Counter-Strike for Xbox 360 gets casual mode, weapon tweaks, updated maps

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a "meld" of the legendary PC shooters Counter-Strike: Source and Counter-Strike 1.6 with map, weapon and mode tweaks for console audiences, Valve designers have explained.

"Counter-Strike: GO has this kind of objective of homing in," project lead Ido Magal told Kotaku during a playtest. "We're taking that competitive experience that's very hard to organize in Counter-Strike: Source... We've taken that and let everyone experience the fun of a five-on-five [game] where everyone is equally matched. The product doesn't span all of Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike is zombie mods and all these different things. This is more narrow."

Besides sharpening the focus, Valve has cooked up a new "casual" mode that removes in-game money restrictions on weapons and gear, rebuilt several classic maps, added new weapons and tweaked existing varieties, like the smoke grenade. "We changed the rate at which it blooms and dissipates and everyone preferred it.

"The maps Dust and Aztec aren't played competitively at all because they were so imbalanced in Source," Magal went on. "We feel very bullish on changing them, so we did. Dust 2 is a wonderfully balanced map that we didn't need to change. We just gave it a visual upgrade."

Asked what set Counter-Strike apart in a crowded market, Valve veteran Chet Faliszek argued that the game's capacity to register skill differences is unparalleled. "It's clean. You died because you made the wrong choice."

Faliszek believes there are no easy exploits; hurling grenades around, for instance, will get you quickly slaughtered, as it's "super-easy" to tackle a player carrying one. "There's not a lot of spam in there. There are a lot of clean kills. Most kills are gun kills. And it's about, 'Oh I didn't check that corner before I entered this room. I made the bad choice of trying to defuse the bomb before clearing the area. We rushed around this corner and we got ambushed.' "It's always about making those kinds of decisions and not about, 'Oh man, why did I die? What the hell?' That bullshit kind of thing."

"A small difference in skill between two players, the impact of that on the game will be accentuated," Magal summarised. "My experience in other games is that's not the case."

Global Offensive is out early next year.

[Kotaku]