When CS:GO came out in 2012, it was a new game, with new weapons, new maps, and new gameplay.
But there was another change to it as well, that made more of an impact than any of these
things did. Because what it did, it hid away the server browser, and prioritised a new,
Valve-run server system instead. There was a time when searching for
a game in Counter-Strike involved scrolling down a server list until you found one you
wanted to join. Every single one of these was a server, hosted somewhere, by someone,
running a custom set of maps, rules and -quite often- sound effects.
You’d still get usual old defuse maps and gameplay, but you’d find other things as well-
you’d find strange, close-knit communities having lengthy discussions about something irrelevant.
There were weird and wonderful gamemodes that I never quite understood how to play,
but enjoyed none-the-less, and often encounter maps that I’d only play once
but would remember for years to come. Now don’t get me wrong- this custom
stuff wasn’t all good. In fact, a lot of it is utter rubbish. Many custom servers can’t
seem to help but force you to download half a GB of custom assets that you don’t want.
And even downloading all that stuff doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have a bug-free experience-
or one that works at all. I swear that some servers are utterly broken, but it doesn’t
stop them from being inhabited by dozens of people who seem perfectly content with whatever broken or
user-unfriendly map they may be currently hosting. I’d run into power-hungry admins who would ban
anybody who killed them. I once found myself in a clutch situation and the
admin triggered a deafening jump-scare sound which made me jump out of my skin.
“MOVE!”
Another time, my clan was winning a 2v2 match so the other team changed our names and
unbound all of our controls until we disconnected and forfeited that game.
So it wasn’t all good. There are definitely benefits to CS:GO’s more fixed,
more regulated Valve-run servers instead. It’s nice to be automatically teamed up and
put in a balanced and competitive match, whenever you feel like it. And you know
what to expect when you join a game of CS:GO from its fixed list of maps and gamemodes.
But the game has lost part of its soul in the process. And it’s lost that ‘community feel’,
where you’d frequently run into the same players time and time again.
Third party services offer this back to some degree. And the custom server browser IS still
in CS:GO- click PLAY, Community Server Browser, and click OK here and you’ll find it. But let’s
be honest- nobody bothers with it, do they. Luckily, CS:GO has slowly but surely added
official support for many of the custom gamemodes it was known for in the past.
Every time an Operation rolls around, we seem to be given more ways of playing the game.
Let’s take a look at some of the gamemodes CS:GO that are yet to be officially supported.
Surf mode needs no introduction. But I’ll do it any way- this gamemode exploits one
of Counter-Strike’s movement quirks. If you land on a steep slope, you’ll slide down it. But press
the button facing towards the surface and you’ll slide along it instead. This was discovered long,
long ago, and since then, the surf gamemode has gained increasingly advanced and beautiful
looking maps for players to surf along. For the most-part, it’s a relaxed gamemode,
pitting you against yourself as you get further and further along the course with every try.
There are some incredible videos of highly talented surfers who master a particular course,
shaving tenths of a second off until they obtain the new world-record time! And other maps can end
with teleports and weapons which allow you to destroy anybody left in the start zone.
BUNNYHOP. If you jump the moment you hit the ground, you can sometimes pull off a bunny-hop,
which speeds you up beyond the limits of your running speed.
You could use this in older Counter-Strike games to speed across a map,
reaching areas long before you ‘should’ have been able to. It’s still possible in CS:GO,
but it’s been heavily nerfed to the point where no player can really use it to get
a speed advantage any more… apart from Frankie. But bunnyhop mode does away with this limitation!
All you have to do is to hold down jump and you’ll bounce up and down, accumulating more
and more speed every time. It’s exhilarating to do, and much like surf, this mode has gained
a large number of custom maps and servers dedicated around this mechanic. Most quickly
become insanely difficult for newer players to pull off, but it’s fun to try nonetheless.
KZ… or Climb maps, are also about jumping from one platform to another. But whereas Bunnyhop mode is
about building up lots of speed and frantically steering your mouse about so that you don’t miss
the platform you’re aiming for, kz, or climb maps, are much slower-paced. They don’t tend to have
auto bunnyhop, since their focus is about pulling off pixel-perfect jumps in order to REACH the next
platform. Subtle difference, but they feel very different in practice. I still think
this is witchcraft, and I can’t even achieve the easier of these long-distance jumps that
veterans of this gamemode can seemingly pull off every time. Some servers have a saving feature so
you don’t have to start all over again the moment you make a mistake, but even those can quickly
get SERIOUSLY difficult, requiring absolutely perfect positioning, air strafing and timing.
