Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Review - IGN Review

A great review video by IGN, updating you on the latest CS:GO release.



- Matt

Pre-Order CS:GO Now For a 10% Discount

Counter Strike: Global offensive can now be pre-ordered through steam for only £10.76 until the 21st of august. Once this discount period has ended the price will rise back to £11.99.

Click here to Pre-Purchase
-Matt

Is the CS:GO Beta Dying?

During the past few weeks the hype around CS:GO seems to have settled. With no major beta updates and the release of the awaited Diablo 3 the beta has been less and less active. With limited maps and features the beta’s grasp on my attention is slowly loosening. In addition, the fact that any practise maybe deemed worthless as updates to the games could drastically change important aspects such as movement and recoil.

Although, the recent changes to recoil have made the game much more enjoyable, I still find myself spending several hours a week playing, trying to pull off those epic headshots. My Advice to CS:GO beta players would be sit tight and await the next patch as something tells me it’s going to be a big one.

- Matt



New CS: GO Beta Update.

Last Friday a ton of updates including new map versions, “improved” recoil and glitch fixes hit the beta. It feels like the beta is heading in right direction with each update. Below is a list of all the updates that were implemented.

Gameplay:

• Added Classic Casual to the Find a Game options.

• Increased running inaccuracy of rifles and snipers. Lowered recoil of negev, lowered standing inaccuracy for negev. improved famas secondary burst grouping, increased ak47 recoil

• Added money bonus to knife kills.

• Bot difficulty tuned.

• Removed the grace period for defusing the bomb as it allows to many hard-to-fix exploits.

• Fixed elite cycle time to be the same as CSS

UI:

• Update to the Main Menu screen:

- Rank medals earned by the player will now be displayed underneath their name.

• Play menu screen updates:

- Updates to win panel for Arms Race including: improvements to displaying the winner, animated elements, and progression icons.

• Fixed demo playback loading screen problem.

• Fixed placeholder elements on generic loading screen.

• Added timer to continue loading screen.

• Fixed assists in death messages showing up in modes other than "Classic".

• Fixed the "Next Weapon" panels not displaying properly in Arms Race before you got your first kill.

• Fixed alert text popping (position/opacity) behind the Exclamation Point graphic when the animation first comes up when the buy time has expired.

• Condensed spectator panel to minimize overlap with other hud elements.

• Removed old green tint from radar directional arrow and ring to match current HUD gray color scheme.

• Win panel can now show progress made towards stat based achievements completed that round.

• Fixed Demolition mode next weapon icons being incorrect.

• Added missing outline on incendiary grenade icon.

• When using a gamepad, the left and right shoulder button glyphs will gray out when there is no one left to spectate.

• Fix for the gun icons being too big and cutoff.

Maps:

• Added Nuke SE

• Added Inferno SE

• Dust SE

- Added overviews for radar

• Aztec SE

- Added overviews for radar

• Dust

- Adjusted size of buy zones for both CT and T's.

• Shorttrain

- Updated radar overhead map: Removed corner sections, towers, and yellow "garbage" can from bomb planting zone.

• Train

- Increased accuracy of bomb and buy zone graphical indicators on radar image.

• Inferno

- Updated size and location of buy and spawns zone graphics.

• St Marc

- Rescaled radar overhead map and angled the bomb zone graphic to match the actual angle of the zone.

- Adjusted color-correction settings.

• Safehouse

- Adjusted color correction settings.

- Adjusted radar image scale and position.

• Italy

- Adjusted buy and spawn zone graphics for CT's and T's.

- Fixed extra-large and bright light coronas in hostage area and Wine Cellar.

- Fixed a tree at Right Alley

- Made a slew of accessible areas inaccessible. Thank you, Maiho for identifying these.

- Adjusted color-correction settings.

• Aztec

- Updated buy and spawn zone graphics on radar image.

• Dust 2

- Expanded and moved both the CT a T buy and spawn zones in radar image.

• Bank

- Increased active game area border line weight from 1 to 2 pixels in radar.

- Adjusted color-correction settings.

- Fixed stretching polygons on the door frame at Gas Station.

- Fixed the door model at Market.

• Nuke

- Adjusted spawn and buy zone graphic indicators on radar image.

• Baggage

- Readjusted color-correction settings.

• Lake

- Increased active game area border line weight from 1 to 2 pixels in radar.

- Adjusted color correction settings.

• Sugarcane

- Updated color-correction settings.

• Office

- Adjusted buy and spawn zone graphics for CT's and T's.

