Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Review - Why Counter-Strike is still popular after 18 years.
Man that hurt to write that sentence, it's amazing how old I feel whenever I realize a game i "used to play" was actually 15+ years ago and that i'm pushing into my 30's, but here we are almost 20 years later from the 1.5 version of Counter-strike that nearly every teen in their late 20's early 30's now would of played hours of as a teenager with friends, back in a simple time when CRT monitors were high class and a plastic chair was all you needed, I literally grew up playing Counter-Strike, it was the first real game I got serious about, competing in tournaments and making friends and a game that has been with me my whole life.
It's a game that has never gone out of style even like I said over two decades, 20 years, it's still popular and might even be more popular than it has ever been, now the only game I have to compare this too in terms of continuity is maybe DoTa and world of warcraft, but even then, they've undergone changes and rebranding from the original product, Counter-Strike however has very very largely remained untouched since it's original version came out before the turn of the millennium(god damnit i feel old) so how has this game managed to survive in nearly 6 generations of gaming( gaming generally changes every 3-5 years) and not lost it's touch or popularity?
Well today we're going to take a look at the latest iteration of the game in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive which even in itself is 6 years old and see why one of the first online shooters has survived all this time and what makes it such an amazing game, lets get right into it.
Setting and Premise.
For more information on the history of Counter-Strike be sure to check out my review and reflection on it here https://steemit.com/gaming/@cryptokrieg/genre-defining-games-counter-strike, anyway.
Counter-Strike Global Offensive is a tactical first person shooter from the storied Counter-Strike franchise, some argue that it's probably the best it's been since 1.5/1.6, or at least one of the most popular iterations, while the game has new modes and bigger servers we're going to focus on the real aspect of CS:GO, 5v5 Bomb maps, in this situations teams will take a side, the Counter Terrorists, tasked with stopping a bomb from being planted or if the worst happens, defusing the bomb, and Terrorists who are tasked with either wiping out the Counter Terrorists or planting the bomb and defending it til it explodes.
If it seems simple to you, that's because it is, Counter-Strike's real success is it's accessibility from the very lowest levels to the very highest, the game is set so that everything is "simplistic" in the sense that it's pure action and combat, a lot of games that have come out after the Counter-Strike series have been too gimmicky for people who prefer the thrill of pure fps action while remaining tactical and employing strategy and deception into the mix, it's not very often you find a game that has the perfect balance between simplicity and boredom but Counter-Strike has always done it well.
CS:GO has further refined the best aspects of the game, making it even more streamlined while not compromising on it's direction and core game principles as well as adding new, fan favourite modes such as gun game, a game where you start with a certain weapon and have to work your way though every gun in the game with kills and death match, a free for all skirmish that is mainly used for either fun or to practice your skills and refine your aim for the defuse maps, however this is only a part of the experience.
The maps of Counter-strike as as iconic and essential as the very core of the game itself, while starting off you may think that the maps are easy enough to navigate and control and that your aim can make up for your lack of knowledge but as you journey into competitive you'll soon find that no matter how good a shot you are it doesn't mean anything if you get picked off from an angle you don't know about or get outsmarted.
This is the core essence that goes into Counter-Strike, strategy, skill and unrelenting aim to the point you'll think people are hacking, but as time goes on people seemingly only get better and better at this game which is really weird since I can't think of another game that has a skill curve that has been increasing for nearly 2 decades, but this is what is so endearing about Counter-Strike, the older it gets the more and more satisfying it seems to stay.
Global Offensive Vs Other Versions.
So enough about origins about the game, what's the deal with Global Offensive?
Released in 2012, the game didn't have a great start to be honest, terrible netcode and some pretty weird hit registration left a lot of people staying in Counter-Strike: Source, even myself wasn't the biggest fan of the game, the upgraded visuals were nice but left a bit to be desired in terms of game play, which is funny since Counter-Strike: Source started out the exact same way, a bit buggy with hit registration issues and something missing from the core of the game, full circle huh, but eventually the net code was changed and CS:S became a big success, so it would seem that CS:GO would have to compete against it's predecessor for users.
It wasn't really until around 2014 that it began to pick up, a lot of work had been done to get the game where it needed to be and slowly but surely people began filing out of Source and into Global Offensive, that's when it started to get really popular, and source faded into the background, however unlike games such as say Call of Duty this wasn't because it was the new one to buy and play, it was actually really well cared for when they learned of the faults of the game from the fans and worked rigorously to fix them.
It's kind of hard to differentiate on the Counter-Strike franchise as it always stays the same, which is a good thing, but it's hard to point out the differences when things don't change, one thing I will say though is that weapons seem to handle not only a lot better but feel more natural and responsive than they did in Source and obviously moreso than in 1.5/1.6 when the game wasn't aiming for a realistic touch, but CS:GO has done the job of not compromising on it's principles while also leaving the game feeling fresh and new, which again, strange considering it's the same game with different graphics.
But there is a big elephant in the room that we need to talk about here, and while I personally don't mind it, I know a lot of people blame CS:GO for the current industry we have of this, let me just point out before we jump into the next part of the review, that technically it was team fortress 2 that did this first, it just didn't get really popular until Counter-Strike did it and made an entirely new game mechanic(well not really new but you know what I mean).
