Everybody knows that Counter-Strike's asymmetric levels are its best. If only someone had told its millions of players. Counter-Strike creator Minh Le seems to agree with me at least, naming cs_siege as one of his favourites in a recent interview.
]]>Fans of Counter-Strike: GO’s Gun Game successor Arms Race rejoice: you will be able to play the popular mode in Counter-Strike 2. Eventually, that is. Valve have promised that more modes, weapons and features are headed to Global Offensive’s full-bore sequel, but they might take a little while to arrive as they respond to what players are asking for.
]]>Are you a Mac player who's been hungrily looking forward to the eventual Mac port of Counter-Strike 2, released last month, after sinking many hours and much pocket money into the preceding Counter-Strike: Global Offensive? Fantastic news, it's been binned off! In the course of making what they're calling "the largest technical leap in CS history", Valve have decided to discontinue support for MacOS. They're also doing away with support for older PCs, including DirectX 9 and 32-bit operating systems - in future, the game will be exclusive to 64-bit Windows and Linux systems.
]]>Want to go back to playing CS:GO now that Counter-Strike 2 is released? You may have heard that Counter-Strike 2 was released as a total replacement of Valve's venerable Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. And it's true - for the most part. But if you're hankering for the good old days of CS:GO once more, there is a way to keep playing Global Offensive.
In this quick guide we'll explain exactly how to play CS:GO after Counter-Strike 2's release - as well as the limitations involved in doing so.
]]>At the time of writing, Counter-Strike 2 has 7.5 million reviews on Steam, 88% of which are positive. That's pretty good going for a game that released less than 24 hours ago.
Except, of course, that the vast majority of those reviews are for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, a game that is no longer playable. If you filter the reviews to just yesterday and today, you'll find that there have been 3450 of them, just 59% of which are positive, which would give Counter-Strike 2 a rating of "Mixed".
]]>Counter-Strike 2 released last night and has duly taken over from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive as Steam’s most-played game at the time of writing, but individual player reactions are a bit mixed. Valve’s new/revamped free-to-play FPS sports a range of exotic features and fixtures, from swirlier, reactive smoke to new server architecture, but it has launched without many of the modes, maps and functions Global Offensive diehards are accustomed to, after a decade of updates.
]]>If you ever played Counter-Strike even once, you will surely have committed the classic blunder of misclicking in the shop and buying the wrong gun. No shame in it. All you can do is laugh and try your best while armed with, ah, a pair of dual pistols? No more! The latest big update to Counter-Strike 2's invitation-only test has added the option to refund new purchases. A whole new buy menu, even, far nicer than CS:GO's rubbish wheel. Also a new map and a load of other stuff that mostly matters to jammy gits who have access.
]]>A Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map is being used to sneak information about the ongoing invasion of Ukraine to Russian gamers. Players can download the de_voyna map, which recreates an abandoned Eastern European city that’s not too dissimilar to the war-torn streets you might find in other multiplayer maps. The difference here is a secret underground room that contains information about the invasion: headlines, maps, newspaper clippings, and images of the war.
]]>After weeks of teases and rumours, Counter-Strike 2 invaded the internet to confirm that, yes, it was a real thing and not a figment of the community's shared imagination. It’s fully launching this summer, and Valve have been holding a limited access test since the pseudo-sequel's announcement. They’ve been inviting select players based on factors that are important to the dev team, such as trust factor, Steam account standing, and recent playtime on Valve servers. But last night, Valve shook their finger like a stern parent, informing fans that playing more Counter-Strike: Global Offensive wouldn’t get them into the CS2 test any faster.
]]>Rumours of a Counter-Strike 2 have been circulating for so many years that it’s become a recurring meme in the playerbase, almost veering into Half-Life 3 levels of wishful thinking. But rumblings of Counter-Strike 2 have gotten louder over the weekend due to a report from journalist Richard Lewis which states there’s “a new version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on its way” being made in the Source 2 engine, and it could release with the working title of Counter-Strike 2.
]]>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is over ten years old, and much of the game design that underpins it dates back to the original mod release in 2000. Yet it's arguably more popular today than ever, after breaking its all-time concurrent player record earlier today.
]]>I was once a regular Counter-Strike player, but that was almost twenty years ago. What's remarkable about Valve's team shooter is how little its fundamentals have changed over those twenty years. The AWP and M4A1? Still pretty much how they were when I was first mishandling them in the Half-Life mod.
