Well ladies and gentlemen, it's been a long time in the making but the closed beta for CS:Global Offensive has finally gone live.

News of the game broke earlier this year during a top secret (not really) meeting between Valve representatives and a select few members of the professional CS:S community. The meeting, although firstly to discuss the future of CS:S, was used to gauge interest and take feedback from the players on the latest Counter-Strike title to hit our shelves, CS:GO. The game has been in development for some time now and the closed beta was originally penned to go live earlier in the year, however implementing the feedback from a number of 1.6 and CS:S professionals given to Valve has taken longer than expected causing some delays.

Tonight though the hundreds, if not thousands of people who have acquired beta keys for the game will be granted access for the first time. Only people who were lucky enough to snag keys at press events, tournaments or competitions will be able to play for the time being as Valve slowly expand the beta before the open stage. The company are well known to be meticulous with the development of their games and will no doubt take their time over the feedback given to them in the closed beta stage.

Luckily for all you folks who didn't get their hands on a beta key either myself or Richard Lewis will be bringing you a review of the game as well as assessing its potential as a competitive e-sports title. We will also look to stream some live footage of the game or bring you some sneak peaks through our Youtube channel, so my advice would be to stay tuned to Cadred over the coming days and weeks, it's going to be interesting.