Valve’s popular online shooter is not a forgiving game. It’s less about pulling the trigger and watching fun stuff happen than it is about pinpoint accuracy and fast, severe punishment for mistakes. So how does Valve replicate this kind of experience on consoles?

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Like with the PC version, there’s no aim assist. You’ll have to line up all your headshots manually – there’s no zoom down the sights and snap-to targeting. That should make perfect sense to any Counter-Strike fan, because that’s always how the game has worked. To someone with no experience with the franchise, though, that could be a little intimidating.Without any aim assist, you really need to get a feel for the guns, their bullet spray patterns, take advantage of crouch and walk functions to silence your footsteps, and learn the ins and outs of map design so you’re always in the best position to make a kill. Movement is important as well, and like in the PC version, you move faster with a knife and slower with heavy weapons equipped. Though you do get a one-touch 180 degree turn to react quickly in a panic situation, there is no sprint button here to help you escape from danger.This means to alter speed you’ll frequently want to switch between active weapons, which seems easy enough in Counter-Strike GO on consoles. The controls are customizable so you can alter then however you want. One button pulls out the knife and switches between grenade types, and another pulls out your main weapon and can cycle to a pistol. It’s not quite as quick as tapping number keys on a keyboard, but it’s still a fast responsive system. And since there is no cross-platform play, everyone is on a level playing field.All the content and functionality of the PC version of Global Offensive is included here, with the exception of mod support. Even without that, you can still add bots of varying difficulty levels to games, jump into casual mode with a rule set more suited for beginners, or hop into the matchmaking system where you’ll be joined with others of similar skill levels. With the matchmaking system, Valve hopes to avoid the frustration felt by newcomers of being dropped into a game filled with talented, experienced players.Counter-Strike looks great on Xbox 360 and, at least on de_dust, runs smoothly in five on five matches. At around 15 USD it seems very reasonably priced, especially since there’s much more here than simply the standard hostage rescue and defusal game types. Valve recently announced GO will be ready to launch across PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms on August 21, and seems like it should provide console owners with a defiantly different style of shooter experience, if only because over the years Counter-Strike’s gameplay has never really been given a dramatic overhaul.