I've been shooting some face in the CS:GO beta for the first time this evening, and there's quite a bit to talk about. I should preface this impressions article with the note that while I used to play at a national level, it has been years since I've delved into any CS in any serious capacity. I'm sure there will be a number of current day elitists out there who disagree with my opinions, but I'm not claiming this as gospel, so append as much or as little weight to these opinions as you care to.


Keen to dive head-first into some action I quickly noticed that there was only a quick-match option in the CS:GO beta menu. Clicking that threw me into some high latency US server, playing Inferno. Thankfully with a quick Google I discovered that GamersUnited.net.au host a number of CS:GO servers, so I enabled the developer console and connected to one of their Dust 2 servers via that method. You can find their list of active servers by clicking here.

Visually, Global Offensive really is a mixed bag. The maps look mostly great, bar Inferno. Dust, Dust 2 and Train are especially good. They're richer than previous Counter-Strike titles with a lot of extra detail, but that detail surprisingly don't distract greatly nor clutter the world too much. It seems the developers struck quite a nice balance in that regard.

What I don't like about the maps is the ridiculous use of HDR and bloom, the walls on Inferno and Train literally glow. There is no way to turn this off in the option menus either. When I discovered the console commands to disable HDR, I also discovered they can only be used when sv_cheats "1" is enabled which was quite disappointing. The range of sight is artificially limited on most maps too, with the distance being clouded with fog, smoke or dust. This needs to change.

Looking at the HUD, speaking broadly, I love it. It clearly isn't the work of a particularly good graphic designer, but it's lean, of apt proportion and doesn't impose on the action. It's a refreshing approach to information presentation in a first person shooter and it's very much welcomed. The new cross-hair on the other hand is a terrible, terrible mistake. There is just too much going on with it, it's distracting, so enable the classic cross-hair before proceeding in to play.

There is more to like about the UI, such as the buy menu. It's now a selection wheel, the same sort of selection wheel seen in games such as Mass Effect 2. While this has obviously been designed to make purchasing with controller analogue sticks easier, they've retained the ability for PC users to simply hit number keys for fast and decisive purchases. It's as functional as ever, but now it looks appealing and includes additional information for newcomers, too.

The weapon models are hit-and-miss, some being impressive and some others not so much. While the weapons themselves seem fine, it's the hands holding them that look fat and unnatural, except for the knife hands. The player models aren't much better and the animations appear to be widely questioned. It all kind of looks like the work of a modder rather than a professional development studio.

The Terrorist has received the worst end of the stick. Animations look fluent, yet awkward, as if the character is made of Play-Doh - he's Gumby-like. Thankfully the Counter-Terrorists looks considerably better in motion. It's something you'll need to see for yourself rather than have explained to you, but there's something very odd about the way players move.

Not only are some of the weapon models arguably bad, but so is a lot of the weapon audio. I'm not sure how they've managed to do it, but despite a weapon's actual power, they feel gutless and ineffective almost entirely due to the gunfire sound effects. In reality these weapons actually work as advertised, but there is definitely some work to be done here if they're going to have you feeling any empowerment when wielding one.





While on the topic of audio, the automated in-game team mate dialogue says things like "can you see him?" and "that's how it's done." It's awfully lame, the voice acting is bad and the voice casting is even worse. These voices sound like gamers rather than operatives, and if I wanted to hear gamers talk shit I'd just listen to more of the actual in-game chatter. Until you've played long enough to become desensitised to these pieces of recorded speech they're really going to grind your gears. At least, they did mine. I'm hoping there will be an option to disable these entirely with a patch, as I've already done with the painful in-game music.

My last point on audio is the absurd use of echo. Too often your footsteps, gunfire or reload animation sounds echo like you're camped out in your bathroom. It's over the top and for no good reason. It really needs to be toned down in a future patch.

Moving onto the gameplay, I must say I love the movement. It's clean! It feels like the fast paced shooters so many of us take pleasure in playing. There is no chore in movement, no real feeling of "weight" as you strafe left to right, which is something I can't talk highly enough about. There is also no weird object collisions inside the world, thankfully. A pet hate of mine were the barrels in CSS, that feeling of being "stuck" on them. Being frank, I'm not expecting realism, I'm not after realism, I'm after this. It's simply excellent.

I'm sure there are others reading this article who hated the weapon menu HUD in CS and CSS, needing to throw hud_fastswitch "1" into the console to ensure switches were instantaneous. CS:GO has ditched the weapon menu, so now when you bind mwheeldown to your primary weapon, as an example, that switch takes place immediately and without config tinkering.

I'm a big fan of the new grenades and think they'll add some interesting dynamics to matches. The Molotov Cocktail will play vital roles in blocking rushes and funneling players into different routes, while the decoy grenade should help lure them in the wrong direction when you're wanting to get a plant down. Or, distract them and shoot them in the back of the head in a 1v1 standoff.

On a final gameplay note, the "casual" mode is pretty nifty and will be popular not just with casual players. You can clip through other players rather than be blocked by them, friendly fire is disabled and you automatically have a kevlar and helmet at the start of round. Best of all is the ability to control bots. If you die, hitting "e" while spectating a bot will let you take control over them, like an Agent in the Matrix.

So, what's my feeling at present? The gameplay is classic Counter-Strike, with a few twists - such as the additional grenades - that really open the maps up to be attacked in new and different ways. Paired with the attractiveness of those maps and the fantastic feel of movement, I'm really enjoying it. I feel like I'm going to be a Counter-Strike player again. Now if only they'd work on those models, animations and sound effects for me.