- Adjusted color correction settings.

- Fixed a bug where the slideshow projection would sometimes show up on the wall behind the projector wall.

Audio:

• Dsp removed from all third person footsteps and gunshots to increase directionality. In turn removed audio quality option which was mainly responsible for determining dsp level.

• Moved the distance at which weapon shots cross fade to their "distant" version further away from the player to aid in identification of weapons being used during the round.

• Third person weapon shot volume raised to aid in the identification of weapons being used during the round.

Bug Fixes:

• Fix for getting the golden knife too early in Arms Race.

• Fix for incorrectly retaining the gold knife on respawn after a suicide, team change, or killed by enemy knife.

• Regenerate the recoil tables at game mode/type start; this allows the tables to incorporate parameters from loaded convars.

• We now remove the golden knife from the player if they had it and lost a level in Arms Race.

• Fixed a bug with the HUD where the round timer stops with 0:01 left if the round ends by timeout.

• Fix for knife spawning in on the ground with you if you end the round without your secondary weapon (pistol).

• Fix for single hostage shooting penalty getting counted multiple times.

• Spectators are no longer allowed to vote.

• Fixed view model hitching after a full network update.

• Fixed a crash pertaining to death notifications.

• Fixed an assert that would happen every time a player opened a prop_dynamic door.

• Fixed potential crash in FAMAS and Glock when firing remaining burst shots when the PlayerOwner owner no longer exists.

• Fixed flash bangs showing through doors.

• Fix for losing mouse focus when directly connecting to a server.

• Fix for crash when running a dedicated server under specific linux versions/distrubutions.

• Fix for instances of "Round draw" voice over playing between matches.

• Fixed some ducking pops that would happen when toggling duck during ducking / unducking.

Miscellaneous:

• First round of mostly PC specific CSM optimizations that improve perf. on all CSM quality levels:

- Optimized the core CSM shader to use fewer ALU instructions (VERY_LOW/LOW=21% faster, MEDIUM quality level=10% faster, HIGH=8% faster).

- Coaxed the HLSL compiler to [flatten] several important conditionals it was sometimes issuing dynamic jumps for.

- The VERY_LOW and LOW quality levels use a single 3D radial lerp vs. the previous 2D+3D lerp

- VERY_LOW/LOW only use 2 world cascades vs. the previous 3. At VERY_LOW/LOW quality levels only vertexlit and phong where actually using the closest cascade (for better character self shadowing), so world shadow quality is mostly unaffected by this change.

- Also adding a bunch of CSM culling statistics (displayed at the bottom of the screen when cl_csm_debug_2d is 1).

- dust2 timedemo avg. FPS results on a NV 6800/Core2 2.4 GHz at VERY_LOW improved by 13% (higher quality settings also see an improvement).

Source - http://news.esea.net/csgo/index.php?s=news&d=comments&id=11119

Efficient Weapon Swaping - ch4os1337

This great video by Ch4os1337 demonstrates the new changing and picking up weapon system in CS: GO. Some of these changes will have a practical impact on certain situations in games, saving time when swapping pistol or picking up a weapon from a safe distance when it would have originally been out of reach.



-Matt

New Recoil Update - Precision

The 21st of April maybe the day we all remember about the recoil debates in CS: GO. An update on Friday to the recoil made many people happy and some not so much. The recoil was tightened an extreme amount making the M4 and AK much more controlled, not only when spraying but also picking.

This is a great video posted by Cadred which gives a great demonstration of the new recoil patterns and improved precision.

This shift from unpredictable spread to pin point accuracy has certainly revived my attention for the beta. It now feels like each click is important; the chances of gaining that long distance headshot are now back in my hands. This upgrade in recoil has not been received in positive light by all as some gamers judged the changes as too easy, minimising the amount of skill required. In my opinion this new, more precise recoil allows players to really show off their skill and not get held back by unreliable accuracy.

-Matt

CS: GO Tip #1

Something that isn't completely obvious at first is the importance of sound within Counter Strike. If you can learn to use sound effectively it will come as a massive advantage. Put on a headset (make sure you have the left and right on the correct ears) and turn the volume up. You will begin to get a sense of where players are located around you, for example if you are near a running player you will be able to hear his footsteps, this information will allow you to prepare for his presence.

The aspect of sound works both ways, you need to carful and aware about what sounds you as a player are sending out. When you run normally people can hear you, so aim to use the SHIFT key (walk) when you may be close to an enemy to ensure they do no hear you approaching. In addition, guns shots will also give away your position so aim to eliminate the enemy as quickly as possible and then move. Moving after shooting will lead your opponents in to mistaking your position.

However, don’t trust the sound of bullets too much as an enemy could be tricking you with the new decoy grenade. This new grenade blasts out fake firing noises and could be the red herring which causes your death.

TLDR: Use sound to your advantage, act like a ninja (walk), and be aware of decoy grenades.

-Matt

Flash / Smoke Exploit discovered

A flash and smoke grenade exploit has been discovered on the CS: GO beta by a chap called “Deman”. He highlighted the exploit on the Steam forums and provided instructions on how to do it.

In console:

Type sv_cheats 1

Exec the configs or enter them manually.

Type sv_cheats 0

Join a server, if it doesn't works disconnect and repeat the steps listed above.

VAC proof since it doesn't alter any files and is purely a cvar exploit.

Following the above instructions will make you immune to flash grenades and will allow you to see through smokes much more clearly. Bear in mind that this exploit may work fine now but will most likely be purged in the next update on Friday.

Matt

Upcoming changes will shake you!

After the latest CS: GO update the beta has been tremendously active. The changes seem to have ticketed many boxes and the community seem generally pleased with the progress.  Today the CS: GO development team tweeted some intriguing news implying that another update will be arriving soon and will contain something “that will shake you”. Speculations to what this new shocking change will be are cluttering the forums as gamers await the mysterious update.

How to get in the CS:GO Beta

One of the most efficient ways to get in the Counter Strike: Global offensive Beta is to complete the Survey which has been supplied by steam.

Click this link to take the survey.

You will need steam to open it and it will ask you questions about hardware you would use to play the beta on. Filling in this survey doesn’t guarantee you a place in the beta but is the most effective way. In addition to this make sure you spend some time playing the previous Counter Strike editions as this may aid your application.

CS:GO Arms Race Gameplay and New Changes - HattonGames

This is a great video by HattonGames about the recent update to the CS:GO Beta. He shows footage of the two new Arms Race Maps and gives some interesting commentary to accompany the awesome footage.



- Matt

AK-47 Accuracy Patch Update

This great video shows the great improvement the CS:GO development team have made in the new patch in terms of recoil. The first shot accuracy has increased vastly allowing a player to effectively pick those long distance headshots.



Thanks to PantheonESports for the clear demonstration.

First Shot Accuracy in Counter Strike

Over the past few weeks there has been an ongoing discussion about the accuracy of the first shot in the Counter Strike series. The debate started when the accuracy of the first AK-47 shot in Global Offensive was criticized as not 100% accurate. The Raging began about how this changes the whole face of CS as historically the first shot is the most important. This discussion was interrupted as numerous CS 1.6 players proceeded to demonstrate how the first bullet isn’t 100% in any of the previous editions and how it has never been 100% dead on.

The CS:GO development team have had a strong presence in the community during this beta and have not being scared to get out there and answer players queries and questions directly. This issue has again sparked developer interaction which is presented in the following blog post. To summarise they explain how the beta is a beta and is there to “eliminate as much irrelevant noise from the testing process as possible.” They also released firing range maps for all three versions: CS, CS:S, and CS:GO to allow everyone to test out the accuracy of weapons in a controlled environment, with the comment “We figure that the community might want to run their own [tests] and discuss their results”.

In conclusion the development team has their eye on this issue and is definitely community focused in their efforts. Even though this game may take forever to release, when it does I think it will be what the community were waiting for.

Matt.

New CS:GO Beta Update!

The patch notes:
Maps

• Added St. Marc to Demolition mode.
• Added and set quick match to cs_Italy
• Added de_dust2_se

Gameplay

• New weapons: Famas, Galil AR, P250, Dual Berettas
• Demolition mode update: match now consists of two 10 round halves
• Weapon progression updated
  • CTs: m4a4, p90, ump45, deagle, nova, fiveseven, hkp2000, ssg08, awp, awp
  • Ts: ak47, p90, bison, deagle, nova, tec9, glock, ssg08, awp, awp