You get a loot box and you get a loot box.
Weapon skins and loot boxes, CS:GO has them in droves, with some items fetching upwards of $2000 USD, this created a frenzy in game, loot boxes are largely won through playing the game which require you to purchase a key to unlock(why am i explaining loot boxes), these can contain either extremely poor weapon skins or exceedingly rare and valuable skins that can be sold on the steam market and as many people do, outside the steam market for real life cash, however in this case CS:GO did it right, there's no advantage to having these skins other than bragging rights, but if you wanna be technical about it StatTrak weapons do give you a sense of how much you've used a weapon by recording your kills.
But as I said it did create a frenzy with some weapons being ungodly rare and can send people broke searching for them or by buying them out right, the Awp Dragon Lore is a prized possession of many a game as is the M4A4 Howl, the howl being one of the rarest skins since it was only available for a short time and was pretty hard to come across, when i was still playing every day I remember hearing that a Howl skin sold for thousands of dollars, I can only imagine how much it costs now as time goes on, so why are loot boxes contentious in Counter-Strike if they provide nothing but aesthetic value?
Well it attracted a lot of the streaming and youtube crowd that would pretty much become known for screaming at loot box openings when getting knives or rare skins(i love you anomaly) and as with everything that becomes popular in the gaming market, it's very soon co-opted by the industry at large, hence why people often blame CS:GO for starting the loot box.....scourge lets just say that currently plagues the market in every god damn aspect even single player games fuck you shadow of war, but personally I never really saw a problem with the loot box market in CS:GO, for veteran like myself who were playing all day every day having expensive and rare skins was a bit of a bragging right.
So loot boxes really shouldn't be a contentious issue in the game even though sadly it is, I myself hate loot boxes in games, but iv'e spent probably around 3-400 dollars on keys to open cases in Counter-Strike, i'm a hypocrite I know, but it's also a signal to the market of how to do this right, keeping loot boxes and weapon skins separate from game play in every aspect should be a goal for modern developers and they can take their cues from CS:GO instead of actively ripping off the people who pay top price for a gambling simulator.
Furthering the Legacy, but also a small downfall.
One thing that always impresses me with Counter-Strike is that no matter how much time passes, it's still always popular, even now there are people out there discovering this game for the first time, which is crazy when you think about the fact that some people who are now 18-19 weren't even born when Counter-Strike was first envisioned, what sets it apart from other franchises though is the fact that it keeps getting more popular in a time when the markets are flooded with choice, especially in the FPS market, people naturally radiate towards Counter-Strike as they always have from each generation.
Given it's huge standing in the E-Sports scene now and in the past it's rare to the point of non existent that it keeps it's fanbase through numerous iterations of the game, and not only keeps it, but grew it to the worldwide sport CS:GO has become now and shows no signs of slowing down, there is however one unfortunate downside with CS:GO and it revolves heavily around the loot boxes and weapon skins.
Valve makes a lot of money, a LOT of money out of keys on the market, couple this with the insane market for skins and you have a real problem for later down the road, if valve was ever to bring out a new Counter-Strike, they're going to have to make a bridge to use as a go between in the skins department, some people have spent thousands of dollars on skins in the game and won't be easily separated from them, so how exactly does Valve create a new version of counter-strike eventually while bridging this problem since they only have two options.
Import all of the skins and variations into a new Counter-Strike that have be updated to go with the new graphics or completely start fresh and risk people not buying the new game, this unfortunately is leading to "Valve Time" if you don't know know what that means, it's essentially the origin of Blizzards "Soon" and if you don't know what that means basically if they say they're going to do something in 3 years, you can bet 15 years later they'll still be thinking about it, but apart from that, that's the only real downfall with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and one that may eventually sort itself out.
Critical Review and Reception.
It's hard to sum up Counter-strike, or any version for that matter, in a succinct way, even though it's a relatively small content game it's responsible for millions of hours of game play, insane amounts of money changing hands and has been a staple in the gaming world for nearly 20 years now, while the game may not change all that much it still changes just enough to feel fresh and new, recently valve have taken to updating and revamping a lot of old school maps which people are divided on(Inferno rework was horrible) but there is a reason it's successful.
Global Offensive started off rough but has slowly morphed into an amazing offering in the franchise that some say gets a lot closer to 1.6 which is widely regarded as the best version in the franchise(1.5 was better) and given it's massive success in the e-sports scene and was consistently the most played game on steam, until PUBG was released but they're gaining ground on them again, it's easy to see why the franchise has survived as long as it has and why a game released in 2012 that got off to a bad start is still so insanely popular.
Whatever your feelings about CS:GO and whatever your skill level or preferred play style is, there's no denying it still continues to have an amazing effect on the gaming industry and has elevated e-sports into a new era along with other big games like Overwatch and Dota 2, and with no signs of slowing down, it's safe to say that Counter-Strike, in whatever form it comes out in will always have that unique touch that has kept it not only relevant, but growing for the past 20 years.
