Counter-Strike: Global Offensive took the long way to success. It started off with a number of significant flaws, but with time and some substantial patches, has become one of the most-played games on Steam and one of the best PC games you can play.
As usual, the people who know the game best are the ones who spend every night and most weekends in the trenches, defusing bombs, shooting chickens and desperately hunting for knives. Also as usual, the people who love the game most are also the ones who have the most complicated relationship with it. Play a game enough and even if you love it, part of you will probably start to loathe it. In a loving way. If that makes sense.
I’ve really enjoyed Patricia’s semi-regular Steam Reviews round-up series, since they give a glimpse into the minds (and senses of humour) of a given game’s most dedicated players. So, I thought I’d dive into the CS:GO Steam page and see what I could find.
Generally speaking: CS:GO players love the chickens, are flummoxed by the knives, are in agreement that Dust2 is in some ways the game’s only map, and hate hackers almost as much as they hate being called hackers. And of course, like any good game, for all the complaints most people have, they still can’t stop playing.
Let’s see what Steam reviewers have to say about Counter-Strike: Global Offensive:
One of my favourite reviews calls CS:GO “The future of competitive gaming,” then lays out exactly what that future will look like:
Such drama!
And then there’s my other favourite review:
We also saw a potato review of Skyrim, and the more I think about it, the more I think it’s kind of a great system. Much simpler than the conventional 10-point-scale. Maybe we should consider adopting it here at Kotaku…
Comments
2 responses to “Counter-Strike: GO, As Told By Steam Reviews”
I think rekt had the only serious positive review, GO is certainly not a pay-to-win game
Hmph, you don’t say. Literally the only thing you can buy, are skins and knives that you will never use.
Il paste a epic one you missed:
In this game you are a Terrorist or elite Counter-Terrorist who has never fired a gun in their life before a round starts. You must help your character learn how to control their guns while killing enemies. Strangely, each character has the mysterious power to fire one or two shots without ridiculous recoil by very briefly jerking in the opposite direction they are moving in.
When your character wears a Kevlar vest, every part of your character, except the head, are made out of steel. Therefore, the only way to quickly kill people is to shoot them in the head. This can be annoying at first, but you will soon get used to shooting a small smudge of pixels on top of a character’s body.
The Goddess of Guns can materialize guns in your character’s hands a few seconds before a round starts. However, your character must pay for the guns, which have vastly overinflated prices. When you have the right amount of money, the Goddess will flash a menu in your character’s eyes, allowing them to select the guns they want. More advanced users can make guns materialize out of thin air with their mind as long as they have the right amount of money.
Maps are often about evil terrorists trying to bomb deserted places. Vandalism is a very serious crime in the Counter-Strike series, so elite Counter-Terrorists are deployed to stop them. Unfortunately for the Terrorists, they are dumb and only packed one bomb. However, the Counter-Terrorists do not know how to pick up a dropped bomb, so the Terrorists can still pick it up after it is dropped by a fallen friend.
In some maps, the terrorists have kidnapped a janitor and low-level desk jockey in a building. The Counter-Terrorists have been deployed to save one, not both, of the hostages. In reality, this is just a thinly-veiled excuse for the CTs to murder the Terrorists while pumping rounds into the invincible hostages. One weird thing about hostage maps is that you can purchase a “Hostage Rescue Kit”, which somehow makes gives you the ability to put a grown man on your shoulders in a second. Perhaps it is a spell scroll that allows hostages to hover to your character’s shoulders.
Overall, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a surprisingly solid game about people with the worst gun handling abilities ever seen on Earth. Even though your characters have the aiming abilities of someone with Parkinsons Disease, you have many tactical options that make the game very fun and dynamic. It’s worth picking up.
-Duncan donuts.