The latest in an increasingly morbid series of CS:GO updates sees Valve pondering the nuances of firing a bullet through one body part and hitting another.
That’s the most gruesome feature of what’s turned out to be a pretty sizeable update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive this week. Bullets will now travel through limbs and out the other side. That is, the game will calculate whether a hit to an arm or leg would continue on into a head or stomach, and if so, apply the appropriate increased damage multiplier instead.
That’s not all. The patch has also seen Valve tweak the stats of a number of weapons, reevaluate the rules for one game mode and fix bugs throughout Operation Payback’s community maps.
It’s been a longer time coming than we expected when mumblings of a CS:GO community map support pass first began in March, but Operation Payback has arrived exactly as expected: a ticket to play seven top-rated, community-developed maps on official servers for the next three months.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team VeryGames roundly beat fnatic at Gadget Show Live’s Mad Catz tournament this weekend. Their solid 2-0 victory was secured across two maps, and the French team left with a sizeable chunk of the £10,000 prize pool.
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Today’s CS:GO patch is as big as they come. Valve have reintroduced aged hostage map cs_militia, and sworn in a host of major tweaks to the way hostage rescue mode works.
Valve have made a rare whoopsie and released the newest-most CS:GO update a day ahead of schedule. Though the patch was swiftly recalled via an emergency rope-and-pulley system, the internet has many eyes, and enough of them were able to compare notes to confirm that Counter-Strike players are getting paid-for access to top community maps hosted on official servers.
A recent update to the Steam client has provided budding artists (and seasoned artists) a place to show off their game-related wares. Each Steam game’s Community hub now features an artwork tab where anyone is free to upload pictures and videos of their related works, these are then free to be upvoted by that game’s community. It’s like having a potentially hundred thousand-strong committee running the placement of exhibit pieces at a virtual gallery.
Valve are making us all art critics and to get started they’ve submitted some of their own work for critique.
In what’s I’m fairly comfortable wagering is new ground for the Canadian travel authorities, the Société de transport de Montreal plans to sue a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map maker for recreating the city’s Berri-Uqam station in-game. The STM are prepared to issue Diego Liatis with a $50,000 fine plus court costs if the map is released to the public as planned, says the modder.
Hidden Path are still fiddling about with the latest Counter-Strike, tweaking Deagle's gun range here, increasing the recoil on a Glock there, and generally being a busy body to make their version of Valve's aged shooter the most pristine of them all.
Well-remembered hostage rescue map cs_assault has made the leap to CS:GO in an update this weekend, so that’s nice. But what if your soul burns with an unspeakable hatred for cs_assault - an undying rage with an errant 15-year-old grenade at its centre of infinite mass? Then you can turn to the new Map Workshop - either to acquaint yourself with community maps or to part with your own.
‘Change’ and ‘Counter-Strike’ aren’t exactly natural sentence-fellows, but nor are Valve willing to tiptoe around a decade and a half of CS tradition. That’s the message sent by - if not written in - the patch notes for CS:GO’s latest update.
Top Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players were surprised to find Valve representatives pottering about the floor of the ESWC 2012 finals this year, recording footage for a mysterious new film and getting the lay of their community’s land. Reportedly the developers were “very keen” to talk about upcoming changes to the game - including the return of the silencer.
This weekend saw the 2012 E-Sports World Cup draw to a dramatic close, with tournament finals taking place across Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Trackmania Canyon, Trackmania Nations, Shootmania Storm and Starcraft 2. Winners spilled out of the ESWC arena like Coca-Cola from a Mentos-infused bottle, spraying sticky world champions all over the ceiling. But who are these freshly crowned wundermenschen? Let's take a look at them.
It’s time to pick a side. Do you like TV, or computer games? Thankfully, one day soon we won’t have to struggle with choices as cruel and binary as these. Valve have confirmed that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will have a TV client in time for ESWC 2012 - now scarcely more than a week away.
As of yesterday’s update, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s ‘Join in Progress’ matchmaking system has been joined by a Classic Competitive mode, which introduces both a queue system and measures designed to prevent players from leaving the game when a match turns sour.
The Global Offensive team have revealed some of the changes that are coming in an update this Monday. Two new maps, a slew of bug fixes, and an all new revision of the matchmaking system.
The above image was tweeted from Valve’s Counter-Strike dev account, picked up by Reddit, and, well - looks new, dunnit?Over on Reddit, user rofulz notices a striking similarity between a vaguely industrial looking warehouse in CS:GO and a vaguely industrial looking, decrepit warehouse in Left 4 Dead 2. If it had been any other developer, we'd cry foul over lazy re-use of assets. But as this is Valve we're talking about, there's only one real explanation. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a Left 4 Dead prequel.
What better way to launch your new service that allows players to manage and compete in their own tournaments with cash prizes than to set up eight tournaments with £40,000 up for grabs? It ought to reel in the punters.
This weekend has been for eSports. Between the Dota Internationals, LoL Regionals and Counter-Strike: GO at PAX, a flurry of futures have been decided, fates denied, and all-expenses-paid trips booked.
