Digital Media Concepts/Counter Strike: Global Offensive

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS:GO for short, is a first-person online shooter video game that was created and developed by Valve Corporation and Hidden Path Entertainment. CS:GO is available for play on the PC, Mac, Xbox 360, and the Playstation 3. It is, however, only available through digital download from the Xbox 360 or Playstation store or from the Steam app on the PC and Mac.

Gameplay
Based on the game mode, the games can hold either 10 people, making it a 5 versus 5, or 20 people, making it a 10 versus 10 and them splits players up in either a terrorist side or a counter-terrorist side. In CS:GO, there are 5 game modes: deathmatch, arms race, demolition, casual, and competitive.

Leveling Up
To level up in this game, players just need to play any of the game modes and from there they gain experience points. Experience points vary depending on if players win or lose a match.

Deathmatch
In this mode, 10 players queue up and then are split into terrorist and counter-terrorist and the objective of this mode is to help your team achieve the set number of kills before the other team reaches it. In addition, this mode lets you use any weapon available in the game and players can respawn after dying.

Arms Race
In this mode, 10 players queue up and then are split into terrorist and counter-terrorist and the objective of this mode is to progress and reach a certain of amount of kills to win the game. But the twist is that everyone starts off with the same weapon and cannot buy/use anything else. In addition, even though people are split into teams, the game only awards one person with the win. In order to progress, players must kill with their assigned weapon and once getting a kill, they obtain a new one and this goes on until the last stage of the cycle where the player is given a knife and if they kill with it, they win the game.

Demolition
In this mode, 10 players queue up and then are split into terrorist and counter-terrorist and the objectives of this mode is to either eliminate the other side or either plant the bomb if you are on the terrorist side or defuse the bomb if you are on the counter-terrorist side. Each time players get a kill, they can get a new weapon in the next round. The game mode is won by whichever team can win the first to 11 rounds.

Casual
In this mode, 20 players queue up for the biggest game mode available and splitting them up into terrorist and counter-terrorist. The objective here is either like demolition where you either plant the bomb or bomb defuse depending on the side you are on or either rescue hostages or protect the hostages from getting rescued.

Competitive
In this mode, players actually need to reach a minimum level 3 in order to play this mode. This mode is similar to demolition where sides either plant the bomb or defuse it or just kill the other team first, but you earn money every round depending on if you kill, plant, or win/lose the round. The money awarded allows players to buy things such as weapons, armor, grenades, and a defuse kit (specific for counter-terrorist as it allows for faster defuse time). Depending on a player’s performance, they can rank up or rank down.

Ranks
There are a total of 18 ranks in CS:GO. Ranks are assigned to beginning players by winning 10 competitive matches. After that, they are then assigned a rank depending on their performance and on their win/loss ratio. Once being placed in a rank, players can rank up by winning consecutive games and/or by performing well in their matches. Players also affects players if they perform poorly as they can rank down based if they have lost consecutive games. Player ranks determine the group of players they will be matched up with and play against and are matched based on their skills. The orders of ranks are as follows:


 * 1) Silver I
 * 2) Silver II
 * 3) Silver III
 * 4) Silver IV
 * 5) Silver Elite
 * 6) Silver Master Elite
 * 7) Gold Nova I
 * 8) Gold Nova II
 * 9) Gold Nova III
 * 10) Gold Nova Master
 * 11) Maser Guardian I
 * 12) Master Guardian II
 * 13) Master Guardian Elite
 * 14) Distinguished Master Guardian
 * 15) Legendary Eagle Master
 * 16) Legendary Eagle Master
 * 17) Supreme Maser First Class
 * 18) The Global Elite

Awards and Nominations
CS:GO was awarded and won E-Sports Game Of The Year in 2015 and was nominated as best E-Sports Game in 2016.

E-Sports
As E-Sports (Electronic Sports) are on the rise from streaming online, they are slowly trying to transition to TV as well. During Summer 2016, TBS aired CS:GO tournaments on TV and is shown on ESPN channels as well.

Technology
Although not necessarily needed to play, headphones and microphones are essential to players in this game. With the use of headphones, players are able to hear footsteps of other players if they are running. This is advantageous as it allows players to determine enemy player location when they are not shown on the map. Microphones allow players to effectively communicate with one another with their voices and add on to both team and community building. Compared to typing out things, communicating with microphones is faster and clearer.