Counter-Strike: Global Offensive makes the old new – VideoGamer.com

VideoGamer.com's Martin Gaston writes: "On the first day of PAX 2011, a confident booth in the middle of the convention's show floor claims to boast the longest queues of the show, and it's for a downloadable game rather than a mammoth AAA title. Isn't that a bit daunting for the staff manning its 10 demo stations? Apparently not – they say it's exciting. I'm inclined to agree: excitement is the right response when the developer is Valve, and when the game in question is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

It's hard to overemphasise just how significant Counter-Strike has been, but it's safe to say that all modern multiplayer shooters owe it a debt. For me, it was the shooter that got me into online gaming – I simply adored Counter-Strike at the turn of the millennium. I remember the agonising wait between getting home from school and the off-peak phone services kicking in; I remember my buy-scripts and bunny hopping, custom config files, and asking my mother for an ISDN line for my birthday so I wouldn't have to play with a useless 56k modem. As for the game, I even remember when the M4A1 had a scope."