Counter-Strike

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…

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…

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…

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…

The dramatically named Korean developer Pearl Abyss has three new games whirring away on their development PCs. The developers of Black Desert Online are working on three new MMOs: one shooter from the creator of Counter-Strike, one child-friendly jaunt, and one fantasy game. The three games have a proper reveal planned for on November 14, during Pearl Abyss Connect at G-STAR 2019. For now, we…

The beta for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s shiny new UI, Panorama, is now available to players who fancy a preview. Valve is touting it as “the most substantial change to the look and feel of CS:GO since the game was released in 2012.” Every part of the UI has been updated, so it might take a bit of time to get used to.

A new mod for Dark Souls mixes the brutal action-RPG with Counter-Strike's mod Gun Game (or CS:GO's Arms Race mode, if you'd rather). Much as Gun Game rewards Counter-Strikers with new weapons for killing other players, the DaS_GG mod gives the Chosen Undead levels and fancier weapons for whacking folks. Oh, but it takes them away as you get hit. Even if you know Lordran…

Though Half-Life [official site] is almost nineteen years old and its sanctioned fan remake Black Mesa is nearing completion, Valve have launched a wee patch for their pretty okay or whatever vintage FPS. The patch fixes a few crashes and exploits, and hit other Half-Life engine games too, such as classic Counter-Strike. Given how much of modern PC games history connects to Half-Life and its…

I've been a member of many games communities over the years - clans, guilds, forums - but the one I remember most fondly was a server.

Developers imitate each other, as do writers, musicians and artists, and Blizzard are the best in the business at it. No other company is so good at distilling the sweat of another’s brow and refining it into pure, unadulterated joy. Yet, while it’s easy to see in Overwatch the objective-based gameplay of Team Fortress 2, the team dynamics of League of Legends or the creative…

Happy 20th birthday, Valve! Yesterday. Happy 20th yesterday. Sorry, I only just saw the Facebook notification. On August 24th, 1996, ex-Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington made a beautiful baby who was mighty eye-opening.In the dreamy game of "What if...?" one curious hypothetical is: what if Valve never existed? There can't be many companies who've had nearly as much impact. Steam (eventually) revolutionised digital…

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every weekday of the year, perhaps for all time.Not the original mod. Not Global Offensive or Condition Zero. I'm talking about Counter-Strike: Source, the remake that brought terrorists and counter-terrorists to the Half-Life 2 engine - and for some reason, was never fully embraced by the audience.

American media conglomerate Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG plans to show 20 live Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] events on US television next year as part of a league series after brokering a successful deal with Valve.

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.Not Global Offensive. Not Source. I'm talking the original Counter-Strike. The Half-Life mod; the game that was more popular than its online competitors combined; the game that in many ways pioneered both games as services and games as playable alphas; the game that spawned…

Early Access games are here to stay, but is that cause for concern or celebration? We gathered to discuss whether early access benefits developers or players in its current state, and how we'd make it better. Along the way, we discussed the best alpha examples, paying for unfinished games, our love of regularly updated mods, Minecraft and the untapped potential of digital stores.

In Pop Flash, a series of insights into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site], Emily Richardson looks past the amazing clutches and crushing defeats to understand the culture and meta of Valve’s everlasting competitive FPS.This week, I’ll be discussing abuse and toxic behaviour in the CS:GO community. Before we get to it, let me reiterate that I am madly in love with Counter-Strike. It’s simply one…

If I close my eyes and think of childhood memories and the spaces that contain them, my mind might touch upon a bedroom, a school playground or a muddy playing field, but it might just as easily come to rest upon Q2DM1, Q3DM17 or de_prodigy. The angles and textures and travel times of certain multiplayer maps are seared into my brain through repetition, their tiny…

A recent study by the PEW Internet Project exposed the blindingly obvious hypocrisy of most people's attitudes towards online services. We don't want our privacy compromised, we don't think big companies can be trusted with our data, and the power of corporations like Google makes us uncomfortable. But despite all these deeply-held and very serious fears, billions of people still use the products involved. So…

And in "Well this is a nice idea but it would involve me not playing Jason Derulo on repeat while headshotting Ben so you can count me out" news: there are now Counter-Strike: Global Offensive music kits.What that means is when you have a music kit equipped it replaces the in-game music with music from your kit. That covers *deep breath* the main menu, round…

Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies is a weird thing. A zombified free-to-play version of dear old CS 1.6 made by not-Valve always would be but gosh, this video game! I've inadvertently played a good five hours since Nexon launched it into open beta on Tuesday. I'm baffled but fascinated. It feels like a cover-disc collection of mods passed through a portal from a world where Valve released…