Which makes yesterday's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive update pretty remarkable. The AWP's magazine size has been cut in half and the M4A1-S now does less damage at long range.
]]>Compared to many of the latest FPS offerings out there, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a fossil. It's such a simplistic looking game, right? A bit bland and archaic, lacking that colour and pop that the likes of Apex Legends and Valorant possess. But to pass it off as dull and basic is to do the game a disservice, as it's more refined than basically any of its competitors.
]]>Last week, our mission resumed after a wee hiatus and you decided that parody in-game brands are better than photo modes. Or are less bad? Some of you have a lot of pent-up frustration because you lack the dexterity to keep your fingers from fumbling photo buttons. But it is decided, and we must move on. This week, it's a question of love versus a battlefield. What's better: romance, or iconic Counter-Strike map de_dust2?
]]>Valve are working to upgrade a number of their more popular games for the Steam Deck, optimising controls and interfaces to play better on their upcoming portable powerhouse, the Steam Deck. The Half-Life series, Dota 2, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive, either already have or will receive upgrades designed to make them "better experiences".
]]>The riot shield was probably the most divisive item ever added to Counter-Strike - and now it's back. New update Operation Riptide, out now, introduces the defensive item to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's casual mode, alongside major tweaks to Dust2, new missions, shorter matches, and private matchmaking queues.
]]>Long gone are the days when the best battle royale games were all about picking up colourful guns in an ever-shrinking safe zone. There are still plenty that fit that description, of course, but now we have battle royales about swinging swords, wobbly beans, and wrestling, too, giving us a huge variety to choose from. The best battle royales all have one thing in common, though: they're all about being the last person (or people, for team games) standing. Oh, and you usually battle it out in weird and wonderful costumes.
]]>Valve's competitive first-person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive turned nine years old today. It remains the most popular game on Steam - a little bigger than Dota 2, and around four times bigger than the 3rd and 4th placed games. Not bad, eh.
]]>Valve are challenging artists to create the CS:GO weapon skins of their dreams. Or someone else's dreams. Any kind of dream or nightmare theme you like, really, so long as you slap it on a CS:GO weapon to enter. They're launching a total $1 million contest tomorrow in which ten creators will win $100,000 and have their CS:GO weapon finishes added to the game. The contest runs through the middle of October, in part to celebrate and support the community of Steam Workshop creators, Valve say.
]]>Warzone Audio Bang has been put to rest... but Ultimate Audio Bang is here to pick up the slack. In this first episode of Ultimate Audio Bang, we try to continue Warzone Audio Bang's legacy. I am channeling James' energy as the pod's new host, and I'm joined by the wonderful Imogen who has good chat and knows a lot about shooters.
And that's what this podcast is all about: online shooters. We're still touching on Warzone, of course, but we're also going to be chatting about different games that involve pulling triggers and pinging targets. You could say it's a natural evolution of Warzone Audio Bang, hence the "Ultimate" bit in the name. Makes sense, doesn't it?
]]>I like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but I loved the original Counter-Strike. While CSGO is the prettier, more polished version of the same set of ideas, so many of the maps, so much of the feel that I loved, isn't present in the latest iteration.
The original Counter-Strike is still available to play, but its final update, 1.6, isn't the version I want either. I want beta 5.2, or thereabouts, from back before Valve bought the game and its rougher edges got sanded away.
That's me. But I'm here to ask you: what live service game would you like to see relaunch and preserve an older version of itself, as World Of Warcraft: Classic has? And what version would you want?
]]>When I used to compete in Counter-Strike 1.6 tournaments, I would do so with a print-out of the map we were playing taped to the wall by my monitor. Today's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players go several steps further in the pursuit of being better at clicking on heads than the other team.
To aid them, Valve have launched a new subscription service called CS:GO 360 Stats. For $1 a month, players get access to match stats from their Competitive, Premier and Wingman game mode matches.
]]>Last week, hack-hunting group Secret Club revealed several exploits affecting some of Valve's games that could let hackers gain remote access to players' PCs. The group claimed they'd reported these exploits to Valve previously, but the company hadn't done anything about it - until now. Secret Club say Valve have fixed an exploit the company had supposedly known about for two years, which could've allowed hackers to steal player data through Steam invites.
