Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a free Multiplayer Online Game, that was released in 2012. A sequel to the popular Counter-Strike Mod for Half-life, it expands on the original sequel, Counter-Stirke Source, to give it's players a more expansive, and well made First Person Online Game experience.
The Game's setting takes place all over the world, and while not having any actual story, all of it's environments are inspired by real world countries such as Baghdad, Spain, Italy and The United States.
Though the game has several different game modes, I will only be writing about Competitive game mode, and The classic, most iconic, and most played map, Dust II.
Dust II is a large map, inspired by the some of the middle-east's most iconic (and rather stereotypical) crowded cities. Specifically those of Baghdad or Afghanistan. The color pallet, the time of day, the way the buildings look worn down by sandstorms and on-going violence, all suggest a hot and dangerous feeling, which immediately invokse an alertness in the player, even if it is their first time in the map.
Competitive mode in Counter Strike Always has to do with two teams, and two objectives. In this particular example, I will be using the classic Bomb Threat.
Two teams start on opposite ends of the map, The Terrorists, and The Counter-Terrorists.
As the names suggest, the Terrorists take on the role of Aggressors and the Counter Terrorists take the role of Defenders. All the objectives that the Terrorists must achieve are located, no matter the map, on the Counter-Terrorist side. It is the job of the Terrorists to kill all of the Counter-Terrorists (CT), or achieve their goal- in this case, planting the bomb, and successfully having it go off. In the same vein, the CT can either kill all the Terrorists, or diffuse the bomb after it is planted.
Competitive Mode takes place over 30 rounds, where the players will switch teams, no matter the score, once 15 rounds have passed. Counter Terrorists will become terrorists and vice-versa, allowing both teams of players to experience both sides of the map, giving them an edge in understanding the other team's side after having played it.
The game begins with a Warm-Up round, allowing players to run around and jump and shoot the enemy team, without penalty or reward. This can give new players to the map a chance to run around and quickly become familiar with a small bit of the map so that they are not left behind once the action begins. As soon as everyone is connected and a minute has passed, the round begins.
There are only few game mechanics within the game. All players begin with a certain amount of money, a small amount in the beginning that assures all players can only buy simple handguns, and more money as the game progresses, provided that the player in question is either on the winning team, or has been killing a lot of the enemy team. The round begins, and players are prompted to press B, which brings up the Buy Menu:
While given unlimited amount of time and money in the warm-up round, On normal rounds, players only have several seconds to buy the guns, grenades and armor they deem fit to take out the enemy team, and get in position before engaging the enemy team.
Weapons in counter-strike work slightly differently than in normal shooters. If your gun does not have a scope, then you can't aim down it's sights. There is no aim assist, and the only way to make a gun become more accurate without a scope, is to crouch down, which makes the cross-hairs on the screen smaller.
Even then, the amount of accuracy is determined by how well the player knows the gun they are using. For example, a P90 has a significant curvature forward with it's shooting, so experienced players know to shoot towards the chest or the legs of enemy players to guarantee faster kills.
Aside from what the other players buy, there are no pick-ups or items spread across the game. Any weapons you pick up will be ones either willingly left behind by other players, or from the corpses of other players. The focus of the game is solely on the interaction between both teams and how well they can navigate and exploit the environment, not on who has the best power-up.
As the round Continues, the Counter-Terrorists take positions on Bombsites A and B, dividing their team of 5 into 3 and 2, depending on which site they think the Terrorist team is going to come after first. Terrorists make their way from their spawn to one bombsite, either all sticking together, or splitting their team- using some as distraction while other sneak in to plant the bomb.
Counter-Strike's gameplay is that of hyper-realism. Flashbangs deafen and blind all players- friend or foe, certain guns have certain ways that which they have to be handled, and are not accurate if not used correctly, No aim-assist, and when alone and waiting for the enemy, footsteps can be heard and used for strategy- allowing players to call for backup should they hear the entire enemy team walking through a corridor. Players can even crouch and walk, giving up some movement speed for silent footsteps. Players can also get behind cover (without the game's help)- but should the cover be wood or any other easily breakable object, other players can shoot through it.
Terrorist's main goal is to plant the bomb. This means one member of their team (The bomb-carrier, which is randomly selected out of the 5 every time they spawn) must spend several seconds crouched at the bombsite, making them vulnerable and in need of their teammate's help. Once the bomb is planted, All players will receive an alert, and the timer on the top of the screen, which is usually 2 minutes, will dissapear. The end of the round now all hinges on the bomb. It beeps faster and faster as it counts down, and unless the Counter-Terrorists diffuse the bomb, the round ends once the bomb explodes (and kills whoever is near it).
(In this example, I was the bomb carrier)
The Counter-Terrorists can diffuse bombs, but must spend 10 seconds doing so- unless they buy a diffuse kit at the beginning of the round, which cuts their time to 5 seconds.
This mode is also more "competative" in that when you die, you can only look through the eyes of your teammates, and are not able to give away the position of the enemy team.
The game continues, and whichever team wins 15 out of 30 rounds, wins the game!
here are some extra screenshots of my Playthrough:
