Be Excellent To Each Other

Nothing earth-shattering from the Eurogamer face-off:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... e-face-off

Obviously the PC gets better graphics and what have you, but the real deciding factors for me would be controller response (60FPS vs 30FPS), accuracy of control method, and consistency of framerate (i.e. consistent controller response).

I'm curious to have a go at the 360 version just out of curiosity but as a pogger silver member the demo doesn't appear to be available to me.

Interesting to note that Eurogamer's £300 super-budget gaming PC can lump the game around far better than either the 360 or PS3 can manage.

It's quite clear that CSGO is a better game on the PC, it's not just a question of the pretties, it's fundamentally an improved game on the PC, and anyone who's only ever played it on 360/PS3 just isn't going to be able to appreciate the game that Counter Strike really is.

cs_assault community made map already live on a few servers, for those who played CS back in the day, I'm sure cs_assault will be remembered as a particularly good map. Really tense sort of 'siege' map, unless the counter terrorists are a bit crap in which case the terrorists venture out and annihilate them

Already seeing loads of game variations out there too, got a nice and expanding list of servers on my favourites - all we need now is the zombie mod!

Is it done well? Are Valve planning on adding more old maps anyway? Was a little disappointed with the launch maps. Thought they'd have done a few more.

Assault is damn near perfect, it's so good I've asked a couple of times now 'Is this an official map?' and have been told by the guys on the server that it's a community made map - you really wouldn't know to look at it, it's as well done as the 'official' launch maps and it feels the same as the original, albeit with a couple of good tweaks.

dumbclan.co.uk are running an assault server 24/7, always seems to be a decent number of people on there and a pretty good crack too. (By definition, anyone seeking out assault is a player from the 1.6 days )

I don't know how it works on the 360, but on the PC there's a 'Browse Community Servers' option in the main menu, which basically takes you to the old-fashioned 1.6 game browser from Steam back in the day, you have to click past a 'Anything from here on in isn't authorised or endorsed by Valve' message, and then you're right back into a list of well over a thousand servers to choose from, most of them list their rules/quirks/etc in the server name or the tags. Usual filters from back in the 1.6 days still apply.

If the original CS is anything to go by, all Valve need to do is release the game into the wild, and the community will do the rest (Not that Valve ever released CS in the first place of course, but they did release Half Life and they have always been open to the modding community, so it's sort of the same thing.)

Seriously? There's more maps on this than you can shake a shitty stick at. More than BF3 shipped with, at any rate.

There are plenty of maps, but there are probably twice as many again "missing". I've been playing this game for over a decade! I liked those maps!

DLC is coming.

Holidays are coming.

Is Militia there? That was always my favourite.

Mine too. I was deadly in those sewers.

No sign of Militia yet I'm afraid, but I'm sure it'll be along soon, Assault took less than three weeks from game release to map done and released and live on servers.

cs_militia actually got me into games journalism! I used to play on the Jolt 24/7 Militia server (Jolt 12), then eventually became an admin for Jolt's CS servers, then I started writing for Jolt. Jolt.

I'm sure I used to play on that server a lot. Years ago now.

Yeah, probably ten years or so! It was great. Basically playing with the same people every day.

I was always on Wireplay.

I was never that pleased with the Militia 'update' - the direct route over the rocks into the corner made it a little to easy for the CTs, IMO.

Ah yeah, they mixed it up a bit for 1.6, didn't they? I felt the riot shields kinda made the sewers a pain in the arse as well. You'd get a lot of Roman "turtles" crawling through there.

(Zardoz, go nuts.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ida4D2J_riM

Heh, that's quite funny

I like the way he progresses through the various stages of frustration to the portable cannon, the AWP.

I can never quite make my mind up about the AWP, it's one hit one kill mechanic is brutal if you're on the wrong end of it, but the clever player generally manages to keep himself out of the sniper's way.

I don't like sniping in CS myself, and very rarely do it.

I think the AWP is quite balanced - yeah it's a one shot kill but so are most guns in CS if you aim right, and it's bitch slow to reload.

This is what I've always told the AWP-moaners, snipers are limited in mobility, they have long reload times, and they're limited in decent locations to snipe from - learn the maps and work around them.

