By For 11 years, fans of Counter-Strike experienced excitement by playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), a game that didn’t receive significant gameplay updates in the last few years of its life.
For both old and new fans of the series, it’s an exciting time to witness the birth of a new Counter-Strike game, named Counter-Strike 2.
The game officially released on Sept. 27 and leagues such as The National Association of Collegiate Esports made the swift decision to have all CS matches and competitions on CS2 once released.
With the release of CS2, Valve, the company behind the series, added new gameplay mechanics, changed map layouts and improved their game graphics with the Source 2 engine to give the series a more modern edge.
David Somogyi goes to see if Bombsite A is open to plant the bomb and potentially win a round in the final map of the game against the University of San Francisco. Long Beach would be able to win 3 rounds in a row from this point in order to bring the game to the final round of the map. Photo credit: Nicholas Broadhead
However, for those that are part of the Long Beach State CS teams for the Esports Association, large changes to gameplay, along with technical issues, have caused more frustration than rejoice.
With any new game, bugs and exploits are bound to happen. For some students, these bugs and gameplay changes are making them wish their competitions would stay on CS:GO.
Madesto Eitile, general manager of the CS section of the Esports Association and team captain for the CS2 Gold Team, says the game was not in a state for live play.
“There’s so many different tweaks and stuff that, like movement especially, you feel like you’re just dying behind walls,” Eitile said.
“The interp settings are really bad in my opinion. Movement is sluggish.”
David Rodriguez, a player for the CS2 Gold Team, tries to keep an open mind when playing with the new features and changes. However, he admits there are significant challenges with the gameplay that are causing players to have a hard time adjusting to the new game.
“A lot of the game style now is more oriented on movement rather than being able to aim itself,” Rodriguez said.
“So that new adaptation of how people play the game now is definitely probably, I would say, the hardest thing to adapt to.”
Changes in graphics have also brought their own troubles, as some players’ PCs are unable to handle the game’s new look. This leads to lower frame rates making the game unplayable.
During the CS2 Gold Team’s first game against the University of San Francisco on Oct. 6, lower frame rates made an appearance on computers at the Esports Lounge in the University Student Union. Frustration reared its ugly head for players during their game breaks.
The Long Beach State Counter Strike 2 Gold Team comes up with game plans and joins the server they'll use to play against the University of San Francisco. The CS2 Black Team at Long Beach State also played in the same room as the gold team, facing off against Cal State San Marcos. Photo credit: Nicholas Broadhead
David Somogyi, another player for CS2 Gold, expressed his dissatisfaction with the frame rate and overall performance of the game, claiming that it is not on par with what CS:GO had achieved prior.
“[My] setup is probably similar to this one. It’s not too good either,” Somogyi said.
“I haven’t really been playing the game the past couple weeks ever since CS2 came out.”
David Somogyi, an applied math major at Long Beach State, helps his team tie the match against the University of San Francisco in the second map of play. Somogyi faced frustration throughout the entire match, saying that some bad results teammates and him faced wouldn't have happened if they played on the previous game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Photo credit: Nicholas Broadhead
Somogyi does not solely blame the frame issue as the reason for the game’s incompletion. Enemies spotting you first, also known as “peeker’s advantage,” and bullets not hitting their targets make Somogyi wish that Valve had postponed the game’s launch.
“I like everything that they did with the [gre]nades and other small changes they did, but they just they shouldn’t have released the game right now,” Somogyi said.
Even though it might be a while until CS2 is in a better state to play, Valve has pushed out gameplay updates and other quality of life features three to four times a week.
Long Beach State graduate student David Rodriguez gives his Counter Strike 2 gold team members his thoughts on their next moves in the second map of their game against the University of San Francisco. Long Beach would win the second map 13-5, bringing the match to a third map. Photo credit: Nicholas Broadhead
For players like Rodriguez, it gives him hope that the game will be able to live up to its predecessor.
“I think we can all agree that everyone would say that as long as [Valve] listened to what we’re saying, because we do love the game that we want it to succeed, if they can listen to what we’re saying, [do] all the fixes that should be done, I think we can see a game that will live forever,” Rodriguez said.
