Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the best competitive shooter. Or is it? The CS.MONEY pitted Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Call of Duty against each other in an attempt to figure out which game is cooler. Spoiler alert: turns out, CS:GO really rules. In any event, let’s go figure it all out!
By the way, there’s a reason we’re broaching this topic. For a second consecutive year, we see some CS:GO pros flee to Valorant. The latter is extremely similar to CS; COD Vanguard, however, is different. Could it steal some players too?
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive requires skill
To win in Call of Duty, you need to run and jump a lot, shooting at everything that moves. This is COD‘s chronic problem that’s a source of inspiration for numerous memes. Just think of those no-scope-360 snipers spamming fire while rotating in a jump.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive functions quite differently. Running and jumping while shooting is almost always a bad idea. Contrariwise, you should know the position of your opponent, so you can quickly leave your cover, stand at one position for a short time, aim, and make the shot. This makes the game very tacticool. The player must not only react quickly but also understand the game perfectly! That requires some real skill — no run’n’gun gameplay is possible here.
Moreover, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive features no tools of instant death (excluding the AWP) like “noob guns” or “sticks.” Don’t know what these stand for? Don’t worry: we’ll tell you.
“Noob guns” in Call of Duty are under-barrel grenade launchers and RPGs. Because of their large kill radius and high damage, making frags with a weapon like that is a piece of cake. Consequently, grenade launchers have long been the most hated feature of the game’s online mode. “Sticks” are a melee weapon. And if you think that a melee stick is completely useless in a shooter, you have no idea just how capable Kali Sticks are of infuriating your opponents. At any rate, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a team game
The standard mode in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive provides competitive 5-v.-5 gameplay that revolves around planting the C4 explosive. A great scenario to encourage teamwork. But besides the mode with a clear objective, CS features:
- tactical micro-actions;
- no respawns during a round;
- economy;
- and friendly fire.
As a result, it’s often the player who’s able to throw a timely flash and figure out the economy (his own and the opponent’s) who wins the match, rather than the better shooter.
In Call of Duty, the opposite applies: personal skills are much more crucial than team skills. For example, you can’t pass down a kill streak to a teammate. In addition, don’t forget that the most popular mode in COD is the team deathmatch. One round and respawns after death frequently squelch all efforts at a tactical approach. You only need to score as many frags as possible.
Even in the explosive planting mode, called Search & Destroy, the tactical side leaves much to be desired. Since all players always have access to the best equipment, a whole layer of gameplay depth is missing. No one saves guns for the next round, there’s no point in changing positions because you didn’t have enough money to buy the right gun, and so on. A regular nightmare!
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: your skills always come in handy
Many Call of Duty haters are of the opinion that every game in the series is a replica of the previous one with overhauled scenery. Even though thoughts along those lines might be justified to an extent, each next Call of Duty installment is still different from the previous one. The problem is that there have been 19 games in the franchise since 2003. One game a year!
And that’s not just updates like the annual FIFA re-releases. Over the past ten years, CoD fans have participated in battles in a whole range of eras and locations: World War II, the Cold War, contemporary war conflicts, and even the space of the near future. All in all, an eclectic mix of settings with more or less identical gameplay.
In contrast to this conveyor-belt approach, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been gradually dropping new content for over nine years. Throughout the game’s history, only a dozen maps have been actively played in competitive mode, their balance honed through regular updates. As for new guns, they are few and far between.
The good thing about the absence of resets, relaunches, and re-releases in the game is the safety of additional content, particularly skins. In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, once you get a skin, you keep it forever. You can even earn some money! Bottom line, it’s unlikely that Valve will risk releasing the next game in the series without preserving the skins.
That said, your progress in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will stay relevant much longer. Knowledge of nade throws, push strategies, timings — none of these things are reset on a yearly basis with the release of a new game. Mirage fans can even use the same throws and tricks that they resorted to on the day the map was released. Talk about stability!
Play what you like
The games are drastically different gameplay-wise; they focalize different mechanics. It’s impossible to say which one is better. Besides, isn’t it a moot point? What you should do, however, is to subscribe to our newsletter. Just leave your email in the box right there, and you’ll regularly receive letters with the best content from our blog.
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