Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Go, Go, Go: CS:GO Footage (Go!)

By Jim Rossignol on December 2nd, 2011 at 12:57 pm.


Ah, so maybe we do have CS:GO beta keys after all… We’d probably better get on with playing that. (Also Tribes: Ascend, which we haven’t quite caught up with yet either.) Anyway! I am sure a few of you are already saving up for Desert Eagles, while the rest of the internet will have to make do with a few measly minutes of game footage here and there, such as that found below this post. I’ve also dropped in a comparison video which compares the Source version of CS with CS:GO. It certainly looks pretty, and I am sure Hidden Path/Valve are making a decent job of the manshoots, too. OR ARE THEY?


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90 Comments »

  1. 02/12/2011 at 13:02 Artist says:

    *Yawn* Will the fascination for CS will end before or past the fascination for WoW?

    • 02/12/2011 at 13:25 FlammableD says:

      NO FUN ALLOWED

    • 02/12/2011 at 13:46 Alexander Norris says:

      NO FUN ALLOWED

      This is accurate because CS is no fun. At all.

    • 02/12/2011 at 13:58 DrGonzo says:

      For you. Ever heard of subjectivity?

      Oh no of course ita only remained popular for such a long time because its so little fun to play.

    • 02/12/2011 at 14:04 VelvetFistIronGlove says:

      If you don’t play counter-strike, then the terrorists have already won.

    • 02/12/2011 at 16:16 hosndosn says:

      I have heard of subjectivity but isn’t it a bit dull to put a “in my opinion” behind every single thing you post on the internet?

    • 02/12/2011 at 17:43 lijenstina says:

      NO PUN ALLOWED.

    • 02/12/2011 at 20:12 newprince says:

      Haters gon’ hate. The strongest part of CS has always been the purity of the gameplay. It’s tight, fair, and requires an obscene amount of time to get good at. People who get frustrated and give up often complain about it, but they should move on to the other 1,000,000 shooters that offer military FPS stuff. I started it in 2000 and have always gone back to it, so in that sense you could compare it to WoW. There’s a reason people like it, though, just like there’s a reason people like BF and CoD.

    • 03/12/2011 at 06:13 SketchyGalore says:

      I will admit, my first reaction to what I’ve seen so far is “Man, they REALLY don’t want to change much”. But I’m kinda on the fence about how I feel about that. I was never a huge CS guy, but I still liked it well enough. Plus, at this point, “modernization” of the game would be what… adding iron sights and perks and calling it Call of Counterstrike? Maybe it is best to just go with the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ theory. My only wish is that they balance it well enough that there aren’t 3000 “no-AWP” servers or something.

    • 16/12/2011 at 00:20 lazen says:

      It’s just me or the “bot” in the first video seems to run at 0:52 after jumping and when he falls back? I hope it’s just an optical effect

  2. 02/12/2011 at 13:04 Petethegoat says:

    Are there any differences to CS: Source?

    • 02/12/2011 at 13:18 Echo Black says:

      New weapons and maps. And allegedly the way weapons handle has been changed

    • 02/12/2011 at 15:14 Tei says:

      see video ~#2

    • 02/12/2011 at 15:28 Milky1985 says:

      Weapon reocil and spray pattern seems very different.

      But most importantly, they have committed a sin that is the biggest of all sins.

      You can no longer attach a silencer to the CT assult rifle (or if you can i can;t figure out how to sodding do it) :(

    • 02/12/2011 at 20:14 newprince says:

      You know the silencer/suppressor will be on the final M4! I wouldn’t worry about that… did you try the USP pistol for a silencer?

  3. 02/12/2011 at 13:05 Orija says:

    The graphical improvements aren’t anything significant if they have to make a comparison video to show them.

    • 02/12/2011 at 13:17 Stevostin says:

      Maybe there’s a difference between “they have to” and “it’s fun to”. I sure think there’s a huge difference, although I don’t know if the visual tweaks really are all for the greater good of gameplay.

    • 02/12/2011 at 13:36 Runty McTall says:

      I disagree with this actually – I haven’t played CC:S for a while and was pretty shocked to see how basic it looked. Maybe I have a bad memory for this sort of thing but I often recall games looking much better than they actually did. The only thing that really seems to stick is big technology jumps like shadows (or moving shadows or self shadowing and so on).

      Got to be a bit annoying for the designers though – put 16x the texture quality and 10x the polys on there (or whatever) and have people look blankly at you and say “hasn’t it always looked like that?”

