What a game CS:GO is. The fourth major entry in the series has grown so incredibly popular that it was officially recognized as the major FPS Esport title. The game has a thriving tournament scene, with highly-anticipated events like the CS:GO Major Championships drawing huge crowds every year. Fans can now buy tickets to attend these thrilling tournaments, meet their favorite players, and even bet on CSGO outcomes, thanks to the growing number of sports betting websites offering odds on Esports, including CS:GO. But, if you not only want to try to become an expert player like the S1mples of this world, check out our latest guide here on how to play CS:GO like a pro at Gamelevate.
Tips for Playing CS:GO Like a Pro
Here are the hottest tips that we can offer that’ll help you sharpen up your pro CS:GO skills.
1. Become More Accurate
That might sound extremely obvious, but in a game where every shot counts, it’s extremely true. There are community-made maps dedicated to helping you train your aim, as well as third-party tools like AimLabs that give you the ability to get to grips with CS:GO’s aiming and accuracy mechanics.
If you want to practice against real players, consider jumping into a Deathmatch. Ultimately, CS:GO is about shot placement, positioning, and centering. That means you need to be accurate on your first shot, you need to ideally stop moving at the moment you shoot, and your crosshair should already be where you most expect your opponents to appear.
2. Don’t Charge Around
CS:GO is a sound game as much as it is a visual game, and if you’re running around the map with reckless abandon, people will hear you coming a mile off. If you ‘shift-walk’, then you’ll move more or less silently, and this can be helpful for slowly peeking corners or edging out from behind cover.
Similarly, make use of a good headset to hear other players coming, so you can make use of our first point and deploy perfect accuracy to take them out before they’ve even noticed you.
3. Perfect Your Settings
There are countless settings, launch options, and configurations to consider in CS:GO, but few of them are more important than those that impact your mouse. It’s advised to drop your DPI and sensitivity to a much lower point than would be traditional for first-person shooters.
It’s another accuracy-focused tip, as making your mouse move slower means that you’ll have less jitter and wobble and can apply finer tweaks to your aim when trying to land a crucial headshot. It’ll take longer to acquire targets, though – that’s where centering and pre-aiming come into play.
4. Boost Your Frames
In competitive gaming, it’s a common practice to sacrifice graphical fidelity in favour of a higher frame rate. Even a small boost in frame rate could mean that you’re seeing your enemies microseconds before they’re seeing you, and in a game like CS:GO, which could be considered a reflex shooter at times, that makes all the difference.
When you’re turning down your graphical settings, you might opt to switch to a 4:3 resolution, too. If you move away from 16:9, you’ll stretch the on-screen image slightly, thus giving you a bigger target to aim at, technically.
5. Understand Everything
Okay, that’s a really broad tip, but it’s very true. There’s not that much to learn about CS:GO, which follows a relatively simple Team A vs. Team B structure, but there’s enough that you’ll need to do some homework. Traditionally, all CS:GO Esports are based around the ‘bomb defusal’ game mode, so that’s where you should start.
Then, take the time to learn the maps, lanes, angles, and the best spots to hold for different weapons, such as the AWP. That’s another tip – learn the weapons and get an idea of how they all handle. Then, take time to understand the menus, modes, and the split between Ranked and Unranked.
It’ll take time, but it’s worth it to become a much better CS:GO player.