Anyone charging up the obvious 'snipers' alleys' on any of the maps, or not getting a handle on what the enemy team is doing in terms of team composition, fully deserves getting their head (or foot ) blown off IMO.

I had a lot of trouble with getting sniped early on in my CS career, so I just started spectating some games and/or spectating the sniper(s) after I'd been killed in a round - and I soon sussed out what was going on.

I do still get killed by snipers of course, but when I do then it's generally my own fucking fault for being careless.

And of course, one of the most satisfying kills in the game is outmanoeuvring a sniper to deliver a fatal headshot with the Desert Eagle. (Or as it is now, with the Taser, which is a fantastic one-hit one-kill device for a super 'humiliation' kill.)

TL:DR - I've never had a problem with the AWP myself, I'm just not a fan of using it.

Finally bought this for PC. The full game is much better than beta. Almost captures the pre-Steam days. Almost. Anyone up for a game or two this week some time?

I haven't played it for months now, it burned very brightly and I burned out on it.

Fantastic game though, racked up a lot of hours in a short space of time.

Couldn't get any of the regular Saturday night BF3 crowd involved either, which didn't help.

Been playing this again since the update. It's good old Counter-Strike. They've added a TF2-style "hats" thing now. But with colourful guns to collect instead. Just cosmetic. Makes things quite fun for collect-o-types. They've also brought back the silenced M4 and USP.

I've seen you're on this quite a lot at the moment via Steam activity!

I uninstalled it a while ago but I'm very close now to completely and totally finishing Dishonored plus all DLC and Borderlands2 plus all DLC (or as much as I 100% games, anyway) - so I'll be after something else to play after that, a reinstall of CSGO could most certainly be on the cards.

I've just got this reinstalled.

I do still have the last level of the final DLC of Dishonored to do, but I'll save that for later on.

I'd just about got my skills re-sharpened last year, now I'll need to do it all again.

I'll join you if you're still playing later on. Gonna watch some Breaking Bad now.

I had this on 360 (technically still have, just can't play it). I bought it during the Steam summer sale so happy to join you at some point, WTB.

I wish you'd stop banging on about no longer owning a 360.

Ok, I promise never to mention it ever again.

I got rid of mine too! And yes, let's play on PC!

Oh dear and I'm shit again, finishing about mid-table on the casual servers.

Need to dust off my skills again, but that's not exactly a chore since it's such a good fucking game.

I see Valve have been tweaking and honing since this time last year too, so the game and its interface are even slicker than ever.

I'm gonna blast this for a bit if anyone wants to join me. Stuck in the spare room because there are loads of people downstairs.

I'm stuck at work right now, but might be able to join you if I can go home soon.

My internets have died! Of all the times! Officially bored now.

I'm installing now on my Mac. Going to plug in my 360 controller for funtimes!

Installed and it seems to work. Let me know if you get your internet back.

Still down! Virgin know nothing about it, of course.

Back! Making a cuppa then I'm on!

Too late now. Let's reconvene tomorrow.

Also other people should play.

Excellent effort!

Yeah, other people, we're playing tomorrow night! You in? PC and Mac spods only apparently.

I don't play games on my Internet browser.

(C) Silent Elk 2008.

I really wish you would stop banging on about the fact you don't own a decent enough PC.

Uh, got carried away watching four episodes of Breaking Bad on the trot. Sorry!

I own the cutting edge windows 8 tablet.

It's depressing that its still the most cutting edge windows 8 tablet, 3 months later.

Didn't realise but they've got 5v5 "competitive" matchmaking which assigns players a skill level after 10 matches - a bit like StarCraft 2. It's great! Quite tense and serious, but a nice change of pace to regular 10v10 "casual" matchmaking.

Played 2, won 2 so far!

I'm still sticking to the casual matches until I've skilled back up a bit. (I kind of got my eye back in last year when I had a bit of a rush on it, but that's all gone out the window again. I remember the maps and the weapons and the tactics and the choke points and all that stuff, but it's just the 'edge' that seems to go when you don't play the game regularly.)

Loving the game though, despite it being about a million years old and very 'basic' by modern standards, it's still got what it takes.

Tonight?

Possibly! It may be another Breaking Bad evening. I'm probably going to be playing today though, seeing as the Mrs is at work.

I'm still quite good!

I have this. Let's play it sometime.

If only we had a calendar that we could use to organise ourselves.