Michael 'Rickeh' McGhee dons the reviewers cap for the first time as he goes over the beta version of the latest CS:S update released last night.

"CS:S update's been announced... Check it out, it's pretty major". The sentence that was uttered to me by one of my friends and confidante earlier this evening, my first reaction was one of shock, "Surely he's not baiting me? Nah.. He wouldn't do that." He wasn't baiting, when I opened up my web browser and visited the steam website I was greeted by the news that CS:S had indeed received an extensive update, so much so that a beta version of this all new CS:S was to be released so they can gauge the interest and ideas from Joe public before releasing it fully. A smart idea considering the last major update that was released for the game - dynamic weapon pricing - went down like a lead balloon.

After posting the news on this very website I got round to downloading the game, something that proved quite difficult due to the sheer number of people doing the same. It was so popular that within just an hour of having the game in open beta this message appeared on the Steampowered website:

Notice: Thanks for your interest. We've filled the available slots.

For all of the people not lucky enough to download the game in time I'll be doing a review of it, much like we did with CSPromod on it's release and hopefully giving you some idea as to what has changed and what you can look forward to upon it's full release.

The beta was filled in record time

When reading the patch notes you begin to wonder if they are slowly trying to turn our game into TF2 with Terrorists.. But, the more you think about it the more sense it makes.

- 144 achievements added
- New lifetime player stats and summary screens
- New match player stats and summary screens
- New end of round display with MVP and interesting fact about a player
- Updated scoreboard with new icons, visual style, MVP stars, and avatar pictures
- New cinematic death camera
- New domination and revenge system
- Added avatar icons to voice chat, scoreboard, and end of round display


Those are some of the changes made to the game, giving it a much more public-friendly feel and making it much more enjoyable for the non-competitive userbase, it might be slightly off putting for us competitive players but at the end of the day we are in the minority, and anything that makes our game more attractive to new players and more enjoyable for current players can only be a good thing. One thing that will get the competitive communities blood racing is the news that Valve have "Incorporated many source engine updates". That could range from a complete mechanics overhaul to a simple engine port, the only way to find out was to boot up the game and try it.

First Impressions

When you load up the game the first thing you'll notice is... Well.. Nothing. The one thing I feel Valve have slipped up on is not updating the aesthetics of the game. If you're going to completely revamp the game mechanics then it makes sense to update the looks also, having stared at the same loading screen for over 4 years it would be nice to have something different to look at. The menu skin is also the same drab grey colour it has been since the dawn of time, something that really could do with being "prettied up" before it's official release.

The achievements are a great addition

The one thing that has changed on the menu screen is the addition of an achievements tab. The main pull of any game is to have something to strive towards, be it completing missions on a 1 player or beating a friend online. It seems Valve have clicked on to this as we now see CS:S brought into the present with it's own unlockable achievements system, much like that in hugely popular titles such as TF2, BC2, L4D2 and the COD series. Now, although this may be of little interest to the competitive scene the long term ramifications it could have on the scene are huge, this now has the potential to attract more public players to the game and keep them playing for a longer period of time, the longer someone plays the more chance they have of getting into the competitive side of the game and we would eventually see a swelling of the talent pool within the European scene.

When you start up the game you will also notice that not much of your game interface has changed, the clock, health bar, armour bar, ammo bar and defusal symbol are all exactly the same - another thing I feel they could take the time to modernise slightly to make it slightly more attractive, after all those years it's time for a change. The scoreboard has undergone a complete revamp and now, quite frankly looks terrible, I truly hope the change that before the game is released as it looks extremely tacky and cheap, much like the end of round statistics and achievement award pop-ups. They really aren't nice to look at and do not blend in with the game whatsoever.

The scoreboard could do with a make-over..

On The Server

Finding a server is the first point you'll notice a change as rather than the normal server browser window we have a brand new style. Each server that has been found will now show up with a picture of what map is being played, it doesn't change the game massively but again it's an added extra which makes the game look slightly more modernised, something that is all important when it comes to attracting new players.

Some more good news that comes with the port onto the Orange Box engine is that the game will now support multi-core systems. Since the source engine was so massively CPU dependent it meant that achieving good, stable FPS was almost impossible for anyone with a mid-range PC. This feature was one of the mains pulls of the Orange Box engine back when TF2 was ported over and will give users with multi-core systems a huge FPS boost when in game, as well as making the game easier to render and much smoother, which means the days of technology holding you back are now over.

The server list look nicer

The first thing you'll notice when you join up to a server will be how bold the colours now look, now I'm not too sure if that's to do with what graphics card I have but for me the maps look more smoothly rendered, colours seem much deeper and the game just looks better overall. No major graphical changes have been made other than the map rendering and shading. Again, after playing a few rounds you will notice that there haven't been many changes to the actual mechanics of the game, recoil seems extremely similar to that of the normal CS:S and the models sound and look the same. The only major problem right now is the acceleration of the models in the game, unfortunately the default command for sv_acceleration in the game is set to 10, in CS:S a cvar was introduced to change that default rate to 5, that cvar is now defunct since the port onto the Orange Box engine, making running around seem somewhat like ice-skating.