    • 02/12/2011 at 16:06 mod the world says:

      Is that CSS aztec in the video put on lowest settings? To me it seems so…

    • 03/12/2011 at 02:53 Xerian says:

      Neither of these videos are posted by Valve. So saying “They” is quite… Meh. The Graphics-comparison was upped’ by a player, as is most Graphics-comparisons for a ton of stuff.

  4. 02/12/2011 at 13:09 boywithumbrella says:

    Maybe it’s just me, but the player in the first video apparently can’t aim for shit. Well, that or (s)he using a gamepad instead of mouse…

  5. 02/12/2011 at 13:10 dahools says:

    Is he partly invisible or is the guy in that video just Nails?

  6. 02/12/2011 at 13:11 Guiscard says:

    Other than the brief images of Aztec’s environment, it just feels like a modded version of CSS running custom weapon and player models and new environment textures. Even down to more complex custom reload animations being unnaturally sped up to fit in with the original reload time.

    I believe this is a Valve game I shall not by purchasing.

  7. 02/12/2011 at 13:13 Jockie says:

    The problem (for someone like me, who is a lapsed casual cs player) is that everyone else with a beta key so far seems to be a single bullet headshot ninja, whereas it seemingly takes me a full AK clip at point blank range sprayed in bursts to kill an enemy who is actually afk, a single glock bullet seems to take me out every round.

    I think I have been softened by years of playing other shooters.

    • 02/12/2011 at 13:42 Shooop says:

      I’m fairly sure that’s just CS. Which is why I fail to see its appeal.

    • 02/12/2011 at 13:55 DrGonzo says:

      Yep. CS rewards skill and improving your game. Which is why I will be switching straight back to it when this is released and saying good riddance to Bf3.

    • 02/12/2011 at 14:21 Shooop says:

      CS rewards skill and improving your game using aimbots.

      Fixed.

    • 02/12/2011 at 15:43 Requisition says:

      How does CS “reward” aimbots any more than any game “rewards” using hacks?

    • 02/12/2011 at 16:27 Shooop says:

      Because there’s a notion that CS is the game of “pros” and liking anything else or not being able to make 80 headshots in a row in CS makes you a “casual.” The later is impossible without cheating obviously.

      In short, more bragging rights/e-peen points for internet denizens.

    • 02/12/2011 at 18:57 sharkh20 says:

      @shooop

      Just because you suck at the game, doesn’t mean everyone else hacks. Probably around 99% of the people that get called a hacker in CS aren’t even hacking. Makes it seem like CS has a lot more hackers than it really does. The only reward for aimbotting is everyone hating you forever and getting banned.

    • 02/12/2011 at 20:17 subedii says:

      I suck at CS:S.

      I still think Shoop is acting kind of daft really.

      I mean the statements about “pros” could be made about something like Starcraft as well, and it’s just as daft there.

      For some people, the fun of these kinds of competitive games is getting to the top of the competitive arena. For most of the rest of us, fun in these games comes from playing with people around your skill level. Which is why Starcraft has such a huge emphasis on its league system. I can suck at Starcraft, and it doesn’t matter, because what’s important is that competitive multiplayer games are most fun when they’re closely matched, and that’s what the matchmaking system does. And as you play, you feel yourself improving as well.

      Likewise with CS, which is why with CS:GO, the most important thing here isn’t going to be the visual updates. For me, it’s not even going to be the balance changes that will mostly be the purview of the ultra-hardcore players. It’s the fact that it’s going to have a universal skills based matchmaking system, and hopefully, a wide enough playerbase for it to work.

      Short of playing on a server with a community I know (which makes even most lopsided games of TF2 fun for me), that’s the fact that most interests me here and probably has the greatest chance of bringing me back to it.

      And for those people who are crazy good at the game after what’s effectively a decade play, well, it’s not like there’s somehow a need for me to resent them for that or something. Or you know, accuse them of say, using aimbots.

    • 02/12/2011 at 20:18 newprince says:

      When aimbotting occurs, it’s obvious. Ironically, it’s most obvious to the good players, whom newcomers usually believe to be the hackers in the first place :-/ It’s messed up.

      For an aimbotter to not get noticed, he basically has to sandbag and die fairly often to make it seem like he’s not cheating. But think about how dumb that is for everyone involved.

    • 03/12/2011 at 06:05 Shooop says:

      I knew it was coming. The old, “You just suck at it!” tirade. Come on now.

