Thursday, March 5, 2015

Learning to Play Counter Strike: Global Offensive

So back in December when my main Video card (the nVIDEA GTX 465) broke I had to replace it with a spare video card I had lying around who’s performance was quite a bit worse than the 465. To put this into perspective the nVIDEA 465 is already around 5+ years old and the card I replaced it with was much older I believe. I couldn’t really spend the money to buy a new decent card because I had just bought a PS4 and an Elgato HD 60 all within a 2 month span.

So one of the few games that I could play relatively well without too many graphics issues or a huge drop in FPS was Counter Strike: GO. I did have some previous experience playing both Counter Strike Source as well as Counter Strike 1.6 both of which I enjoyed quite a bit mainly because I used to play it with friends quite often.

However I was never really good at it and therefore haven’t played it in quite some time. So when my video card died and CS: GO went on sale on steam, I saw it as a good opportunity to try out the new counter-strike since I evidently enjoyed the previous ones quite a bit.

One word comes to mind at my first time playing CS: GO online and that is ‘frustration’ utter and sheer frustration at the fact that I was not able to get more than a single kill if I remember correctly.
For some reason the shooting mechanics in Counter-Strike is unlike any other First person shooter game that I have played. Now I have played quite a few FPS games in the past, even the ever popular Call of Duty. Comparing Counter strike to call of duty is not very fair because my time spent in call of duty was quite brief and while I was playing the game I found that it took little to no skill to get kills in Call of Duty. No, this assessment might not be completely fair as I was playing Call of Duty on my PS3 and Counter strike on my PC.

But let’s take another FPS (Battlefield Bad Company 2) I enjoyed quite a bit which I ALSO played on the PC, so I think this will be a more valid comparison. A few years ago I played Battlefield Bad Company 2 quite extensively both online and offline and thoroughly enjoyed my time playing this game. The maps were fun, the game modes even more so and the vehicles were an absolute BLAST!

Now I feel that Bad Company 2 took a bit more skill than Call of Duty and you couldn't just aim your gun in the general direction and hope for the best. This is what separated it from other FPS games at the time ESPECIALLY Call of Duty. People that tried to switch from Call of Duty to battlefield usually (not always) had a hard time in doing so.

While I wasn't the BEST Battlefield player ever, I often managed to do quite well on any given game mode or map, often ranking in the top 2-3 people for our team in both kills and points. I am not bragging, just trying to make a point. The point is while I know that they are different games, I thought the general rules that I used in Battlefield or any other FPS games that I played would apply to Counter Strike as well.

That is THE BIGGEST MISTAKE any newcomer to the game can make I believe.  My general experiences with FPS games indicate that if you aim for the head, burst fire (and not spray) and generally shoot faster you will fair quite well.

This does not seem to be the case while playing Counter Strike AT ALL, at least this has been my experience so far. I aim for the head but the bullets seem to go anywhere but at the person’s head. People generally seem to know where I am even around corners and shoot me before they have even come into full view which is something I find very odd and annoying at times. I just cannot seem to get the hang of the mechanics of the game and while I think I HAVE improved overall in the last 2 months, the game still seems to be a struggle for me.

This is one of the games that truly tests my patience and while I still enjoy playing it with friends, the game can be utterly frustrating at times.

I do play counter strike on a regular basis (couple times a week) and I would like to improve at the game, therefore I think I will record myself playing a few matches and upload them to see if I can get some positive feedback from some of the more experienced players of the game.

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