Counter-Strike 2 (2023)

Just looked on my shelf and realized my first experience with Counter-Strike was via the boxed CS 1 Anthology from 2005. This latest version seems about the same, more or less. I've never been nuts about this series but I like it ok. Back then, I played it a lot (almost always with bots) as I hadn't really figured out what my taste in FPS games was yet.

Overall like this. Dont know about 'lag free' response, but some streamlining of mechanics (such as giving everyone defusal equipment armor and max ammo) updated smoke physics (shooting away and explosions moving smoke) are improvmeents. Still, cheaters abound, new maps would be welcome, and the Danger Zone (Battle Royal) mod has been axed. Maybe someday I'll check out Valorant (anti-cheat doesnt like my system)

From what I've seen, a lot of players are saying that Valve kinda fucked this up in many ways. As a returning, casual CS player who got introduced to the series back in the day with 1.6 but who hasn't played a CS in like ~8 years, I don't have a clue what the problem is, so I'm having good fun with this right now. It's nice to see this game change from decade to decade and these classic maps with a new livery every time. The game looks really good, especially the smoke grenades. But apparently, it performs much worse for many players, which is exactly what a CS should NOT be, unoptimized. It should run well on as many machines as possible. To add insult to injury, this is an update to CSGO, which means the latter is completely gone from the store. That's unacceptable of course. Doesn't bother me too much personally, but I totally understand that this would upset tons of people who are more invested in the series than me.