Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Game Info

Oh, Counter-Strike.  When I was a freshman in college, I played the original CS at a near-professional level, winning statewide tournaments for a now-defunct gaming league.  So seeing CS:GO (which makes it sound like an iPhone game, but whatever) pop up on the Playstation Store was a bit of a trip down memory lane.  Will all my old favorites be there?  DE_DUST?  Aztec?  What about the AWP?

CS:GO is essentially a remake of the original winning formula, with a couple new modes and well-updated graphics.  It boils down to a team deathmatch game, where sometimes there are hostages involved or a bomb to plant.  But killing everyone on the other team will (almost) always result in a win, so team deathmatch it is!  As the rounds progress, you make money to spend on weapons, items like grenades and armor, and…  that’s it.  Go kill each other.  There’s no plot or story, just terrorists and counter-terrorists blasting each other away.  In today’s multiplayer stuff, it feels decidedly old.  There are no objectives, powerups, killstreak bonuses – nothing.  This is an old man’s shooter.  Guns don’t have iron sights to look down, there’s no sprinting or fast movement (they killed the bunny-hopping thing 10 years ago), health doesn’t recharge, knives aren’t one-hit kills.  It’s like the worst time travelling adventure ever.

It even shows in the controls and movement.  This was a FPS before consoles knew how to run a shooter; consequently the controls feel downright unnatural.  The nearly-mechanical tactic of crouching, zooming in, firing your AWP, jumping to one side, zooming out and reloading – literally something that happens simultaneously on a keyboard/mouse setup – requires strafing, clicking R3, pressing square, pressing R1, clicking R3, and pressing X.  For those of you keeping score, you’re using the same thumb to jump, reload, aim, and zoom in.  While that is an advanced tactic, the elegant way that’s done on PC is completely lost on consoles.  It’s like parallel-parking a bulldozer in San Francisco – something bad will happen.

There are a few new modes to freshen up the action, called Arms Race and Demolition.  They both play out similarly, with new weapons being awarded by kills, not by purchasing.  Aside from Demolition being round-based, these two new modes are just about the same thing.  Bots have been added too, and while they’re almost intelligent, there’s a lot to be desired.  Cranking up the difficulty improves their aim.  At least if you get killed in an offline match, you can take over as a bot and continue playing the round.  But all the built-in improvements seem like too little too late for this barebones remake.

Even the graphics are showing their age.  Although everything looks much better than it did 12 years ago, the Source engine – powering CS:GO and a host of other games – is getting on in its lifespan.  Stages have undergone some slight cosmetic changes as well, adding height and lights to certain areas where there was little before.  This requires some interesting tactical changes, making it a little fresher, but these new hiding spots will be discovered soon.  The sound hasn’t changed much either.  Aside from title music and some shoutouts by bots, the classic old announcer voice is still present.  I hope that guy is getting royalty checks every time “bomb has been planted” gets uttered.  I hear that in my sleep.

Whenever I play a game, I always ask myself, “who is this for?”  I try to find the target audience and think like them – it can really bring a refreshing angle to a new game that one normally wouldn’t play.  But I can’t for the life of me find this game’s audience.  Is it for the shooter newbie?  Not a chance; the cramped controls and archiac modes will push those people into more polished, refined games.  How about for the old CS players, like me?  Nope; aiming on an X/Y axis will immediately remind you how much better the mouse and keyboard feels.  It’s definitely not an introductory shooter game, as you will get cursed out by very rude middle schoolers the first time you’re killed.  Maybe a video game archivist, or someone who listens to 8-bit music.  I can’t tell you who it’s for, but I can definitely say who it’s not – me.