It’s hard to believe that to this day that what started 12 years ago as a mod known simply as Counter-Strike, has grown into one of the the top first-person shooters of all time surpassing over 25 million units last year.  But ask the legions of fans world-wide and they will tell you that as simplistic as it is, Counter-Strike is like a fine wine only that only gets better with age.  Last year Valve set the gaming world on fire by announcing that they would be releasing the next installment in the series: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.  While this game is not meant to be a reinvention of the wheel, Valve seems to be intent on giving CS some important tweaks to take something  great and make it even better.

CSGO uses relatively small maps featuring 5v5 gameplay.  In addition Valve has included a built in ELO-based ranking system to determine your skill level so if your reflexes are slowing down (like me) then you will hopefully be placed in games with people of your own skill level (bots).  There is the ability to have custom gameplay options on the PC version of the game to increase the team sizes, however console players will not have that option.   Confirmed maps so far are Dust, Dust 2, Aztec, Office, Nuke, Italy, and Inferno.  The best news is that the core gameplay looks just as appealing as it did many years ago and with the new additions of items such as the Molotov cocktail and updated art style CSGO looks like it is going to hold its own against today’s first person shooter games.

CSGO is slated for release on PC, XBOX 360, & Playstation game consoles in early 2012.