]]>Hack-hunting group Secret Club have revealed multiple exploits affecting Source Engine games like CS:GO, which could allow hackers to steal player data via Steam invites and community servers. They claim they reported one of these exploits to Valve two years ago, but not only are the company yet to patch it, but they allegedly prevented Secret Club from publicly disclosing the information too.
]]>As esports becomes bigger business, it's beginning to deal with the issues faced by more mainstream sports. That includes betting and match fixing scandals. The commissioner of the Esports Integrity Commission says that they're now working with law enforcement, including the FBI, to help combat the problem in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
]]>I never much cared for de_dust2, which left me slightly dismayed when it rapidly took over the entirety of Counter-Strike and became its most popular map ever. Thankfully now I can have my revenge. A modder has re-created de_dust2 in Teardown, the destructive heist sim, so I can blow the famous level apart brick by brick until all that's left is... dust.
]]>Valve are out of control! Not content with ceasing development on Artifact this past week, they seemed to delete one of their other multiplayer games, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, from the Steam store earlier today.
Thankfully, it looks like it was a mistake, and it's back now.
]]>Be careful if you decide to turn into a Dota 2 bully because Valve have added a community-based review system to help them govern the game. The “Overwatch” system will send reports and replays of negative behaviour to upstanding community members, who’ll cast a verdict on the player responsible.
]]>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has some of the most famous, popular, and beautifully handcrafted maps of any multiplayer game. But there's still only a finite number available, so it's cool that someone has built a procedurally generated level with "tens of millions" of possible layouts.
]]>Toxicity in games is no fun, and in this year of our lord 2020, there seems to be a growing trend of using artificial intelligence to find and deal with toxic players. I don't just mean in text chat either; the companies Modulate and FaceIt have both created AI that can supposedly detect toxicity in voice chat from the way that someone says something.
Part of me that feels like this is a good idea. Having a way of quickly and easily getting rid of them is great. However, I've heard one too many stories about AI learning to be racist, so I do wonder if it's the best sort of tech to put in video games.
]]>Gaben Claus has gifted the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community with an early Christmas present. Operation Broken Fang is now live, and brings with it new maps, features, and cosmetics.
]]>Look, competitive Counter-Strike is nice and all, but on the 20th anniversary of v1.0 I do find myself consumed with dreams of a wholly different CS skill: surfing. It's the freestyle skating to proper CS's baseball, using a movement glitch to skid, glide, and soar through maps filled with abstract shapes. It is stylish as all hell. And people race surfing! Or you could go freestyle and hit cool tricks to wow judges! Maybe you could even do synchronised routines! Or, like with the X-Games, you could think it seems too much effort and just watch YouTube videos and coo approvingly. So let's do that, for now.
]]>The war between cheaters and anti-cheat technology might be endless, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun with it. I'm delighted to learn about the work of "ScriptKid", a fella who releases fake cheats that actually sabotage games for would-be cheaters. Wrong'uns go to Google looking for free cheats, find the fake cheat site he's set up, download and run his fake cheats, then... find they're forced to jump off buildings to their death in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or their movement keys screw up, or their gun stops working, or worse. He uploads videos of would-be cheaters getting pranked, and it's quite cathartic to watch.
]]>The coronavirus pandemic has shut down yet another gaming event. This time it's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's Rio Major, and Valve say they won't be scheduling any more of the tournaments until LAN events are safe to hold around the world again.
Valve have also addressed coaches being able to cheat in competitive games for years using a bug, detailing the action they'll be taking against these cheaty cheaters.
]]>Coaches eh? They're meant to be a great help for improving your game, but it seems some sneaky Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams have taken that to mean peeking where they're not allowed during high-stakes competitive games. Now, the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) is raking through years of demos to find these meddlesome cameramen, with the suggestion that they might go easy on folks who own up to their crimes.
]]>Valve's strict new anti-cheat system was powerless to protect Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players from a very simple trick that let perpetrators see everyone through walls. Until last week, players could make a single file tweak that gave them a huge, cheatily cheat advantage. It now appears to have been fixed.
]]>It's time to say goodbye to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive maps Chlorine and Jungle, as they've been swapped out to make room for two new community ones. Say hello, then, to Swamp and Mutiny. The first one is pretty self-explanatory, it's a big green swamp complete with a boat repair shop and some murky water. The second, Mutiny, is pirate-themed - as you might expect - and features a harbour-looking area with some big ol' docked ships as delightful scenery to your tactical shooting.
