How to Play CS:GO - A Guide to Beginners

Counter-Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO) is by far the most played FPS in the world, constantly breaking records for users or viewers in its broadcasts. Of course, a phenomenon like this in the gaming world always attracts new players, if you're one of them don't worry!

In today's article, we will see the best tips for beginners in CS:GO, a guide for those who are starting out!

First, you must understand what Counter-Strike is, right? As I said, it's an FPS (First Personal Shooter) with no Bitcoin or NFT shenanigans.

A CS:GO match has ten players, 5 against 5. One team will be Terrorists (TR), and the other 5 players will form Counter-Terrorists (CT).

The objective of the Terrorists is to plant a C4 bomb in the designated areas, while the CT team must prevent this advance and defend the areas.

If the TRs install this C4, the Counter-Terrorists will have to defuse it within 40 seconds; otherwise the bomb will explode, and the Terrorists will win the round.

For this, both teams equip themselves with weapons, vests, helmets and utilities of all kinds (flashbang, smoke, grenade, molotov, among others)!

After 15 rounds, the teams will switch objectives: the Terrorists will go to the Counter-Terrorists side, and vice versa. Whoever wins 16 rounds will win the match (in a Competitive game).

Before installing the game, make sure your computer meets the minimum requirements to have a good experience playing CS.

Minimum Requirements for Windows

Operating System: Windows XP/Vista/7 or higher

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom X3 8750

RAM: 2 GB

Graphic Card (GPU): Shader 3.0 or better, DirectX 9 compatible with 256 MB or more of memory (VRAM)

Storage: 15 GB free HD/SSD space

Minimum Requirements for macOS

Operating System: MacOS 10.11 or higher

Processor: Intel Core Duo 2 GHz or better

RAM: 2 GB

Graphic Card (GPU): ATI Radeon HD 2400, NVIDIA 8600M or better

Storage: 15 GB free HD/SSD space

Minimum Requirements for Linux

Operating System: Ubuntu 12.04

Processor: 64-bit Dual Core Intel or AMD with 2.8 GHz

RAM: 4 GB

Graphic Card (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce 8600/9600GT, ATI/AMD Radeon HD 2600/3600 or better; OpenGL 2.1 driver and OpenAL sound card

Storage: 15 GB free HD/SSD space

Now that you know what it is, and you have the game open, let's get down to business! How to play CS? We'll see about the economy, the rounds, and the possible strategies of each team!

Basic Commands

To perform basic in-game actions like walking, buying items or shooting, check out the list of keys:

W, A, S, D: Walk

Shift: Walk slowly

Control: Crouch

Space: Jump

Left Mouse Button: Shoot (Plant C4)

Right Mouse Button: Aim (not allowed for some weapons)

R: Reload

B: Open the Store

1, 2, 3, 4: Switch weapon

G: Drop weapon (Drop C4)

Economy

Every round, beginning players will earn a sum of money to buy equipment, but you have to understand how the CS economy works and know which rounds to invest in.

Pistol Round

The first round is known as the Pistol Round, as players still don't have enough money to buy weapons, in this round it is recommended to buy a basic vest (without a helmet), and save the rest of the money for the next rounds.

If you REALLY know how to use the utilities, you can buy them instead of the vest, but it's very risky.

Buy Round

The Buy Round is the one in which your team invests resources with weapons, vests and utilities to come with maximum strength and win the round. But to achieve that, you need to have enough money, so it's important to save now and then with the Eco-Round!

Eco-Round

Eco Round is the solution for when you lose the Round Pistol, or when your team is running low on resources. The term "eco" comes from "economy", which means that your team will play only with the starting pistols, often without vests and utility. Your objective is to save money to start fully armed in a future round.

You don't mind losing the Eco Round, it's very likely that your team will die playing only with pistols, but the important thing is to try to get weapons on the other side, if your team gets 2 or 3 kills it's already great!

Terrorists

As a terrorist, you must combine to “rush” a bomb site (area allowed for planting a C4), in these cases the 5 Terrorists advance without stopping towards some specific bomb site that they combine. The intention is to kill the Counter-Terrorists present in that area and plant C4 as soon as possible!

Another good strategy is the “fake”, where 4 Terrorists invade bomb A (for example), and the other TR waits with the C4. The objective is to attract all the CTs to that area where the 4 Terrorists appeared, right after that the Terrorist with the C4 goes to the other bomb (in this case the bomb B), and will be free to plant the bomb!

Or you can simply combine a bomb to invade, without rush or fake, and wisely use the utilities (smokes, molotovs, flashbangs, etc) to make an effective entry.

Counter-Terrorists

There are also several defensive strategies to be used in CS:GO, but it depends on how the match unfolds, usually you and your team will split, going 2 for bomb A, 2 for B and 1 for the middle.

But as I said it depends a lot on the situation, if your team is doing an “eco” round against an armed round of the terrorists, you can combine all 5 to defend the same bomb. It's like a gamble, if the terrorists invade the bomb you've chosen, you'll have a better chance of winning since everyone will be there. If the terrorists go to the other bomb site, at least you won't die and deny them gold.

Weapons

Finally, let's talk about the weapons that can be used in the game! There are weapons for all tastes.

If you like to rush and go for it, I recommend submachine guns, like the P90 or MP5.

Another type of weapon perfect for the aggressive ones are the shotguns, they're not used as much as the subs, but they are a great option for close-range confrontations.

For the more cautious, I recommend sniper rifles, especially the AWP; with just one long-distance shot, you can eliminate an opponent.

And of course, you can't miss the famous assault rifles, I recommend the AK-47 for terrorists and the M4A1-S.

You can also buy a pistol to be your secondary weapon, the most suitable by far is the Desert Eagle as it has high damage in a single shot, even this pistol is widely used in eco rounds!

I hope this article has helped you, if you have any questions, leave them here in the comments, and I'll love to answer them!