      And cheating always obvious? Erm, has anyone ever been an admin on a FPS server before? You have to take into account high mouse sensitivity and knowledge of the maps that some players have. It’s not always easy to spot a cheat in a game, some people are very good at being subtle. Really I wish it was as obvious to spot all cheaters as you say! CS:S certainly doesn’t do admins any favors by not including a first-person spectator mode either.

      Can we not agree there is something most definitely not normal about snapping off one-shot kills with a pistol from a good hundred yards away on a regular basis in any game? I was in fact awful at CS I don’t deny that, but I definitely saw some very questionable things fairly often.

      That said, if you enjoy it, great. Hopefully this game delivers what you’re looking for. I’m personally a bit interested in if there’s any less punishing game modes included and how they work. Because getting shot in the face 4 seconds into a round 5 times in a row is just not something I call fun. Sorry.

    • 17/12/2011 at 01:12 Freeman720 says:

      @Shoop: What drugs are you smoking? I need some. As someone who’s played CS for YEARS, and am both good at the game, and who has used aimbots in the past, trust me. It’s REALLY FUCKING OBVIOUS when someone’s using an aimbot. High or low sensitivity. and “no first person spectating” ARE YOU RETARDED? Have you never played a shooter on PC before in your LIFE? For fuck’s sake, you’d think a PC gamer would have the common sense to try different buttons or look in the options when they can’t figure out how to do something. Jesus.

  8. 02/12/2011 at 13:14 philbot says:

    [Obligatory comment about too much FPS]

  9. 02/12/2011 at 13:43 vanzer says:

    sigh…

    Same shit i used to play 12 years ago…. pass

  10. 02/12/2011 at 13:51 DrGonzo says:

    Argh those YouTube clips are html5 meaning you can’t view them on your mobile easily. :(

    If you can’t see the graphical update is rather significant I would consider an eye test. Its certainly not up there with Portal 2 graphically, but to my eyes its brought it nicely up to date.

    This may sound a bit mad but I prefer this style to even bf3s. Which to me is a cluster fuck of pop in and excessive blinding post processing. I prefer clean, crisp and a constant 60 frames a second.

    • 02/12/2011 at 14:47 Stephen Roberts says:

      Pop in is one of the greatest sins of optimising for a few frames per second game development. My favourite perpetrator of this would be Crysis 2 where I recall shooting a mysteriously metallic soldier. Gave up after a while to walk forward and discover he was behind a fucking ventilation unit. I’m surprised I even finished Crysis 2.

      A good example of it done well would be Just Cause 2.

    • 02/12/2011 at 20:14 bigblack says:

      Just started playing Just Cause 2 and it really is beautiful!

  11. 02/12/2011 at 14:06 Dakia says:

    Ahh Youtube comments. Some of them for these videos are even more hilarious than the norm.

    • 02/12/2011 at 16:28 Shooop says:

      That’s it I’m saying it. I didn’t want to, but I have to.

      Counter-Strike’s community is the video game world’s 4chan.

  12. 02/12/2011 at 14:10 xcession says:

    The CS:GO release seems a bit cynical to me. The first CS must have been at the start of (if not *the* starter of) the whole counter-terrorism modern warfare genre of FPS games that COD/BF have now got a monopoly on. While COD/BF/etc have improved release on release year after year, CS has received very little love. With the love for modern shooty FPSs at probably an all time high it seems rather transparently money grabbing to give CS this much needed but way-too-late love.

    I totally get the “if it ain’t broke” idea behind just giving it an interface/graphical overhaul, but plenty of people were playing it already weren’t they? Did those people not enjoy it or something? I doubt it. It seems like CS:GO is only about inserting itself into a market it shouldn’t really be part of, for whatever sales they can get by merely associating themselves as a competitor to the other, bigger titles.

    • 02/12/2011 at 14:23 kemryl says:

      At the risk of sounding like I think it’s the fault of esports, I think it’s esports’ fault. Valve is probably scared to death of doing anything substantially different to the series for fear of CS losing its spot as one of the most popular shooters on the market to play professionally. A similar thing happened with Starcraft 2, and is likely to happen with DOTA 2 as well.

      (For the record, I’m fine with esports. It’s a bit sad that all the money that goes into it is scaring developers away from innovating in areas other than spectatorship though.)

    • 02/12/2011 at 15:45 Requisition says:

      While I can certainly empathize with your sentiment, it is much more than a mere graphical upgrade. It’s introducing a lot of, in my opinion, needed changes that are going to be a great thing for the pro scene.