UI

• Added My Awards – Achievements & Stats
• Updated alerts animation
• Games with a half-time now display that it’s the last round before halftime
• Fixed final round not being called out in games with two halves
• Fixed player getting a weapon upgrade on the last round before half-time/teamswap
• Fixed some bugs where involving bot takeover scenarios
• Fixed death message icon order – not penetration icon show up before the headshot so it makes sense in chronological order
• Fixed some bad defusing text when spectating
• Fixed “YOU ARE ON TEAM” panels not fading out properly
• Fixed same panels not toggling visibility properly when toggling the scoreboard
• When a CT is defusing, his ID shows the defuse icon now
• Fixed scoreboard not showing from team selection menu
• Restored ability to see when you unlocked an achievement on PC
• Along with the hint, weapons now click when you change modes
• Fix to not display the cash award message in the following cases:
  • The round just prior to halftime has ended.
  • It is not currently halftime
  • It is not the last round of the match (including the clinch victory early situation)
• Space bar now changes camera mode and navigation text has been updated accordingly
• Update to Match Set Up screen
• Fix for PC video settings defaulting to COUCH
• Modified “Playing on Team…” panel.
• Visual update to mini-scoreboard

Maps

• Dust
  • Fix bug that allowed player to hop near wall and see into inaccessible area – replaced some nodraw brushes with textures to help fix these holes.
  • Fixed bug where player clip limits jumping -removed player clip that was preventing them from jumping the full height.
• Dust 2
  • Fixed bug where player can toss bomb out of reach.
  • Fixed bug where clip preventing jumping.
  • Fixed bug where player was able to see out of map. -added some simple tops to this geometry.
  • Fixed bug where player can hop near wall and see into inaccessible area.
  • Fixed bug where clip limits jumping.
• Lake
  • Tree models were optimized
  • Fixed bug where player gets stuck on the physics prop model of lumber, changed this to static props
  [* Increased the fade distance at which some of the bushes fade
  • Nav fixes
  • Fixed being able to get stuck between rock & shed.
  • Adjusted start position of the upstairs doors into the bedroom and bathroom so there is better flow into those spaces.
  • Adjusted some tree cards in the skybox, and perimeter.
  • Pulled out a couple unneeded tree models in the 3dskybox to help with perf.
  • Draw distance for the floaties in the water seems too near.
• Train
  • Adjusted fog per community feedback.
• Inferno
  • Tightened up collision volumes for Inferno Objects bomb crate, bomb crate stack, and bomb tanks

Audio

• Disabled unused sound entries. Adding back in two sets of bullet surface impacts.
• Added semi
• auto to auto switch sound.
• Ambient sound adjustments for dust, dust2, and Italy.
• Sound effects tuning.
• Pulled down volume of ammo pickup that’s played at round start.
• Pulled bell attenuation back to normal levels, only hear in and around terrorist spawn, no longer level wide.
• Increased life on helicopter from 15 to 25 seconds, for chopper fade out.
• UI timer click down to .35 volume.

Effects

• Grenade visibility – added self illum to colored stripe on thrown flashbang.
• Tune effect for the C4′s flashing indicator light.

Animations

• Removed forearm slap, times and remixed clip out wave
• Tune Terrorist run
• Work on the arms and weapon.
• Fix crouch fire leg wiggle in Terrorist aim
• Fix for crouchwalk finger popping, found that stand had a sliding finger, now stabilized in Terrorist aim

Other Bug Fixes:

• Fix for spawning inside another player after halftime.
• Fixing CSM entity related bug that could cause CSM shadows to be disabled when toggling between fullscreen and windowed when connected to a dedicated server.
• Fixing red console errors with props that were set to use VPhysics, but have no collision hull.
• Fixed bug where the main menu could be clicked through the custom game menu (resulting in both being drawn)
• Cleaned up warnings in single player screen

What’s Wrong With CS: GO?

CS: GO is obviously not perfect, there are many aspects of the game which require work. The community have been very active in providing “feedback” to the beta in order to streamline the game to their ideal. Below is a link to an insightful article featuring Tomi “lurppis” Kovanen who is one of the Counter Strike legends. He talks about the main problems with the CS: GO beta and even says “It’s not fun. It’s a terrible game right now”. Read the below article to see why.

Link to the article.

Join the CS: GO Reddit Community!

Reddit and CS: GO

   

Reddit is one of the internet’s most active websites with more than 2 billion page views a month. This mass community is home to thousands of smaller groups called Sub-Reddits which help people with similar interests connect and converse. Counter Strike being a popular game among Redditors has a strong CS: GO community which offers fans of the upcoming game a chance to discuss, share and play everything CS: GO related. The site has many posts per day and is one of my favourite places to keep up to date with the news and everything CS: GO Beta related.

Click here to view the CS: GO Sub-Reddit.

Click here to subscribe to the RSS feed.

