Both my challenging game and guilty pleasure in my stash of my entire Valve collection, Global Offensive has captured both these gaming senses of mine, as I've enjoyed over hundreds of hours of playing this game. From the teamwork, rankings, campaigns, music and much more, this game is a king amongst most modern, multi-player FPS games and still going strong even over just a measly 2 years.
Just like its predecessors, the player assumes the role of either a counter-terrorist or a terrorist, both with their own unique missions, depending on the campaign in general. The new added campaigns, Deathmatch and Arms race is a great exclusive extra if you're just a casual player, whereas there's the competitive session for the more experienced, intense and determined players out there.
With every match starting, you're brought into ''Freeze time'' where you have a wide selection of guns in your disposal and are ready to be bought, either with the money you've earned by killing opponents, or indeed winning and or losing a match, respectively. Either sticking together as there are power in numbers, or going alone to face your opposing enemies. I wouldn't talk for every individual player out there, as I've seen power in experienced players. (Trust me, I have witnessed a 5-year veteran take down an entire army of 6 opponents, all in the same vicinity.)
I also enjoyed the updated graphics and more immersive gaming world. Definitely pushing the Source engine to its absolute limits but doesn't go too over the edge to miss the most important aspect; the gameplay. The gameplay is near to being absolutely perfect as you can easily navigate and the controls are fast and responsive as well as the radar being very relieable even in the most threatening of times, since you can detect enemies close to your location and either wait for them or hunt them down yourself or with your precious, numbered team.
The original music used is also a big step up, as it puts you into that zone of actually being prepared for one hell of a match, each time around! Anything from the beginning beat as you select your weapon and gear you will bring into combat each time, or from hearing the threatening tune of the planted bomb ticking away down to its initial explosion, the music definitely makes the game feel and look more surreal than it already is. And with an added bonus, with the Steam music player at its peak in popularity, the update with the musical kit useable in-game was a great move, as you can listen to music as you slaughter your opponents joyfully.
I've also enjoyed the gun descriptions that tell the real-life history and origin in a very formal, helpful and creative way. The statistics of the weapons also help out the player to figure out what weapon they will bring out, either if it means getting close and personal with a shotgun, sniping away with a rifle from a distance and even switching to second-hand pistols, that flesh out damage with a great, controlled accuracy. As you can tell, this game serves many different strategies, preferences and possibilities to each and every person who are against each other.
And yet another great thing to note is that this game gets multiple, yet fast updates. The homepage of the game mainly dishes out the latest CS:GO news, such as upcoming streaming matches with clans from different countries going toe to toe, or special deal offers on those elusive cases, if you're ever tempted to test your luck and hopefully get a rare skin to add to your growing collection of weapon skins. You can also create clans and watch them build up with friends and even create lobbies to secure that you will be in the most competitive games with your buds behind your back.
But my primary complaint with this wonderful game has got to be...the community. Yes, a lot of aspiring programmers and artists do a fine job at creating fantastic weapon skins and maps that when judged are simply classified as prefessional, but I'm not talking about those great people. I'm talking about the brash players that exemplify the dunning-kruger affect; where unskilled players rate their own abilities much higher than accurate and compare other players, in a much more biased fashion. It gets annoying pretty quickly, so I would usually block the most revolting swines who do this.
All in all, this game is a big, big, BIG recommendation from me and if you think I'm lying, just check top-selling games list at the start of the Steam page. There's a reason why this game is on the high ranking list, due to its high and successful popularity.