Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Review

TPATOW: 262 Hours.

Boom! Headshot!

Counter-Strike, it’s that game your friend with all the Adderall plays non-stop, the game where moving makes you terrible, and moving little bits again and again makes you a pro, where twitch reactions are married with a steady hand in an amalgamation that has been mastered by many, but perfected by only the top tier players. The game that is legendary among hardcore gamers for its almost infinite depth of tactics, and to the casual gamers, who hear of the unparalleled tactical approach and twitch shooting, and swarm in every Christmas to have their arses handed to them by a bunch of well trained virtual killers, who don’t sleep, have reptilian eyes that that can see in infrared, and certainly don’t pity you as they mow you down (read: One shot AK-47 you from across the map.) These are the people who have spent over a thousand hours perfecting every movement, every grenade toss, and every single bullet in every weapons spray. These are the Elite of Counter-Strike, and they reign supreme over the Noob populace.)

What is Counter-Strike? It’s a shooter, with precision skill, and tactics galore. Dropping a flashbang at your feet to blind enemies as you enter a room, while scanning to-and-fro as you line up on your unsuspecting prey, moving your mouse a millimeter by millimeter to line up that perfect headshot. These are the kind of moments that make Counter-Strike: Global Offensive a top tier shooter in my books. The amount of tactical depth, and high skill level is off the charts, and basically insane when you watch top players strut their stuff on Twitch, it almost looks like magic, or HAX as it is popularly described.

Now while the amount of skill it takes to come out on top in competitive can be completely insane, new players should not be offput by the high player skill level, as it is now quite easy to train your aim with a Deathmatch mode, lifted wholesale from Counter-Strike: Source. You play as much as you can handle, with no objectives other than being the person with the highest amount of kills in the match, helped by, infinite respawns, and a randomly selected weapon during the round, that will give you extra points for kills scored with that weapon, although sometimes that weapon is a piece of shit, but scoring kills with that terrible weapon can also brings an incredible amount of satisfaction, especially if the other player was using an AK, or the infamous AWP rifle, a one hit kill behemoth of a sniper rifle.

For those of you who prefer a bit more structure to your virtual kills, there’s also a casual mode, a big sixteen vs sixteen mashup of competitive, only with more people and armour purchased at the start automatically for no fee. Like competitive rounds progress on a timer, which can be delayed from reaching zero indefinitely if the Terrorist side plant the bomb, it is then up to the Counter-Terrorists to kill the remaining Terrorists, and disarm the bomb, this is the only way to win once the bomb has been planted. As far as my personal opinion goes on the mode, I absolutely loved casual. All the thrills of competitive are there, with last man standing moments being incredibly pulse pounding. Suffice to say I never won the game on my own,

but I came close, and the thrill of being the last man standing is as addictive as any rush I have ever had. My heart pounding like a jackhammer as I rounded corner after corner, knowing that at any moment I could be staring down the barrel of a ready to massacre M4 was some of the most exhilarating moments I’ve had in all of Gaming.

The gunplay itself is very indepth, with recoil patterns being a must know across all weapon platforms. Two in particular are the M4 and AK-47, the most popular weapons in the game, aside from perhaps the AWP. The feeling of each weapon is superb, especially the shotguns, which take physics to new heights. One shot of these monsters at close range will take your opponent off his feet in a mesmerising display of blood and buckshot. As you watch the body fly back and crumble against a wall, all provided by the amazing Havok physic engine, you will feel the power of the shotgun travel up your arm and hit that pleasure centre in your head, congratulations, you are now addicted to physics engines, just like me. Welcome to the club, make sure the door doesn’t swing back and hit you. It can do that now, we have physics engines.

These matches are supported by an effective matchmaking system, it is quick, and usually finds games in under fifteen seconds for Casual and Deathmatch, with Competitive taking upwards of three minutes at times, although dust2 servers will take under thirty seconds, most of the time.

I only have a few nitpicky complaints: You cannot choose the skin of you Counter/Terrorist, as they are chosen for you at the start of the round. Sometimes the connection can be a bit dodgy, and hits don’t register despite blood splats. The new unlock system is painful, with one skin unlock guaranteed every week, with chests still being random pickups. But these are only a few minor complaints, in what is undeniably a fantastic game that has held me in its grip for almost three hundred hours. It’s a tour-de-force of bullets, explosions, and ragdoll physics, that I will find myself playing for another three hundred hours. It’s a straight headshot in my books.

9/10

TheObsolelitist

Reviewing old shit because I’m poor

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