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When I first fired up Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for
the PC, I was admittedly a little disappointed.
It all felt like groundwork for what could be a good game. Thankfully, that was back about 2 weeks ago when
the game first launched. Since then the
game has absolutely exploded in user-created content. I finally understand why Valve didn't fill up
the game with new maps and modes. There
is absolutely no need to.
All Valve had to do was create a nicer looking engine,
balance the weapons, tinker with the UI and then call it a day. They had to create the backbone of the game. After that the users would take over and turn
it into a masterpiece. In many ways they
already did. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
is the ultimate first person shooter experience when it comes to user-created content.
The last few days I've played Tron-inspired servers where
one team dons blue suits while the other wears orange and firing your weapons
leaves a trail of the color that matches your suit. All on custom maps. It's a riot.
Not only because of neon colors erupting from all directions, but
because of the gameplay implications it has.
Suddenly you need to address not only actual enemy movement but plan
your strategies around where these shots are being fired from. Now take a step back and realize; this is one
server, a mere morsel of what Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has to offer.
Since then I've played on maps inspired by Crash-Bandicoot,
new takes on old custom favorites like ‘Churches’, and even fought on a pirate
ship using knives only. The experience
is sublime. Constantly being fed new
content from a solid backbone is all that I've ever wanted from an online
first-person shooter. Counter Strike: Global Offensive delivers over and over again.
I'd be misguiding you if I didn't bring up that the game has
some problems. It becomes apparent when
first starting up a custom match and you need to download new content for a
server. The game doesn't even provide a
simple loading screen to let you know what's happening. It just leaves you with a blank screen. This is pretty troublesome since if you are
anything like me, you will come to the conclusion that the game just isn’t
responding. I had to have a friend tell
me what was going on. Furthermore there are
a bunch of small glitches peppered throughout the experience. Thankfully, none of them make it unbearable
to play. It's more or less about
realizing how to deal with them. I
expect they’ll be remedied in a short time.
The game comes packed to the teeth with completely
redesigned weapons. A few of them are a
little disappointing with a ‘cheap’ look or feel. But it's really a mixed bag. For the most part the weapons feel solid and more
importantly: balanced. And the variety
is definitely there, establishing favorites will probably only take you a
couple of matches.
The visuals in CS: GO are enough. That's really the best way to put it. As someone who is satisfied pretty easily
with graphics I was fairly impressed with how nice the lighting and subtle
design choices on some of the guns looked.
It even shows through on the custom maps, where you'd expect less effort
to be done in this area. A good way of
putting it would be, “It looks like a current gen game doesn't exactly break
down any boundaries”. Even this point ends
up not really mattering considering how you will get pretty much endless variety in visuals through custom content.
As a vanilla product, CS: GO is a major disappointment. I would not recommend purchasing this game on
anything but the PC. Thankfully on the PC it is anything but disappointing. I'd even go as far as to say that I haven't
been more excited about the future of a game in years. The incredible backbone of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive combined
with the limitless creativity of the modding community is likely going to have
me sinking hundreds of hours into the title. At 15 dollars that kind of
longevity is a hell of a buy. I wouldn't
recommend missing out on it unless you simply don't like first-person shooters.
9.5/10
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