the day, you could either get cases from drops in-game or buy them off the Steam market place and buy a key from Valve to open it. The money raised was initially introduced to help fund CS:GO eSports tournaments. Its effects on the rest of the gaming industry is profound and in my opinion for the worse.
Steam has a marketplace where you can sell in-game items such as the skins in CS:GO and because different skins varied in rarity determined by Valve and its physical appeal, the skins coming from these cases had intrinsic value outside the game. Because of this value outside the game, the skins in this game had a very different effect on the gaming community. What ended up happening was that these skins were often used by some members of the community for gambling. The systems were so easily accessible that kids were even able to gamble with these skins. This is definitely a scar on the gaming industry and CS:GO in particular. It wasn't a surprise that CS:GO picked up in popularity around the same time as these skins were becoming more well known about.
This isn't the place to talk about in-game cosmetics in general. I might talk about my thoughts of the rise of these cosmetics in almost every game in another blog post.
This game is known for its hackers and smurfs. There are tons of them everywhere. Or there were in the past. You'll occasionally come across them now, but I feel that it’s a much rarer occurrence than it was in the past. The in-game reporting system isn't very good at catching hackers as they're playing games, but they do get banned eventually. Smurfs on the other hand is a different story. In my own experience there's smurf in one and three games where they just carry their teams to victory. I understand the appeal of playing at a much lower rank and absolutely owning everyone, but it doesn't consider everyone else’s fun and I think that that's bad for the game. I'll be writing a blog post about this subject in the future as well.
CS:GO has withstood the test of time and is now a major eSport. If you're into team-based shooters and feel you have good aim and are willing to learn how to be most effective with using utility and managing economy, you should give this game a go if you never have. If you have been playing the game like me, let me know if you agree or disagree with anything I've written about.
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