]]>Valve have expanded Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's anti-cheat tech with new restrictions blocking third-party software which interacts with the game. 'Trusted mode' cuts off certain types of cheat, which is good. It also has the side-effect of blocking popular legitimate software including Nvidia Freestyle graphics filters and certain modes in OBS, the video capture & streaming tool. That's it working as intended but also, y'know, a bummer. Some people are reporting performance problems too.
]]>In the endless war of cheat vs. anti-cheat, Valve are considering serious measures to lock down programs hooking into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The new measures, currently being put through their paces in an opt-in public beta testing, will not let you join VAC-enabled servers if you launch CS with incompatible files loaded. This is, to be clear, not any sort of kernel driver like Valorant's controversial Vanguard. The new anti-cheat feature is currently being tested in an opt-in public beta and seems a way away from launching properly, bringing crippling performance problems for some players right now.
]]>In the grim darkness of the near future, there is only De_dust2. But look further ahead and- oh! There it is! Only war. Now look back to the present and find the two have come together in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, with new Warhammer 40,000 stickers now sold to slap on your virtual guns. CS's stickers have always been a bit 'teenager bunkbed' so frankly I can't think of a better match. It's only weird that AK-47's haven't had "WAAAGH!" stickers all along.
]]>It’s no secret that Valorant’s heavily inspired by Valve’s iconic FPS Counter:Strike. Many of the weapons are effectively the same, shooting mechanics are pretty similar, and many CS:GO veterans are making the switch to the game because it’s a natural fit - they know they’ll be alright at it.
]]>You know how it is. You think you're into videogame soundtracks, then you go and hear someone perform ten of them on a Mongolian string instrument. I recently spent 20 minutes listening to a man do just that, and I think you should too.
Genius Jaavka is the man. The morin khuur is his instrument. Songs from Horizon Zero Dawn (coming to PC this summer), Mortal Kombat, Dota 2 and Fortnite are just some of the ones he treats us to. He's really very good.
]]>Five people were charged this Sunday with fixing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matches, according to Victoria Police. If found guilty, they could face up to a decade in prison.
]]>I frequent a Counter-Strike level design forum called Mapcore. There, a Dutch teenager who goes by “RD” (“RealDespair”) has long claimed to have been the original author of fy_iceworld. His now defunct portfolio site went on a lengthy rant about it:
“Yes, you read it right. I am the creator of this unholy monster. When i created this map i had absolutely no idea how popular it would become. It is sad that there are many txt files in rotation from kids that claim to have made this map, but you have now stumbled upon the true author...”
Was RD actually responsible for making one of the most influential and popular game maps of all time? I began a forensic investigation to verify its authorship, digging through the ancient detritus of dead Geocities pages, Angelfire websites, and Romanian file servers. I even datamined the fy_iceworld file for clues. I now know what “fy_” actually meant, and it wasn’t “fight yard.” Originally, it wasn’t even called fy_iceworld either! But let’s start from the beginning.
]]>Looks like there's a drip somewhere in Valve's spigot. Source code for both Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has apparently been made public. The files appear to be from years ago, though that may not prevent present troublemakers from doing their thing. Some fan servers are worried enough that they've gone offline until they can assure that these leaks won't compromise the security of players. So far it’s unclear where the leak originated, though of course that hasn’t stopped anyone from guessing or pointing fingers.
Update: Valve have now responded to RPS to say they are still investigating but currently "have not found any reason for players to be alarmed or avoid the current builds" of either game.
]]>I remember playing a Counter-Strike map in 2001 called fy_iceworld. It was a small simple grey killbox of a map that virtually anyone could’ve made within the first few hours of downloading the editor tools.
fy_iceworld quickly became one of the most popular and divisive CS maps at my school. I was, of course, one of the haters. I tried to convince my friends to vote against fy_iceworld on our local internet cafe’s CS server, but they argued that I was just salty about being bad at it (which was partly true) and they forced the mapchange anyway. Similar conversations played out across countless clan servers, cyber cafes, PC bangs, and LAN parties around the entire world.
To properly gauge fy_iceworld’s influence and legacy, I asked several working level designers for their takes. Should we love it or bury it?
