Mix Me
We ran an article a short while ago about a new Counter Strike Source mix website in its Beta stages, the site at its basic form allows users to sign up and join games in loosely allied 5 man teams and battle it out in CS:source maps of their choice. The idea is sound and there are loads of people already using the service. I decided to give the site a little while to mature before giving it a go myself so that my view would not be obscured by teething issues. Anyway.. I signed up today and had a bash, these are my results:
The sign up process was very simple, you just have to supply some basic information about yourself and your tag, as well as your steam ID. You then get an email for verification, which is pretty standard these days, once the link in the email has been clicked you can sign right in using your email address and password set on the cssmixes main site. I didn’t find any initial “how to for dummies” tutorials on the site, even when I dug a little, I might have missed them but quite honestly if you are able to load up steam and play the game you are going to be able to get into a mix, the process is simple.
Click the mixes button in the menu at the top and you get a short list of available servers, this details the map being played and the game type, as well as a few other mundane details which are important. Right off the bat here I saw the first problem which is a great one really.. Popularity! The servers are almost always maxed out, it takes a decent amount of refreshing and quick fingers to get into a game, especially if there is two or more of you trying to get into the same game. Essentially this is easily fixed by adding more servers and as the site is still in its beta stages you simply cant mark it down for these reasons.
Once you get into a free server you simply click the “Join” button to select a team and then click the “Connect” button at the top to enter the server, this is all straight forward and painless. I had no issues here at all. Jump in and play! As for the game play itself, cssmixes enforces standard CS rules on the servers and players are required to only speak English when using in game voice chat, this will be difficult to enforce and as I found out in my first game most of the people playing CS are not English by nature, I had a healthy mix of German and Italian players screeching down my headset, but again we cant mark the site down for this, we simply have to accept the world for what it is.
After the game you are thrown back out into the lobby where you can choose to play again, all simple and easy to use.
The site also features a players profile section which is pretty informative, it shows basic statistics of games played and overall ranking based on weekly monthly and yearly interviles. I really like this feature but unfortunately I found it to be slightly off… by about 10 kills infact!
As you can see from the screen cap above my kills show as “4″, I had well over 12 by the end of the game with one plant which did not explode before round end and no defuses, other people who have used the system assure me that they have not notices inconsistencies like this, I certainly hope that I am the only one who looks terrible when I actually feel I played quite well for a non regular CS player. But again the site is in its beta stages and I will not mark it down on performance just yet. Update here.. on further thought and recollection I think this might actually have been accurate, which is a horrible thing to have to admit because it means I am not as good as I had previously thought! So ignore my “large catch” fishing story here, it actually was a small fish after all. I had this game mixed up with another “traditional” mix I played earlier today. What this does however tell me is that I hit a lot of people but don’t finish the job..
Above is an example of a recently played match, there are some excellent stats here as well as the option to download demos of your game play for the two halves, I really liked this feature however it also comes with one major inherent problem.. The game is very much a fraghunt fest for a lot of players, be it for sheer enjoyment or because they are getting footage for their own “leet” frag movie to acquire internet fame. This breaks team play down quite a bit with some people completely ignoring all tactics this excellently balanced two sided game play allows, again though.. all of this must be considered before you join up and you also have no control over how people play the game, it really isn’t up to you.
There are a few other token sections to your player profile, such as the ability to add your hardware specs and game settings, most profiles I clicked on had not bothered to set these up yet but I was pleased that the option was there to add a little depth to the system.
In conclusion:
I was happy with the simplicity of the system, the complexity of the player profile section and the overall experience. I feel that this is the future for CS:S mixes and perhaps a model that might be taken over to other future games. There are a few issues to iron out such as more server availability and “trimming” of some questionable players skills (read: hacking s****), but this is an excellent new addition to a game that has entertained for many, many years.
Definitely worth a try!
