First Look: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Somewhere there’s a group of lunatics that want nothing more than to see Valve work on Half-Life 3. In fact, a few of them came out in droves over the past week, protesting at the company’s headquarters to voice their complaints. While we wait a little while longer for that eventual classic to simmer and reveal itself (2012 is a fair guess), we have another classic franchise to keep us busy. The Half-Life spin-off Counter-Strike is back, priming for a premiere on the downloadable front next year.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (also dubbed CS: GO for those of you who don’t feel like spouting out its full name) is a reconstruction of the classic game series, featuring a wealth of incredible, first-person, tactical action. This is by no means a remake, but rather a fresh celebration of the series that will no doubt attract old fans of the series, as well as plenty of newbies. It’s currently slated for a launch on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and Steam (for both Mac and PC).

The goal of the game is simple—work alongside your fellow players and survive the wrath of the other team. Out in the field, they’ll have just as many tactical advantages as you, including plenty of long-lasting firepower and tons of weapons. Valve is working closely with a fellow Seattle-based developer, Hidden Path Entertainment, to assure that the quality of the game remains just as intact as previous versions for PC and Xbox.

Since there is no official trailer for the game yet, we use this fan made one as a placeholder

The game will deliver a fresh mix of old and new content. Various maps will be included and upgraded from the original game, such as Dust, Dust 2, Inferno, and Nuke. In addition, new maps will also be included, adding spanking new content that everyone can get into. The four main weapons in the game will return, along with a bevy of new ones, with plenty of pistols, shotguns, sub-machine guns, and heavy machine gun rifles to go around. Bouncing Molotov cocktails and decoy grenades, which give off interesting shotgun sounds to startle enemies, will also be included, so you can really make a bang over the course of each battle (and boy, do we mean bang). Some of this content MIGHT be cut out of the final release, as Valve is still making a few decisions here and there on player structure. They’re also wondering if full Kevlar gear should be included, along with a defuse kit for an individual player in each round. We’re pretty sure they’ll make some fair choices, though.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Counter-Strike game if there weren’t some kind of detailed multiplayer initiative. While we don’t know exactly how many players will be supported in each match, what kind of upgrade system will be included, or if online leaderboards will somehow play a part, but rest assured, with Valve on the case, it’ll be evenly measured, exciting. It will no doubt be legendary to those who have spent countless hours on previous Counter-Strike games (or for that matter, Team Fortress 2 in The Orange Box package).

CS: GO will be playable next week at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington, and we’ll be sure to take it for a test drive as soon as we can. Be sure to check back for full impressions and other details very soon. 2012’s looking like a great year to do some killing—or be killed, depending on whom you run into on the battlefield. CS is a GO.