]]>Most of us may lack the cybergoggles necessary to jack into Half-Life: Alyx today, but we can carry a bit of Alyx over into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Over the weekend, Valve added new Half-Life-y stickers to slap on guns, patches to slap on uniforms, and badges to display in your profile. Some of them are cute! Unfortunately, they're obtained through nasty little loot boxes - and these are not cheap. And surprisingly, the new cosmetics don't include a new glove skin of HL: Alyx's gravity gloves, something many had expected.
]]>The big daddy of PC game stores broke a new online user count yesterday with a whammin' 20 million folks signed in. Sounds like everyone is at home perusing their game libraries for some reason. On the real, the spread of Covid-19 is certainly keeping folks home more than planned and PC gaming is, of course, a perfect indoor time-sink of a hobby. Good on ya for staying home to game if you're able, folks.
]]>It's been over a year, and I still have yet to find an idea in any game that comes close to matching the brilliance of the interlocking hex-tablet-drone system in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's battle royale mode, Danger Zone. It belongs to the extremely select class of new ideas in games that not only offers several compelling points of departure from the tried-and-tested genre formula, but also solves almost every single one of the problems that have plagued the genre since its inception.
]]>This weekend, the ESL Pro Tour Masters Championship stops at Poland's Spodek arena for three days of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and StarCraft II matches in the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2020. The arena can hold 11,500 spectators but while IEM Katowice sold out, it has no crowd. Last night, barely 15 hours before the event started, Polish authorities revoked its mass event license due to concerns about that there coronavirus. The matches are still going ahead, just with no spectators. ESL say they will refund IEM tickets but can't refund travel and accommodation costs.
]]>While Counter-Strike has long seemed one of those games that might just have found its final form and will now be around forever, I am surprised that it's still breaking its own records. Over the weekend, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive set a new record for the number of people in-game online at the same time, beating a record set in April 2016. That was back before CS:GO went free-to-play, mind, but it's taken a year for free CS to climb up and topple that mighty record. 901,681 players on Sunday, that's the new high.
]]>We've been there. You're rushing long-A on Dust, asking for smoke cover, but the response is deadlier than any digital gunshot. A high-pitched wail ruptures your headset, puncturing eardrums and shattering glass. Your monitor's ruined. When the dust settles and the ringing stops, the comms are wild with name-calling, homophobic slurs and swears that'd make a sailor blush. But mic screamers beware. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is about to take action against abusive communications by automatically muting troublesome teammates.
]]>Looking to optimise your time spent playing CS:GO? Then you’ve come to the right place.
]]>Crikey, glad that's over. It looked like we'd lost Steam for a couple of hours. Today's outage not only affected store listings, community pages, friends lists and workshop access, but also took several of Valve's lovely multiplayer gunshoots/wizard bashers/hat-acquirers offline. Countless poor Steam users were forced to do other things with their time - playing their Steam games alone, going elsewhere for their online kicks, or perhaps even stepping away from their computers entirely to make a nice cuppa.
]]>It's been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that's happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you, but a day's work for us. Below you'll find our picks for the 50 greatest games released on PC across the past decade.
]]>Algorithms aren't the answer to everything, but they can help you catch Counter-Strike: Global Offensive cheaters. A teenager going by "2Eggs" has apparently identified 14,000 of the buggers, knocking together an AI that can analyse reports of potential cheaters in a fraction of the time it would take a human. He's called it HestiaNet, after the Greek goddess "of hearth and fire". I'm happy enough for the over-performing bedroom AI to have a grandiose name, even though that number might have more to do with Valve's own software than Eggs'es.
]]>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has never been all that interested in world-building. It's an esport: the pro players are the real characters, inhabiting faceless Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists in high stakes matches where every bullet counts. Operation Shattered Web mixes things up, bringing a host of new player skins with CS:GO's first-ever battle pass. Now, you can stride through time-worn battlefields as a gruff n' tough special-force veteran or notorious global criminal of your choosing.
Unless you want to be a woman. There's only one of those.
]]>From today, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's loot box keys can no longer be resold on Steam's marketplace. Valve are putting a lock on their keys because of the global gangs of evil-doers who were using the keys to launder money. From now on, any key bought will be bound to the purchaser's account.
]]>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive became a slightly less accurate name, as 20,000 accounts have been banned from FaceIt's platform since late August by the recently-unleashed admin AI Minerva.
After months spent in machine learning trials, the system built with Google tech led to a 20% reduction in the number of toxic messages between August and September according to FaceIt's blog.
I've changed my mind. Algorithms are good now.
