Operation Vanguard

A New Year...A New Campaign

Valve released its yearly Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) Campaign back around Thanksgiving, and I have been playing around with its new content for a couple months now.

I know what you're thinking. Campaign must obviously mean single-player missions, right?

Wrong.

The way CSGO campaigns work goes like this: you buy an access pass to play the content for $6 (yay more money for valve!), you receive an operation journal that tracks your stats and shows you missions that you can complete in official Valve servers while playing against other people, and you get an Operation Coin that you can upgrade throughout the Campaign (Bronze, Silver, and Gold). What missions, you ask? Well inside the Operation Journal you can choose between different missions that take place on one of the newly made maps for the operation. The missions can be anywhere from win 10 rounds on a map in competitive mode to kill 20 chickens in deathmatch mode.

I don't really think this is worth your money.

My experience with the missions has been...mediocre. Sure they're a fun thing to do when you are bored playing competitive matches over and over again, and sure you get random case or weapon drops when you complete a mission, but there isn't a special server for you to complete these missions. My least favorite experience so far has been trying to complete a chicken mission. There I was, minding my own business with my knife out, trying to find a chicken to kill, when all of a sudden some rude person in the deathmatch with me KILLED ME. I mean come on, couldn't he see that I was trying to win a gun drop? Seriously the nerve... *record scratch* This is the problem. I have joined deathmatches that have had half of the people running around slaughtering chickens and the other half have been actually trying to get kills on people. And when someone shoots a person that is just trying to get chickens, all hell breaks loose. The same story is true for un-chicken related missions. I think that Valve should really create games where it is just people trying to complete these missions when the next Operation comes out.

On the other hand, I do enjoy some of the maps that have been released. My favorite one is Workout, which is a massive sports complex map that is grounds for a hostage mission. I like this map because it puts a new flavor on the CSGO map scene. It contains a lot of bright colors and open spaces that a lot of other maps just don't have.

Some of the guns skins are also very unique, and are some of the best skins for that particular weapon. For instance, the M4A1-S Basilisk is, in my opinion, one of the best skins you can get for that particular weapon. It features a rustic looking body with a metal etching of a dragon-looking creature (a basilisk).

I also really like the new P250 Cartel skin, which has a lot of cool designs and a skull on the grip.

By the way, all of the maps and skins are completely free for anyone to use. So, in my opinion, I think that if you want to run around killing chickens, get the Operation. If you like the maps and skins, just stick to the regular game.

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