Counter-Strike

[ddm999]

I realise there's older threads of CS, but none of them have anything about CS:GO on them, and, seeing as the Arms Deal update came out recently, and the Workshop Workbench was made too.

The first time I played a CS game, was the CS:GO free weekend about a year ago. But, I found a spare £20, and bought all the CS games for £17. Pretty good to say CS:GO costs £13 and CS:S costs £14. I decided to play through them all, in order of when they were released.


So, first up was CS 1.6. First I was a little weirded out by the lack of bots, then I got annoyed because I thought you could bunnyhop in CS and you can't, and then I got raped by people who can actually play the game. I was very surprised to see 400 players when I went on, though.


Next was CS:CZ. The addition of bots, (and the funny voice pitch based on bot difficulty) is cool, and the singleplayer campaign, which forces you to use certain weapons on maps, and to manage the bots correctly, is awesome. In fact, I'm still working on converting the default campaign to Terrorists, as you only play CT in it. Kinda breaks Lunatic (I believe), who is a T bot who will only purchase .40 Dual Elites, as they are known in old CS names. (He works by trying to purchase an M4A1 - which he can't - and then purchasing said Dual Elites - causing his preferred weapon image to be blank. So yeah CS:CZ is awesome.


Next up is CS:CZS, a game that was going to be CS:CZ, but it got bad reviews (what do you expect from a game that plays like CoD, yet has no objective markers and you do nothing but get lost and easily kill people). It sucks. Moving on...


CS:S, my friends' favourite CS. The first thing I notice, is that the spread on all of the guns is about halved. Which makes the game feel like you're actually playing it. Rather than aiming for that perfect shot to the head to swerve miles to the left, kill a teammate, and for you to be auto-killed next round for being an idiot. The next thing I notice, is that none of these games can be played casual competitive like CS:GO, because it doesn't have any form of team switching apart from shuffling. No switching for 10 rounds, and not to mention there's no real player limit. (apart from the problem with people spawning inside one another with more than 20 per team).
I find it easy to map for CS:S too. You just need to remember the grid method or the 2 route method.


Now, onto CS:GO. I'll talk about Arms Deal last. CS:GO is the only one with more than '1' gamemode. (Counting de_ and cs_ as the same thing.) The first thing to note about playing CS:GO in true CS mode, is that you don't use the server browser. It uses matchmaking, incredibly similar to DotA 2. Then you'll notice that you play 15 rounds on each side (with a mercy rule). Then you'll see the new weapons.
So, the weapons all have real world names, now. Dual Berettas can be purchased by CTs. A lot of weapons have a different model and name, but act exactly the same. There's the Tec-9, the Sawed-Off shotgun, the MAG-7, the Negev, firebombs, decoy grenades, the fact you carry hostages after untying them, and the kill rewarding based on your weapon (generally $300, apart from an AWP's $150 reward)...
So now, the new modes. Casual is the same as Competitive (normal CS), except you start with defusers and kevlar and helmet. However, there are only 15 rounds, there's any time matchmaking (you join games in progress), you soft-collide with your team, you only deal 50% damage to teammates, and teams don't switch halfway.
Demolition is on maps with only one bomb site (always bomb site), and there is no buy menu. Instead, everyone has a defuser and armor & helm, and you progress through weapons by getting kills. Multiple kills in a round gets you grenades. 20 rounds, swap teams halfway (and reset weapons), and same as Casual for everything else. Arms Race is Gun Game. That's it. There's 3 maps (Monastery is best as it's not boring symmetrical), and, yeah. Fun.
Deathmatch is a strange one. You choose your weapons every spawn, and better weapons get you less points (up to 20 for a knife kill). You spawn instantly, and can choose weapons and are invulnerable for 10 seconds or until you move. However, every 2 minutes or so, a weapon has bonus points for 30 seconds. Pressing 'g' respawns you with this weapon. Oh, and killing chickens which have invaded the whole world gets you 1 point.


Nearly forgot. The awesomest thing is that you can control bots if you die.


Arms Deal is the update that added the option to use the classic CS CT guns with the silencer adding/removing, and the one that added skin drops. And crates. And keys. And Stranges. Sorry, StatTraks. And Steam Workshop for gun skins, which could be added to the game. It's OK. I doesn't really change CS:GO that much.


Personally, I prefer CS:GO for it's Demolition and Arms Race casual modes, but CS:S for actual CS gameplay.