End of an era & the start of a new one: Post - 23/06/2023
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Just got an invite to test "Counter Strike 2". I've always had a special place in my life for CSGO.
And I don't know if another game would be able to take over. Frankly, CSGO would always be the OG for me, post 1.6 era. 1.6 and GO were the legends.
That doesn't mean I wont thoroughly enjoy CS2. Looking forward to CS2.
GL HF

A life of Counter Strike: Pre - 15/11/2022
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I've given my life to Counter-Strike. It started off with 1.6. Joining community servers, taking admin roles, just friendly banter with friends, banning people, getting banned, trolling on knife, mod, pug - it was a whole lot of fun, spending hours just gaming with people from different areas, different walks of life.

CS:S was fun too, just for the missions aspect, the different kind of maps and different visuals from 1.6. It was a different experience.
I had to wait some time, before getting into the GO experience. A lot of people I knew had moved on-to the more "3D" & visually appealing version of the series - the Global Offensive. Everyone was talking about it, but I couldn't even run the game @ 20+ FPS.
Over the years, I got a basic laptop that ran the game @ 60-70 FPS, played a lot, made more friends, found several excuses for being ♥♥♥♥ while constantly grinding towards the higher ranks.
I wasn't a conventional player, by any means. I'd use all sort of guns, all sort of tactics to win and while it was often frustrating to the opponents (and sometimes my own team), in the end the laughter with friends spent over hours of gaming, somehow made it worth it.

After years of cribbing for better FPS, I finally made my own gaming PC - something I'd always dreamt of doing. I emptied my savings, started acquiring parts slowly, and eventually put it all together into a decent setup that now gives me good FPS - 400+.
I've good FPS, I've good ping. I recently invested in an Uninterruptible Power Supply so the frequent power cuts don't affect my gaming sessions.
I've invested and achieved a lot of the things that I cared and longed for.

For what? In the end it amounts to what, exactly. I've no idea.
Am I able to game uninterrupted and get frustrated less due to lag-less & stutter-free gaming? Sure.
Am I satisfied with what I've achieved? I don't know.
I still feel deeply unfulfilled. There is this concept of humans never being truly satisfied with what they have. I guess I kind of relate.