]]>An enterprising thief allegedly burgled Valve's Bellevue office last June, making off with a prop (I assume) minigun and an estimated $40,000 (£32k) worth of games and equipment. The intruder shoved the goods into a wheelie bin and lugged to his car across the street.
There will be no jokes about this grave matter.
]]>It's a lively day in box news. In the one corner, we have Rocket League developers Psyonix laying out their plans to get rid of 'em. Crates will be replaced with "Blueprints" for specific cosmetics, which you can leave laying about your inventory until you forget about them or choose to cough up. In the other corner, we have Valve, changing how CS:GO loot crates work in France to make gambling regulation less likely, while preserving the addictive qualities that get gambling regulators concerned in the first place.
I know who I want to win. Maybe I'll put money on it.
]]>What’s Another Thing You Could Buy Instead Of GTA V Again?
]]>We've had a few people asking how to get these stupid annoying articles out of the news feed for their favourite games on Steam. Read on to learn more...
]]>Exciting news! Steam Charts is proud to announce it's to be an Epic exclusive! From now on you can read your favourite article about the top selling games on Steam exclusively on the Epic Store!
But don't worry, long-term readers - you'll still be able to read the articles right here on RPS, after just one year. Everyone's a winner!
]]>The StarLadder Berlin Major will be the second Major CS:GO tournament of the year, and it'll see a number of the best teams in the world duke it out for the whopping $1 million prize pool.
]]>URGENT: Disparaging words have been said about the game you like by people who like the other game you don't like.
]]>Why, what's this? Oh I say, a Steam Charts you say? How intriguing.
]]>According to my therapist, we all need approval. So I’m glad that the latest Valve Initiative (TM) is all about that. From now on, content uploaded to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2 Steam Workshops will require Valve’s approval before being released to the public. This is to combat the “free skin” ads that plague the workshop.
]]>You can now vent your frustrations with tech startups inside Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. A new map, Breach, sends us to fight through a startup office which even has a slide in the lobby. Of course they have a slide. That's just how fun and anti-establishment they are. Not that we're allowed to ride the slide in-game. Yesterday's update also brought back Seaside, a map removed a few years back, and has reworked areas of Vertigo. After all, man cannot live on Dust alone - no matter what Dustnet's fascinating futureworld suggests.
]]>According to a recent study by civil rights group the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 74% of people who play online multiplayer games have experienced some form of harassment, with 65% experiencing “severe” harassment, which may include physical threats or stalking. And that's only the start of their downpour of awful numbers, which cover bigotry, extremist views, which games have the worst occurrence rates, and more.
]]>A work of art. A timeless masterpiece. The pinnacle of level design mastery. Many things have been said about Bombsite A - but does it hold up in a new angle?
Everyone knows Dust2. These days, you can play it across three separate official games, or as a thousand custom maps. You can play Dust2 in Minecraft. You can play the deconstructed remains of mankind's last Dust2 server, Dustnet. In VR.
This latest interpretation comes courtesy of Mark Mocherad's Polystrike, a Dota 2 mod that takes Counter-Strike's hectic gunfights and pulls the camera way, way up. The mod is currently very early in development but already looks rather neat.
]]>Were Plato alive today, he'd declare a sixth platonic solid: de_dust2, representing the sixth element of devotion. This sacred configuration of geometry escaped its confinement in Counter-Strike and for eighteen years the map has lived in the hearts of men, re-emerging in dreams, in other games with level editors, and in mashed potato sculptures carved at the dinner table. But in the far future, the last remaining copy of de_dust2 is maintained inside Dustnet, a multiplayer sandbox building self-aware deathmatch museum... thing? It's out now, I've played a bit, I adore it, and I'm excited to figure out exactly what it is.
]]>Are you looking to meet heavily-armed and available men in your area for hot action... and maybe more? Someone who won't flashbang you then run? Or fancy a group of like-minded murdermen for chat and banter? Pick up your mouse and click on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which has added a looking-for-group system to help players party up and party down. The game already has matchmaking but this lets players investigate each other and have a chat before they commit to anything.
]]>Thanks to a childhood wasted in virtual velociraptor fighting pits, I will never not hear the words "Danger Zone!" in the chipper yet exasperated tones of a struggling 90's game show jingle singer. I lured you in with a dash of raptor chat, there, but sadly even after the latest update to Counter-Strike Global Offensive's battle royale mode, the dinosaur count remains at nill.
