Valve Cinemagic: CSGO's Source Filmmaker Short
If it wasn't already amazingly apparent, Valve is quite well-versed in the ways of moviefilm-fu. And while it may have recently offered its tools of the trade to all who would dare know their secrets, the Newellian empire is still very much the master. Case in point: a new short film promoting Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. While other games that do the whole good-guys-vs-terrorists shtick have entered into an arms race over biggest 'splosions and who can make their flying drone swarms look like something out of a Hitchcock movie, this brief CSGO tale aims to be intimate, intense, and true to the spirit of the series. It won't blow your mind or anything, but it's still certainly a cut above.
Elsewhere on the merry ol' CSGO-round, Valve's announced that the latest revamp of its undying shooter franchise is set to launch with a rather literal interpretation of that theme - namely, a zombie mod. So it was written on CSGO's official blog:
"CS:GO doesn’t launch alone next week. When we go live next Tuesday, we will have some brain chomping walking dead joining us. The guys over at plaguefest.com have been working with us to get Zombie Mod working on CS:GO and it’s ready! It was important to us as we developed CS:GO to make sure it was as moddable and extensible as any CS game. So this is just one of many mods that will be available to CS:GO in the coming months. Are you actively developing a mod for CS:GO? Let us know."
So that's encouraging. But will this finally be the One Counter-Strike To Rule Them All? Or will it just end up fragmenting the audience further? And really, would that be such a bad thing? Perhaps a CS that's more friendly to new players - both in terms of gameplay and the community surrounding it - would be good for both old players and new. What do you think? Do you plan on giving this one a go?