PROS
CONS
CONCLUSION: CS:GO does too little to truly give Counter-Strike: Source players a reason to shift, let alone the anti-sharpshooter mechanics, but it does enough for newcomers and to turn a serious situation in-game into an e-sports tournament.
SCORE: 80%
- Welcome to Counter-Strike, a world of Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists constantly at war against each other, where the one side sees bombing places as glorious and the other sees defusing bombs, rescuing hostages, and killing Terrorists as a joyous hobby, but both sides can tolerate losing allies, even if that means losing a game. Now introducing to you the newcomers, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, a graphically refreshed sequel to the fan-favorite Counter-Strike: Source and the only game that turns terrorism and counter-terrorism into a tournament and has both sides trying to defeat each other not to further their cause, but as a sport. That's right, folks. Killing and bombing is a sport loved by Team Terrorists and thwarting their plans is loved by Team Counter-Terrorists. And killing each other is absolutely tolerated since both the teams do not really die anyway in the end and they all seem to be one part of a large welcoming family. The gameplay looks and sounds evidently serious, but it is all rather sportive.
- The basis of the game is to stop the enemy team from preventing one's objectives. Play hero or villain, rescue one of two hostages or destroy a site, but the objectives across the maps are consistent. At the start of every round, with every several-second delay, plan with your teammates and purchase guns, grenades, equipment, and bullet vests ridiculously expensive compared to real-life price tags, and always wonder like a Counter-Strike character, "Why are we always temporarily not allowed to carry out such an important mission?" When the delay is over, commence like a slow but cautious agent aware of all of his surroundings and using whatever tactic to outsmart the enemy or like a suicidal athlete hoping that the enemy is unfortunate enough to be doomed. Regardless, you only know what the enemy is doing when they are seen by a friendly player or you (as indicated on the radar-like minimap) or when they have completed the first step of carrying out an objective, and you and your team may need to change your strategy quickly. In the end, a hostage is either rescued or not, and the targeted site of the terrorists is either saved or destroyed, or more precisely, bombed but not actually damaged, as if structured for an endless number of rounds. Split up and surround, or closely cooperate, but you can always donate your teammates weapons and equipment they need with your surplus of money before or during a round. Fighting by your teammates or alone, you are always doing your side a service - unless you are helping the enemy by foolishly donating to them or constantly injuring your teammates. It is fun if the players on the server are competent and well-behaved, and it is just as fun playing with and against the artificial intelligence bots in place of the human players, which are cooperative and willing to respond to commands and calls for help, as well as give reports such as an enemy sighting and give commands themselves.
- In case that becomes old too quickly, find yourself in a variant of (Team) Deathmatch, which is gunning opponents for points, with kills with pistols rewarding more points and those with knives rewarding even more. Doing significant damage to enemies in that mode but having them finished off by someone else (a.k.a. assist kill) is also rewarding, albeit less so, and throughout a match, the game encourages players to kill enemies with certain weapons for bonus points each within a 30-second timespan. It stresses proficiency in the use of weapons to prove who is the winner, rather than who has the most powerful weapon. If that also becomes old, you can find yourself playing several variants of Classic Mode such as eliminating the enemy team with sniper rifles and low gravity, or you can play Arms Race, a "race" in which players start with a specified tier of submachine guns, rifles, shotguns, heavy weapons, pistols, and finally the notorious golden knife according to the player's rank and must complete the tier to win. In that mode, players must kill two enemies or one enemy with the most kills to climb up the tier to the next rank's corresponding weapon, but knifing a single enemy steals the enemy player's rank. Another mode is Co-op Strike, which is cooperative mode with all players fighting against terrorists and playing on an official or custom map with a scripted story being told as the players progress by completing a certain objective. That said, numerous stories can be told.
- As if all of that is not enough, like Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a fan of mods - maps, skins, custom game modes - but modding is taken to a higher level with regards to weapon skins. Make your golden, futuristic, rusty, or outright peculiar, and with the numerous maps made rampantly by the community and easily available and designed, play on anything imaginable, from restaurants and starships to underwater and Mars. Add any twist to your experience for your preference, and the result insanely works.
CONS
- The weapon mechanics, simply put, are absolutely wacky. Players can shoot through walls - e.g. wooden, glassy, and almost any material that is thin - and other players to kill their targets. They can even shoot through the head, the upper limbs and torso, the stomach, and the legs (as from above or under) to deal even more damage, all with a single bullet, and all of that is good. However, in terms of gun accuracy, recoil and character movements widen the reticle, meaning that the weapon of the carrier is rendered less accurate. I personally prefer that it be just the recoil "shaking" the screen and not affecting the reticle, but here is what is inexplicable: why does jumping widen the reticle (and thus the damage area within) for my shotguns, why is it that I aim and shoot just as accurately as I write dexterously with my left (non-dominant) hand when grabbing on ladders, and how does moving, jumping, and firing near-fast cause many weapons to have an accuracy swaying from 10° to as high as about 37° off the reticle and others of a similar type and weight to have a much better accuracy? Quite convenient and anti-sharpshooter if you ask me, and I even researched how accurate the weapons under these conditions are. Grenades are a nice aspect, but some of them are underpowered or underutilized, and with a low single-digit limit of grenades to carry to fight, the game seems to emphasize guns more than grenades and does not think much of giving players a decent handful of grenades in hand.
- For a game late in the series, CS:GO seems to be on the verge of running out of ideas to progress the franchise, as it could have done more than just add more game modes like Deathmatch, Arms Races, and derivatives of Classic Mode and equally rely on modded maps and game modes by the community more than their own creativity, as well as weapon skins, to really attract players of CS:S.
- While definitely graphically improved over CS:S, for a 2012 game still being curated as of the time of this review and even by 2012's standards, with lower-resolution textures and a slightly more polygonal look based on a 2004 engine, it demonstrates that maybe it is time to rely on newer technology. Additionally, the audio generally ensures the game's serious (yet sportive) tone, but some of it seems to make it sound cartoonish instead; e.g., why does shooting someone produce what sounds like a wooden crate of slime being sliced with an axe?
CONCLUSION: CS:GO does too little to truly give Counter-Strike: Source players a reason to shift, let alone the anti-sharpshooter mechanics, but it does enough for newcomers and to turn a serious situation in-game into an e-sports tournament.
SCORE: 80%