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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Is Live!

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Is Live!

Today, on the 21st of August, Anno Domini 2012, Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment released Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, from its closed beta prison, and let it loose onto the unsuspecting gaming masses. It’s the first FPS Valve has released since 2009’s Left 4 Dead 2, and Valve’s first new game since Portal 2 in April 2011. It’s currently out and about on Steam, but it will only be released on the PlayStation Network later today; and some time tomorrow morning on Xbox Live.

However, this is obviously not the end of development for CS:GO – only an important milestone in its ongoing evolution. Just as Counter-Strike: Source started out as a rather mediocre release in mid-2004 and grew over the course of 2-3 years, so will CS:GO.

The previous beta build has been completely carried forward into the launch version of the game, and as a matter of fact, the game application itself is a renamed version of the beta game application in your Steam Library. As a result, all stats and achievements that beta testers have attained have been carried forward into the full game, and all active community and Valve servers remain active, and in good shape.

Apparently, there are currently no plans for a launch-day game update. However, we can expect Valve and HPE to start pushing out significant post-release patches over the next couple of days, in order to further optimize the game; fix bugs; and add missing features.

Relatively soon, you will also get to read my text review of CS:GO – it’s been too long since I’ve written a proper “Vic’s Thoughts” piece for you guys. Well, rest easy, for it is on the way!

19 Comments

  1. Discovery of Episode Three and Source 2 content, Black Mesa trailer leak, Mann vs. Machine release, Dota documentary reveal, Steam Community update, Big Picture Mode screenshots release, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive release… I’m sure something will happen in the last week of this month.

  2. Wow this must be the first game with no Valve time hiccups. I’m impressed. Now work on Source 2 Valve! Also am I the only one astounded by how efficient and good looking this game is? It take’s very little to run and still looks stunning.

    • The fastest game Valve ever put out would have to be L4D2. One year from the beginning of development to release; with only five months from announcement to release.

    • I was surprised to see a 1gb of RAM needed. It just looks so awesome (for Source) and it takes so little.. if only other engines could optimize so well I wouldn’t feel left out of the gaming community.

    • Didn’t they originally say CS:GO was going to be released in spring this year? Anyway, it didn’t really occur to me (as I have a really good gaming PC and can max out the settings in most games), but CS:GO definitely has gotten rid of some of the annoyances that I have ran into such as having to wait for the main menu to load and the load time for maps (I’m looking at you TF2).

      • Yeah, they were aiming for early 2012 back in mid-2011.

      • Remember the time when TF2 had a map loaded as the background of the menu?

        • Yeah, its was nice, but you had to wait for so damn long..

          • I just miss background maps. Those BINK videos simply don’t cut it anymore – and when Valve got the bright idea of turning Portal 2’s ending into another BINK video, I think I almost shot myself.

            • I would of liked the portal 2 ending better if it was all in-game. Something Valve perfected in the Half-Life series was in-game story telling. Other games had cut-scenes but with Half-Life it was all in-game. Just compare “Red letter day” to other games, nothing like it. Now with other Valve games we’ve had nothing like that since Ep2. Don’t get me wrong I love Portal 2, but I just want a deep story experience, something the Portal franchise can’t do because it’s a mechanics. (well not to the same standards as Half Life)

              • True, true – I do agree with that.

                • It’s because consoles (and more importantly, your computer) can’t handle that many animations in one map, probably

                  I’m sure they could have done something else to minimize it, but to have it run on everything 100% fine it (very sadly) had to be BINK. It’s not the same, sadly, it’s all grainy and stuff.

                  • Sure, but I think they could have simply toned it down, and/or replaced some of the turrets which you can hardly even notice in the background, with sprites. There were ways to do it without resorting to the BINK thing.

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