The History of Counter-Strike - By LethaMED1A

This is a great video uploaded buy LethaMED1A which explores the history of the counter-strike Series in a documentary style.

A great set of map walkthroughs from the CS:GO Beta - by FPSGeneral

Map Walkthroughs

- Inferno -



- Train -



If you enjoyed these videos feel free to Subscribe to FPSGeneral on Youtube.

CS:GO Tournament This Weekend

This weekend there will be a competitive Counter Strike: Global Offensive tournament between the eight of the top teams from CS:S and 1.6. Good luck to all teams !

http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/169668/

New Maps and Weapons in CS:GO

There has been a large update to the CS:GO Beta which includes the new weapons: Nova shotgun, Bizon and MP7 SMGs. In addition the maps de_inferno, de_train, and de_nuke have been made available to play in a local match.

(Taken from Steam)

The major changes include:

Game Design Issues:
- Changed QUICKMATCH default to competitive de_dust2.
- Added new maps to local match options: de_inferno, de_train, and de_nuke.
- Added new weapons: Nova shotgun, Bizon and MP7 SMGs.
- Created a CT-specific version of the Molotov: the incendiary grenade.
- Reworked starting cash and bonuses in Casual mode.
- Made kill cash awards weapon-specific: AWP pays out $50/kill ($25 in Casual Mode). CQB weapons pay out $900 ($450). The rest pay out the usual $300 ($150).
- Limited total number of grenades that can be carried at one time to three, each of a different type.
- Adjusted stamina penalties for jumping. It should be easier now to jump up to multiple objects in a row without getting exhausted.
- Changed weapon recoil cycle to be controlled by a recoil index which is incremented on each shot.
- Reduced movement penalty greatly when players are hit by friendly fire in casual mode.
- Implemented skill-based matchmaking system.

Map Issues:
- Reduced dust particle effects on de_dust and de_dust2. Initial dust fades out after about 20 seconds.
- Updated the nav mesh on de_Dust to improve bot pathing.
- Corrected the problem with the bomb being plantable below the ledge on bombsite B in de_dust.
- Fixed multiple issues with players being able to get to positions that should be inaccessable or non-visible in de_dust and de_dust2.
- Fixed problem with black lines appearing around helicopter in de_dust when helicopter is shot.
- Fixed several aesthetic issues and reported exploits on de_dust2.

Stat/Achievement Issues:
- Fixed a problem with the fun facts that could cause a claim of more than 100% accuracy for players.
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to earn the 'Lost and F0wned' medal while controlling a bot.
- Added FCVAR_CHEAT flag to the bot_kill command so it can't be used to earn medals
- Updated some medal icons and descriptions to reflect criteria for getting them better.
- Made players who controlled bots during a round ineligible for fun facts.

UI Issues:
- Fixed classic crosshair not showing up in first-person spectator mode.
- Fixed a bug that could cause chat spam when a player changes his/her name.
- Redesigned and repositioned the win panel to allow greater visibility of the game.
- Hid voice status and weapon panel when HUD is hidden.
- Added option in game settings that, when active, closes the buy menu upon purchase of an item.
- Redesigned the buy menu.
- Moved player team ID from crosshair to player.
- Expanded the chat window, making it easier to keep track of chat history.
- Changed the UI font for greater legibility.
- Made the chat lines behave like a Windows edit control.
- Added a scoreboard icon that indicates when a player is in the process of switching teams.
- Made music respond to volume slider.
- Made chat box disappear after ENTER is pressed.
- Fixed the 'pop' visible when the main menu appears when playing in 4:3 or 16:10 aspect ratios.
- Added COUCH and DESKTOP play distance options that control hud_scaling and viewmodel_fov convars.
- Fixed problem with not being able to switch from windowed to full screen mode.
- Removed crosshair spreading behavior when wielding the knife, grenades, or bomb.
- Made scoreboard title display correctly above scoreboard in standard def.
- Redesigned front-end screens, layouts, and scoreboard to reflect new look for CS:GO.
- Improved the messaging for when money is awarded or subtracted. HUD now shows additions and subtractions more clearly, and money events are also reported in chat.
- Fixed menus to render correctly in resolutions greater than 1920x1200.
- Fixed a bug in which the scoreboard could occasionally disappear.
- Added player avatars to the choose team screen.
- Fixed problem with UI tint resetting after the choose team screen was opened via the pause menu during a game.
- Fixed EDIT and CLEAR buttons on the settings screen sometimes not appearing correctly.
- Fixed bug in settings with the acceleration amount slider not resetting correctly when defaults are restored.
- Fixed incorrect audio feedback when mousing over empty rows in the settings screens.
- Fixed bug that could occur when binding keys in the settings screens, making it impossible to navigate away from the currently active field.
- Made the EDIT MIC option in the settings snap to the correct area of the controls screen.
- Fixed a case in which throwing a grenade or dropping a weapon and picking up another failed to display the new weapon on the inventory section of the HUD.
- Disabled left and right toggles on spectator UI when there's no one left to spectate.
- Added a separate icon for the CT-specific knife in the weapon select and death notification text.
- Fixed a bug in which remote players controlling a bot were showing up alive again on the mini-scoreboard instead of showing the bot as alive.
- Restricted team chat to team members only.
- Fixed some problems with the REBUY command that could result in purchasing items other than what you had purchased in the previous round.

