CS:GO : The ABC's for the Newbies!
CS:GO as of late has been getting a lot of wind under its feet with the Majors in Poland and Sweden. This has brought a surge of players into the game, new players. This is for you guys, the newbies, your own ABC guide for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO).
Say you have just purchased and installed CS:GO and you eagerly open up the game. The main menu screen appears in front of your eyes and the background music kicks in. You cannot wait to jump into a game so you click the play button followed by the find a game and now face a submenu. It shows five different gamemodes: Deathmatch, Arms Race, Demolition, Casual and Competitive.
CS:GO Deathmatch:
An up to 16-man (8vs8) gamemode where you have to achieve as many points as possible within 10 minutes. In this mode you have infinite respawns and ammo (with reloads), and as such it is usually preferred for practicing aim and warming up before going into competitive matches.
CS:GO Arms Race:
In this gamemode you have to reach the last weapon (a golden knife) and knife somebody with it to win. A fun gamemode where you get to try out a variety of weaponry as you progress to the knife! Demolition: A 5-on-5 best-of-20-rounds fast paced gamemode where for each kill per round you receive a new weapon and extra grenades. This gamemode contains special maps that fit demolition best.
CS:GO Casual:
This is the - surprise surprise - casual counterpart of the competitive gamemode. With the full mappool (Active duty, Reserve and Operation maps) it is a more hectic and 'easier' version of the competitive gamemode. It is unranked and at the start of each round the game autobuys full armour and defuse kit (as CT).
CS:GO Competitive:
The pinnacle gamemode in CS:GO. In this gamemode you will play the classic 5v5, 30 rounds, ranked format. You will have to win ten matches before being placed into a rank from where you can work your way up!
As much as you want to jump into your first competitive game, do not. You need to get slightly aquainted with the game first or you might ruin your, as well as your teammates', experience in a competitive match. This might result in teammates yelling at you and all sorts of profanity and essentially calling you a 'noob'.
Start off by jumping into a deathmatch and go through your settings. Turn on your console and type into it net_graph 1. Small white text will appear in the bottom right corner of your screen which will have a lot jibberish in your eyes if you are not acquainted to the terms. The important ones for you are FPS and Ping. Your frames-per-second (FPS) should be above 60 as the game is going to be best experienced when it is above that. You can see your ping in-game on the right end of the scoreboard or from the little text. This will indicate how well your internet and the server at hand speak to each other, the lower your ms the faster and more accurate the transmission is and the less 'lag' you have.
When you open up your video settings tab, turn off 'motion blur' and 'wait for vertical sync' as these can impact your gameplay negatively. The other settings you can tweak as you please, the higher the settings, the more processing power it takes and the slower your game will run. Another thing you should also turn off is windows mouse acceleration. In a game like CS:GO where being pinpoint accurate is key, mouse acceleration will make hitting your targets harder. In-game sensitivity and mouse sensitivity is of opinion and taste, some prefer high sensitivities, some low.
When you purchase the game, do not jump into a competitive game straight away. Go into some deathmatch or casual and practice your aim, get aquainted with the game. Tweak your mouse and video settings so you can achieve maximum efficiency and the best game experience. Once you feel ready and have become aquainted with the game, jump into a match and good luck & have fun!
Anthony "Alphad115" Fedorov