VIP Mode. ‘Protect the VIP, team!’ I talked recently about the battle between hostage
and defuse mode in Counter-Strike’s early days. But there was a third gamemode, too! This turned
one of the CT’s into a ‘VIP’ every round, and the goal was to get this person to the extraction zone
without the terrorists killing him. The VIP was armed with just a pistol and with limited ammo,
and no helmet of any sort, making him extremely vulnerable. Now I don’t know how the gamemode
would hold up if played by today’s experienced players, but it was a bit of fun back then.
Prop hunt is by far the best gamemode ever made, ever. You become an item in the level,
and must hide from players. So if you’re a cup, you’ll hide on a desk in the hope that
players won’t notice there isn’t normally a cup there. Every time players shoot, they lose a bit
of their health, so they have limited chances to find you. What’s great is when a prop is found
and it makes a run for it, leading to lots of terrorists shooting at a telephone as it races
across the level for its life. Like I said, it’s quite literally the best game mode ever.
ZOMBIE! There are two zombie modes. The first is Zombie mode, where everybody runs off and hides in
a corner in the hope that the zombies won’t get to them. A few seconds after the game begins,
one of the players at random becomes a zombie, which only has a knife,
but has thousands of HP, and anybody they knife will also become a zombie with thousands of HP.
This was super fun to play with friends, as you blocked off the doorways with furniture
in the hope the ever-increasing numbers of zombies outside never discovered your location.
‘EEUYEUUGUGHHHHH’
But THESE DAYS, it seems like Zombie Escape gamemode is the more popular of the two,
which is more about running through an assault course, being chased by zombie players, with
the goal being to escape the map. I mean, I’m sure it’s still fun, but it’s not what I’m used to from
the gamemode so I can’t say I’ve ever taken to it as fondly as the one I was used to play in Source.
‘Stop bhopping! What are you doing’
‘I’ll kill him. Just… kill him. Screw you.’
Prison mode is… weird, and has been the gateway to all sorts of kinky stuff.
CT’s are the jail wardens, and the terrorists are the prisoners,
and CTs get them to go to places in the level and to perform stuff, and if they disobey then
they get shot. I think the terrorists have to escape when nobody’s looking,
but when I’ve played this gamemode it seems like they’re all happy obeying whatever they’re told to
do and I eventually lose interest and leave. But this gamemode is definitely… something.
1v1 arena mode! This is something that CS:GO has done a disservice to. Now, it HAS put 1v1 arenas
in the warmup period of a match, so you might think you know about this gamemode already-
but you don’t, because it doesn’t represent what this gamemode is about. If you join a custom
server with this gamemode on, you’ll be put into one of maybe a dozen 1v1’s which are carried out
at the same time. The winners of these go up a tier, losers go down one. What you’re left with
is a leaderboard where the best players are all battling it out to reach and to remain in the
highest ‘tier 1’ level, while the worst players sink to the bottom and are there just to be beaten
by any new players joining the servers before they begin their own climb up the leaderboard.
So it’s a really fun, fast-paced affair that primes you for 1v1 battles in other gamemodes.
From my experience, the communities in this gamemode are all really friendly and
you get to know everybody well before the map changes, and the whole thing
starts again on the next arena. I can recommend trying out 1v1 mode for real.
And, of course, there’s the Red Bull Flick gamemode, which I covered in a video the
other day. You can check it out here. This is a 2v2 team deathmatch gamemode about controlling
the active capture point. What makes this one special is that Red Bull is in the process of
hosting a large and very professional tournament for it, so it’s kind of like what happens if
CS:GO’s competitive side was mixed with a custom gamemode and maps. There are prizes to be won,
and it’s not too late to take part, so check out the video for it just here.
The goal of this video isn’t to be an exhaustive list of every custom gamemode Counter-Strike is
home to. Just think of this as but a taste of the weird and wonderful modes you’ll discover if you
dare venture out of your comfort zone and into the custom server browser for Counter Strike. I
believe hiding it behind a few extra clicks has made the custom community a lot smaller than it
could have been. But in making this video, I’ve been impressed by just how alive both
the Counter-Strike Source AND CS:GO custom server communities are still. It isn’t long before I feel
part of something more intimate and personal than I’m used to from the experience delivered
from conventional gamemodes and servers. So why not give it a go, and see what you discover?
And I’ll put my own surf map on my servers, if you want an easy place to start.
‘YO! Don’t think you’re ready for that Philip.’ ‘HAHAHA!’
‘Nah, it can’t be Philip, bro, yo a big youtuber, million subs, surfing with a default knife…’