The new map, jumpy boots, springy mines and respawn system counts, on the other hand, have shot right up. I have had a good (brief) bouncy time.
]]>The BLAST Pro Series heads to Miami for its second competition of 2019 and it’ll feature six of the top teams in the world squaring off for a shot at the $250,000 prize pool.
]]>If you've racked up hundreds of hours in competitive CS:GO attempting to rank up, chances are you'll have realised that it's not easy to climb the ladder. There's a lot to think about and consider, even if you're a seasoned FPS veteran. Below we've put together a number of factors to think about if you're chasing the competitive grind, as well as few tips and tricks to help you on your way to the next skill group.
]]>While the majority of professional CS:GO players deserve serious respect for their impressive skills, there are a select few who stand head and shoulders above the rest, reaching true legendary status. CS:GO may be a game that relies on the lightning reflexes, solid communication and synergy of a strong team, but that doesn’t mean that individuals cannot shine in their own rights.
]]>The WESG World Finals are CS:GO’s equivalent of a world championships. While it may lack the magnitude of a Major, it’s still a great chance to catch some of the best teams across the globe battle it out for a pretty significant prize pool, and of course - bragging rights.
]]>I'm not big into numberwang. Vast numbers of people playing a game might indicate that it's fun, or it might indicate that it's Ark: Survival Evolved. (I haven't played Ark and it could be amazing, this is irresponsible journalism and I will hand in my badge and gun shortly.) Point being, it's more interesting to write about what has made a game popular than the fact that it is so.
Right. Now I have to convince you this animated graph of the most played Steam games from the past four years is fascinating.
]]>Excuse me while I come to terms with the fact that I’ve been playing de_dust2 for 18 years. If my playing Dust2 was a person, I realise, it could legally drink, vote, and join the army in the UK. My playing Dust2 could have its university picked out, could be settling into a career path. It could have moved out. I could have driven it, teary eyed, to its new home, where it would find its own way in life, maybe even find its own first-person shooter map that it could play for 18 years.
I’m trying to say that I have been playing Dust2 for a very long time. And somehow, I’m still not any fucking good at it. Sheer bloody mindedness alone should’ve seen me get incrementally better, but dipping back into the newly free-to-play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, I’m still making the same mistakes I was in 2001. I’m still rushing B too fast and getting mown down by a CT in the cracked wall. I’m still hawking around the AWP corridor from the T spawn, getting my head taken off by a sniper shot for my troubles. I’m still getting flashbanged by everyone, be they friend or foe. It’s frustrating to still be this bad, to still not understand Counter-Strike’s emphasis on precision and movement.
]]>Battle royale games. For a long time the RPS treehouse was unable to comprehend these chaotic, destructive influences on society. Shooters, yes, we understand. Survival games, we get it. But 100-person death marches in a shrinking zone of hate? What’s so good about that? Well, this week we’ve got a young person* to help us decipher this most murderous of riddles.
]]>Many new CS:GO players tend to focus on mastering weapons rather than supporting items. While understanding weapons and the best possible times to purchase them is certainly important, developing an appreciation for when and where to use grenades can have a huge impact on a round, potentially leading your team to victory.
]]>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's latest major update brought with it one of the finest battle royale game modes we've yet played. Using CSGO's tried-and-true physics and gunplay mechanics as a foundation, Valve's new Danger Zone game mode flips the battle royale formula on its head, introducing a number of major innovations which set Danger Zone well apart from its rivals.
]]>CSGO's Danger Zone features a brand new map, Blacksite, which dwarfs regular CSGO maps in size, but remains absolutely tiny compared to the maps of other battle royales such as Fortnite and PUBG. But despite its modest scale for its genre, Blacksite is absolutely packed with buildings, loot, trees, cliffs, and other details that are well worth learning the ins and outs of if you want to survive there.
]]>Whether you’re a brand new player or a seasoned veteran, there’s always room for improvement in CS:GO. Employing even small changes to your attitude and habits in Competitive games can make a huge difference to your team, making you a more valuable player.
]]>You could sit there and watch thousands upon thousands of hours' worth of the best CS:GO player doing their thing, explaining the best positions to hold, how the game's economy works and what weapons are best to use in certain situations. Having a strong grasp of the game's mechanics, along with extensive tactical knowledge is fantastic- it really is - but you need to be able to back it up with decent aim.