The game looks great with all setting on high, and without the horrible FPS drops

The people behind the game, hiddenpath are already aware of this bug and are working on fixing it in time for the next update to the beta, something that will make testing and playing the game a hell of a lot easier. That seems to be the only major bug in the game at the moment, at least the only noticeable one, so far so good, right? Well, there are some minor bugs which will all need fixed, for example; when walking, if you change direction it makes the sound of a footstep - making clutching a round nay-on impossible. Another bug is that when scoping in with an AWP and crouching, your movement speed isn't slowed. It may be difficult to notice at first but it's a huge difference from the original CS:S in which crouching whilst scoped caused you to move just barely faster than a snail. Skyboxes don't seem to have changed either which means we won't be seeing any newly developed smokes and flashes any time soon.

Another huge change to the game is the new death-cam, modeled off of the Team Fortress 2 deathcam the new cinematic death notice is extremely bad for competitive play, considering it is vital to call what little information you have to your team when you die, doing that with the new deathcam will be impossible. Luckily it can be changed with relative ease through the options menu, which means public players can enjoy some TF2 style fun whilst the competitive guys won't be held back. On top of that there is a brand new bomb explosion, which now looks similar to an atom bomb being dropped into the middle of the map, it looks truly spectacular compared to the old bomb blasts, another fantastic improvement to the game aesthetics.

The badass new bomb explosion

Grenades

One of the major changes to the game which will effect competitive play is the changes to the grenades and the way in which they are thrown. The projection of the grenades has been changed as they now come away from your model at an upwards angle. The only reason I can think of for such a change would be to make the game slightly easier for the average public player, however it also means that any set smokes, flashbangs and grenades you had for your perfectly thought out strats will need to be altered slightly and practiced once again.

There is a video of the nades in action available to download Here (made by MsTsN).

It's unlikely that we will find a mod or cvar to change this back so for now it looks like we just have to adapt and deal with it, after a while it becomes second nature as you barely even realise the change. The way the grenades move when they leave your hand doesn't seem to have been altered, neither has how much the bounce when they hit objects. I have also tested at length whether or not flashbangs have any different effects and have come to the conclusion that they are exactly the same as in the original CS:S, as are smoke grenades - however seeing out of one way smokes seems to be easier, perhaps due to the fact I had 3x the FPS I normally do. Grenades also do the same damage as they did previously.

The Netcode

Competitive CS:S players rejoice, for your prayers have been answered. That's right, interpolate is now a thing of the past. No more will you be killed by someone you cannot see thanks to the retarded engine bug that was peekers advantage. One of the main problems with CS:S and the cause of much debate in the past was interpolate, for the people who aren't familiar with the term or ones who don't like technical jargon, skip to the next paragraph. The idea behind interpolate and what it does was best explained by one Simon 'Bleak' Mills:

"The client sends point A and C to the server and interpolate will work out where point B should be to fill in the missing gap." - is what happens when interpolate 1 is set, if it's 0 then it won't interpolate and only points A and C will get sent out by the server resulting in a jerky looking game. Although that shouldn't be a problem at LAN, hence why they tend to use 0 there".

It was for those reasons that Interpolate was set to 1 for online play, the main problem with that was the ever controversial "Peekers Advantage", something that a lot of people deny even exists. This was caused by the "peeker" having a 60ms advantage over the player he is "peeking", this is obviously amazingly unfair for the player on the receiving end of it. It appears that this has been fixed with the new update as there is no more interpolate and no more peekers advantage, something that will have most players in the competitive scene whooping and hollering for joy.

Proof! Interpolate is no more

More information on the effects of interpolate can be found Here.

Now I'm not technicaly astute when it comes to coding - I struggle coding a 32 team elimination bracket let alone a game - but to me the hitreg in the game feels a lot better than it did before, I've been playing the game for a few hours now and not once have I questioned why there's blood on the T's head but I haven't hit him, not once have I screamed in frustration at the fact I've not hit someone after tapping on his head 6 times. It really does feel like the game has been fixed, now I don't want to say that it's perfect, but to me it feels like a massive improvement to what we are used to and a huge step towards being a consistent game.

CS:S Is Fixed!! Right?

After years of lobbying and complaining Valve have finally listened to our calls and decided to fix our beloved game. It's now the best FPS game in the world and it's all thanks to Valve, long live Gabe Newell. Right? Well, not quite. What I feel is paramount to the success of this update - especially within the competitive scene - is just how much the coders take on board and listen to what we're asking for. The game is far from fixed and there are still many bugs such as "crabbing" (The inexplicible model bug which happens when you cancel a bomb plant half way through), they have listened to us about up-dating the game, now they need to listen to us about what in the game needs updated. The new beta isn't perfect, and much like when dynamic pricing was introduced Valve will need to implement some sort of cvar's to enable us to deactivate or change certain parts of the latest update for competitive play. They could perhaps even introduce a "tournament mode" much like they did with TF2, which is designed specifically for competitive CS:S players.

All in all the update is long overdue and may just give CS:S the jolt it needed to get back on track, and perhaps put an end to the constant pessimism and negativity surrounding the competitive scene at the moment. Although some parts aren't exactly brilliant for us gamers they will help in the long run by attracting the latest generation of players, something that is needed if we wish to see our game out-last our bitter rival that is 1.6. I just hope they keep the updates coming and don't leave us in the dark for another 5 years.