Other issues:
- Fixed problem with two different pieces of music playing at the same time over the choose team screen after completion of a match.
- Added three new mixgroups to handle different weapon sound types.
- Restricted the round end warning music cue to playing only when a bomb has not yet been planted. If it's currently playing, it will stop once the bomb has been planted.
- Added new music cues for domination and revenge.
- Fixed series of bugs in which the wrong weapon was seen during a reload or weapon switch, resulting in odd-looking weapon poses.
- Fixed problem with camera stopping inside of players' heads during freeze cam.
- Fixed a bug that could cause the spectator camera to be placed halfway through the floor occasionally.
- Fixed excessive console spew.
- Fixed a crash that could happen when selecting a team without Steam running.
- Fixed hang on black screen when players attempt to connect to servers that forbid connection.
- Fixed crash that could happen while changing the video settings.
- Fixed blurry shadows on players who are walking or running.
- Fixed blood so it doesn't show brightly through the fog.
- Fixed the visors showing through smoke.
- Reduced issues with smoke grenade and fire volumes being visible through thin floors.
- Fixed some of the problems with weapons penetrating character geometry in third person.
- Addressed an issue which caused bots to shoot over players' heads often. The bots will likely feel more difficult now.
- Fixed aliasing artifacts caused by not using centroid sampling when MSAA is enabled. Some players may need to update their video card drivers in order to see the change.
- Fixed a bug that caused a player to show as alive briefly after being killed while controlling a bot.

Volcano's suggestions to CS:GO

Pro gamer Volcano gives his thoughts on CS:GO.

CS:GO Release Date

When is Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) going to be released I hear you cry. CSGO Beta is still closed with beta key owners being the only few with access to the eagerly awaiting instalment. Taking Valves previous timelines in to account i believe CSGO will arrive to the shop shelves in the summer around May or June. Until then keep an eye out for an open Beta which may be burst open in a month or two.

Stop ACTA

CS: GO Competitors

Counter Strike: Global offensive will be realised at some point in 2012, the exact date is currently uncertain. As the Beta continues to roll out and the game develops further the release date should become clearer. During 2012 CS: GO will be met with strong competition, this article will explore some of the most threatening opposition.

Far Cry 3

Far Cry opened my eyes to the possibilities within open world games; having the ability to raid a facility from any approach was intriguing to say the least. The third instalment is on the horizon with more emphasis on multiplayer than ever before. This may be a game to keep an eye on.



Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 is the third instalment in the critically acclaimed Mass Effect series. The games are action-RPGs set in a futuristic world where interstellar travel and the interaction of different races has become commonplace.

Due to the difference in genre of Mass Effect compared to Counter-Strike and the lack of multiplayer content, it is unlikely it will have a significant or lasting impact on the success of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. (By Tom Calder)



Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 is undeniably a hit with the gaming community. It has become a household name, joining the likes of Call of Duty at the top of the radar. Despite its release in 2011 BF3 is still wading through sales and will continue to be a danger when CS: GO finally hits the shelves.



By Matthew Walker

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) Weapon Guide: Decoy, Flashbang, Smoke, HE Grenade - ESEA

Would you be faked by the new CS: GO decoy grenade? Thoughts on high explosive grenades doing over 100 HP damage? Only 1 flashbang... hate it or love it? Comment @ http://www.eseanews.com/index.php?s=news&d=comments&id=10621

De_dust2 and De_dust from CS:GO beta can now be played on CSS

The CS:GO Beta maps have been ported over to CSS and can be played inful there.

Click here to download the maps.

Matt.

CS:GO Guide - Introducing the AWP - ESEA