]]>One of the terms you'll hear discussed a lot in the CS:GO scene surrounds the concept of “economy” - something that doesn't very intuitively explain itself.
]]>CS:GO is one of the few games we've played which hands players a duty. If you're someone who has spent a lot of time with the game, then you'll be asked to help the community a little. The system goes by the name of "Overwatch", and within it you'll play a part in weeding out the cheaters by acting as one member of a virtual jury.
]]>CS:GO really is one of a kind when it comes down to customisation options. You're able to build the game's HUD in almost any way you see fit, even to the point of altering the way your character model bobs when walking.
]]>Looking for the best CS:GO launch options to boost your FPS? If you're looking for 2023 to be your year in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, then you should spend at least a few minutes updating your launch options to make sure you have the best options available for maximising performance and FPS.
If you're new to launch options, don't worry. They're extremely simple to use, and below we'll let you know exactly how to use launch options to give yourself a potentially huge performance boost for free in CS:GO. Updated for 2023, this guide will walk you through the best launch options to use and how to set them up so you never have to worry about performance drops in the heat of battle ever again.
]]>Want to know how to enable and open the console in CS:GO? If you want to get serious about Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, then you should spend at least a bit of time using the developer console. While many settings in CS:GO are easily accessible from - you guessed it - the Settings menu, there's a wealth of other useful options that can be enabled or disabled just by typing a few commands in the CS:GO console.
Follow this quick guide below to learn how to get started with the command console in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. We'll walk you through how to enable the console for the first time, how to input commands, and how to rebind your console hotkey to help you use it more easily.
]]>It won't take players long at all to discover that CS:GO can be a brutally unforgiving game, with no end of ever-deepening systems and mechanics to master once you've got to grips even with the basics of play.
]]>Surf maps have been a huge part of the Counter-Strike franchise for years, having provided the community with a very different experience when compared to the usual Casual, Deathmatch and Competitive offerings which have become staples in CS:GO.
]]>Purchase a game nowadays and it's hardly ever playable right off the bat - there's always a day one patch to apply.
]]>If you've never played CS:GO before, then at first glance it can seem like a rather primitive version of the flashier, more explosive shooters that tend to dominate the market. First impressions can be deceiving, however, and this is actually one of the more in-depth and intricate FPS games out there.
]]>ANOTHER ONE. I know. But wait! Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's battle royale mode might be the most interesting take on the genre I've yet seen. It's snappier, shoppier, and laces every moment with a tension stemming from one eternally nagging question. Do you peek at the Ipad that tells you roughly where your enemies are, or nah?
]]>We all know the coming of Christmas means the goose is getting fat, but what about the chicken? She's warm and cosy, as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has kicked off its festivities by giving chickens wee Christmas jumpers. These jumpers are #2 on the definitive ranking of CS:GO chicken costumes so that's certainly something to celebrate. Other Christmas festivities include piles of snowballs in spawn points to lob at folks, the return of Militia's snowy variant, giftwrapped C4, and a new coin trinket for veterans who've been Counter-Striking for ten years. But mostly it's about the chickens.
]]>Esports stalwart shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has gone free-to-play, accompanied by a new quickfire eighteen-player battle royale mode called Danger Zone. Seemingly out of nowhere Valve have announced that the game is free for everyone on Steam, with previous owners being upgraded to 'Prime' account status and awarded a "commemorative Loyalty Badge". Prime players get matched with their own kind, so the influx of new blood shouldn't disturb the old pros. New mode Danger Zone's page makes it sound speedy compared to other battle royales too.
]]>I, Alice Bee, have returned from a week off and everything has changed. Matt is in the office now, and complained about having to get up at 8.15am. This complaint made me furious and I am telling everyone. My desk has been moved. There is no milk in the fridge. I am confused, and I can't remember all the HTML codes to write this very post. It's going to take ages. The new world is terrifying. But we always have the Steam Charts, even when John is away on his holidays.
]]>Several video games industry associations have reacted to the news that the USA's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are planning to investigate loot boxes over concerns about potential impact on children. America's Entertainment Software Association (ESA), whose duties include running the E3 games show, have repeated their stance that loot boxes "can enhance the experience" and aren't gambling and they're fine okay just leave it. The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), on the other hand, have said it's time for the industry to step up and self-regulate before more governments follow Belgium and restrict loot boxes by law.
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