  13. 02/12/2011 at 14:25 airtekh says:

    I’m really finding it difficult to work up any enthusiasm for CS:GO.

    I tired of Counter-Strike long before CS:Source, though I did have a lot of fun with it, but I haven’t seen anything so far that would entice me back.

    • 02/12/2011 at 21:23 Kadayi says:

      ^this.

      I put a good few years into playing CS:S at clan level (good old enemy down league) but I’ve moved on.

      I’ll also be honest and say I think this looks plain terrible (more like CS:Dead on arrival), and if Valve think that it’s somehow going to magically win them some leverage in the lucrative console MP space Vs the kinetic delights of BF3, MW3 and Halo Reach I think they are tripping balls tbh.

      As a company I think Valve have gotten rather complacent in the last few years, and despite being able to still deliver quality titles like Portal 2, I can’t help but feel that they’re lagging behind other development studios, in terms of overall product these days. Albeit they’ve nipped and tucked it over the years the Source engine really is beginning to show it’s age now Vs the Frostbytes and Unreals. Plus the continued non appearance of ‘episode3′ and ‘Valve time’ is a joke that’s running increasingly thin. Give it a couple more years and Gordon Freeman and the playstyle of Half-life will feel positive geriatric Vs other games out there, in the same way DNF did earlier this year.

    • 03/12/2011 at 06:48 TODD says:

      On the other hand Kayadi, it looks like this cost next to nothing to produce. If CS:GO sells five hundred copies, it will pay for the amateur modder who just increased texture resolution on existing maps and accounts for the game’s entire budget.

  14. 02/12/2011 at 14:28 Eggy says:

    After playing games like Battlefield 3 which have proper animations and somewhat realistic movement this looks like a joke.

    • 02/12/2011 at 14:46 Casshern says:

      To be honest I could care less about animations and grafics, I just want a shooter that feels right. And none of the CoD MW’s or BF’s were fun, shooting just felt awkward.

    • 02/12/2011 at 16:23 bear912 says:

      Counter-Strike and Battlefield have completely different goals as games. They are each fairly effective in their own goals, but the are nearly as far apart as two “military shooters” can be…

  15. 02/12/2011 at 14:43 Jahkaivah says:

    That beta gameplay is indeed offensive.

  16. 02/12/2011 at 14:56 Jackablade says:

    Given that the purists will refuse to play this anyway, it would have been nice to see them give the game a bit of an overhaul beyond up-resing a few models and textures

    • 02/12/2011 at 15:38 Milky1985 says:

      When you play it you will realise thats its nto just a few textures and models, the guns all (so far) seem different. Not for the better imo currently but then again thats porbably just because i am so used to how the guns work on the other games (and i still can’t aim snipers for love nor money)

      The gametypes do apparently have an overhall, but not sure what can and can’t be said about that.

    • 02/12/2011 at 23:24 arctic.vampire says:

      You mean the purists that got invited to Valve HQ to help tweak the game?
      You mean the purists that delayed the release of the public closed beta for a month?

      I expect better comments from RPS..
      Just the level of HERP DERP in the comments is mind boggling..

      This game is set to be on Xbox360 as DL only title for 20ish$..
      Valve have stated multiple times this is not to be taken as CS2..
      It’s a way for them to get CS onto modern consoles and get an updated version out for PC..

      The tears of “YNOEPISODE3″ is delicious..

    • 04/12/2011 at 07:44 Jackablade says:

      I mean the purists who refused to play Counterstrike Source because version 1.6 was betterer.

    • 04/12/2011 at 07:46 Doesn'tmeananything says:

      Then maybe their target audience is not those purists?

      They would still play their favourite version while the rest will move to or begin with CS:GO.

  17. 02/12/2011 at 15:34 zeroskill says:

    A lesson to learn from this comment section: RPS, do a favor to your reader base and stop posting news about the most popular e-sport series in existence and go back to posting news about casual fun online games like Battlefield 3 that don’t support modding of any description.

  18. 02/12/2011 at 15:57 ResonanceCascade says:

    I wonder what Valve is going to do about the negative reaction to this. Most people weren’t clamoring for a new CS anyway, so I don’t really know what releasing a half-assed update like this was supposed to accomplish. It’s really hard to be excited about the exact same game with a few tweaks and “new” graphics.

