Valve Announces Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Today Valve announced a new team-based shooter called Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It's due out in early 2012, and will be available on Windows and OS X through Steam, as well as the PS3 and Xbox 360 over their respective game networks. "CS: GO features new maps, characters, and weapons and delivers updated versions of the classic CS content (de_dust, etc.). In addition, CS: GO will introduce new gameplay modes, matchmaking, leader boards, and more." According to a hands-on report, "We've all seen and played pretty looking games before, but hands down and unanimously, everyone was most interested in the movement, weapon handling, and game play. It didn't feel like 1.6 and despite being built on the Source engine, it didn't feel like CS:S. By design, Valve wanted to create a game with a different feel, and overall it was really smooth. The pro players seemed surprisingly happy with the player player movement and feel of the game but thankfully they weren't short of feedback and most weren't shy to share it. Tweaks and adjustments are needed, but in my opinion, it was a great sign that it didn't grossly offend anyone."

Comments

TELL ME WHERE BARNEY CALHOUN WENT.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Dear Valve.

L4D/L4D2, Portal 2, etc. etc. were fun.

NOW TELL ME WHERE BARNEY CALHOUN WENT.

Re:TELL ME WHERE BARNEY CALHOUN WENT.

[cgenman]

I'm kind of curious why everyone is so up-in-arms wanting HL2:e3. HL2 was brilliant. HL2:e1 was a solid extension of that. HL2:e2 was a good game that started to feel a bit redundant. But neither of them reached the brilliance that was HL2. Since HL2, Valve has had brilliant moments with Team Fortress 2 and Portal 1 / 2 and Left 4 Dead. They're letting the Half Life universe rest, until they either have something unique to say or a unique way of saying it.

The last CS game was CS:Source, which was just CS1 updated for the HL2 engine. That was pre- HL2:e1. An update to make Counter Strike relevant to a modern audience is long overdue. And Half Life, as brilliant a series as it has been, can wait until they have something real to say again.

Re:TELL ME WHERE BARNEY CALHOUN WENT.

[dslbrian]

I'm kind of curious why everyone is so up-in-arms wanting HL2:e3. HL2 was brilliant. HL2:e1 was a solid extension of that. HL2:e2 was a good game that started to feel a bit redundant. But neither of them reached the brilliance that was HL2.

People want EP3 because they want to know the rest of the story. These games are essentially interactive stories. You don't go to the movies and get up and walk out 2/3rds into it do you? It's not about how "brilliant" the game is, in the same way you don't generally judge a movie about how brilliant the middle of it is relative to the beginning and end.

The thing that irks me is the way they seem to delay working on the actual storyline and instead spend time upgrading the engine. Frankly I don't really care if the water or fog looks a little more realistic, I'm more interested in the content of the game (this is similar to the original Deus Ex, which had a lame graphic engine but fantastic storyline). I would have been fine with it had they developed the entire HL2 series using the original engine. Other titles seem to have no problem generating DLC material (Fallout3), so I really don't get why it takes Valve so long.

I love TF2

[newcastlejon]

But I'd be quite sad if this new game had hats, much less constant promotional tie-ins with other games.

That said, if I can still have fun with a French trumpet I'm in.

Re:I love TF2

[cforciea]

But I'd be quite sad if this new game had hats, much less constant promotional tie-ins with other games.

My guess is that you should get ready to bawl like a little girl.

Re:Dear Valve:

[Baloroth]

Riiiight. I know you're trolling, but I might as well bite. So, you're mad because they hire people who do good work, probably would never be able to succeed if Valve didn't "buy them out" (most were community modders), pays them lots of money, and lets both them and the community have open access to their moderately powerful and extremely moddable engine? All because you happen to prefer the original versions? Which, AFAIK, still exist? Ok. You can keep doing that.

It is pretty much a modders dream to be hired on by a major studio to continue developing their product. And TF2, BTW, is considerably different from the TF Classic, so i think they deserve a bit of credit. Not to mention building the engine they run on. Would you prefer Activision to be developing these games? Or perhaps Half-life, Portal, and Left4Dead to never exist? Yeah, go back to your troll cave.

Re:Dear Valve:

[cforciea]

My complaint is not that buying out and hiring these dev studios and modders is an overall bad thing. My point is that saying Valve created Team Fortress is like saying Oracle created Java.

Re:Still Boycotting over Black Ops

[h4rr4r]

That is Activision's fault not Valve's.
As far as I can tell all the Valve games let you host your own server.
If you can host you own server you just kick/ban cheaters.

Re:Dear Valve:

[ShakaUVM]

>>Team Fortress (besides hire their devs after they were finished products). And, for the record, Team Fortress and Counterstrike are still to this day better games than the sequels that came out under your name.

It's true - graphics aside, the original Team Fortress was head and shoulders better than Team Fortress Classic or TF2. Though the speed and smoothness of gameplay, I guess, is secondary to modern day users.

People still play the original, though. You can join a bunch of old school holdouts on http://www.facebook.com/groups/178060565542861/

Re:Dear Valve:

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Original developers of Team Fortress:

• - Robin Walker: Still a Valve employee. Core dev for TF2 (and other Valve games).
• - John Cook: Still a Valve employee. Core dev for TF2 (and other Valve games).
• - Ian Caughley: Hired by Valve, went on to be a director for another company, no bad blood I was able to find

Original developers of Counter-Strike:

• - Minh Le: Hired by Valve, worked on CS2, project got shelved and he move to SK.
• - Jess Cliffe: Still works for Valve. I'm sick of looking this stuff up, but I'm going to guess he has something to do with CS:GO

Original developers of Portal:

• - Eric Wolpaw: Still works for Valve. Made Portal 2.
• - Chet Faliszek: Still works for Valve. Wrote Portal 2.

I don't care how you measure it, that kind of loyalty is goddamned amazing. A bunch of people who definitely have options chose to stick around and make their games. Minh Le is the most negative story of the bunch, and here is a 2010 interview where he's asked about Valve. You decide for yourself if they fucked him over.

I'm all for calling companies on their bullshit, and as a general rule I think the corporate model couldn't encourage the worst parts of human nature any better if that was their explicit goal, but I find it extremely hard to fault Valve for claiming ownership of any of these games. As a long-time hate-filled negative prick, trust me when I say that your bile will be much more potent if you make sure it's deserved.