    • 02/12/2011 at 21:34 Kadayi says:

      If they have any sense they’ll shit can it like they did the earlier versions of TF2 and go back to formula (or work on HL2:EP3 like 99% of their fan base actually want). I’m not seeing an audience for this beyond perhaps those people already playing CS:S tbh. The hardcore CS 1.6 players didn’t bite for CS:S, so more pretties isn’t going to lure them away either, and even with the visual updates, it still looks terrible Vs the gritty stylings of MW3 or BF3 and that’s just not going to fly with the console gamers they are hoping to get on board.

    • 03/12/2011 at 04:59 stupid_mcgee says:

      @Kadayi: You do realize this is also being released on consoles, right? That right there is a huge market that Valve currently does not and cannot reach with CS:S or CS1.6. Also, it’s not a full-on AAA title. It’s going to be released as a download-only title for consoles, probably around the $20 mark, like Payday: The Heist.

    • 03/12/2011 at 11:15 Kadayi says:

      @stupid_mcgee

      Yes I’am very aware that it’s being released on consoles. However that it’s going to be cheap does automatically mean it’s going to win over people or successfully build or retain a player base. Sure it will sell copies, but unless it actively convinces in a month or so it will have died a death. I mean I’m sure there are still some people playing TF2 on 360, but how many Vs the numbers playing on PC?

  20. 02/12/2011 at 16:15 Dobleclick says:

    It looks terrible for a game to be released in 2012, even if it’s all about its supposedly unparalelled gameplay… IMHO, the first really BAD thing to be released by Valve in a looong time.

  21. 02/12/2011 at 19:05 Walsh says:

    :( to always chambering a round when changing magazines when there is already one in the chamber

  22. 02/12/2011 at 19:38 MichaelPalin says:

    Yahtzee said about Portal 2: “whenever Q&A at Valve sees a beta-tester looking at a wall for more than 5 seconds, they put an arrow on that wall”. I see this is getting even more pervasive in CS:GO. When I played Portal 2 I realized something, I can’t stand Valve’s omnipresent dadening of their players anymore.

  23. 02/12/2011 at 19:56 didthedew says:

    No hats?

  24. 02/12/2011 at 20:57 Revenge says:

    Hahaha oh shit it’s the old CS xbox1 menu pimped out.
    Looks like CS. Sounds like CS. Good if you like that sort of stuff.

  25. 02/12/2011 at 23:34 Solid Snake on a Plane says:

    I honestly think CS:S looks better. It had a rather simplistic aesthetic that told you all you needed to know (you have a gun, you point it at men, you make them die). CS:GO looks like an awkward cross between a more modern shooter and the art style of Left 4 Dead 2 I loathed in an attempt to update it visually that I feel makes it look like a poorly done Free to Play game. The animations look rather amateurish – almost like something you’d download from FPSBanana.

    Ah well. CS:S and I had a decent 300 hours, but I left it long ago, and this doesn’t look like it’ll be enough to reignite my interest.

    Ahem. Of course I mean: THIS IS CONSOLIFICATION AND HATS AND BROWN AND BLOOM! I REMEMBER WHEN I WAS BEATING BACK WHIPPERSNAPPERS IN THE LAN ONLY VERSION OF THE ORIGINAL HALF-LIFE 1 MOD.

    Although I must admit that radial menu looks pretty snazzy.

    • 03/12/2011 at 00:12 Shifty Pete says:

      Agreed. CSS looks better to me.

      Also, yeah the new radial menu looks snazzy, but in practise i would prefer the CSS type.

    • 03/12/2011 at 01:25 Squirm says:

      You can still use hotkeys no matter how “snazzy” and radial the new interface is.
      b63b64b65b64b63b6bb614

      Simples!

  26. 02/12/2011 at 23:42 MD says:

    Get in position and wait for my GO.

  27. 03/12/2011 at 00:11 Shifty Pete says:

    Does anyone else think that CS:S looks better? I mean, of course CS:GO has more polygons and remade levels and shit, but it seems really clunky to me. The weapon models and animations look shite.

  28. 03/12/2011 at 01:24 Squirm says:

    Enemy down was always the laughing stock of the competitive community.

    Source vs frostbyte is essentially: Clean visuals vs Eye searing bloom.

    Cs vs modernbattle musclemen 3 is: Balanced maps and gameplay vs CHOKE CHOKE CHOKE CORRIDOR CHOKE LOL LOL gameplay.

  29. 08/12/2011 at 03:39 Jeff says:

    I love CS:S , not for the default game, but for the WCS mod. Some people say it’s god awful, but I love it.

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