The game does partially achieve its, perhaps unofficial, goal to beat Counter Strike, however it doesn't achieve more.
At this time someone who chooses to play Global Operations has picked it while looking back in the past at the games that he/she has perhaps forgot to play a couple of years back. Global Operations attracts the eye of an action-fan with a picture of several armed operatives on the box. Aiming, perhaps, at repeating the success of Counter Strike, a mod for Half Life, it looks promising. However, does it hold its own as a stand-alone game? GAMEPLAY
Global Operations tries to improve the old concept with new features. One such feature is the various missions. They vary from blowing stuff up to assassinations to rescues. Another feature is the character variety. The game features many armies and many sorts of terrorists. Weapons are also pletiful. Each weapon has to be bought when the player isn't on the map (either before the match or when dead) with the cash mostly received for killing and completing objectives.
There are two modes: single player and multi-player. After completing the optional training mode where you aknowledge yourselves with controls, you can play the campaign where you to play the availible maps as part of the good guys, with each succesful mission unlocking the next one. You play together with a team of bots against a team of bots. Once the player dies, he respawns at the insertion zone after a while. The poor AI intelligence contributes to you getting tired of this mode quite quickly. Sometimes the AI surprises you as both your teammates and the enemy do succeed in completing the objectives after a while, but it's not helping the single player much. There isn't a general storyline or anything else to bring life to the single player and it becomes what it was probably originally meant to be: training for the multi-player.
The multi-player allows you to play the single-player maps with a team of real players. It's identical to the single-player in every other way. It's simple and fun.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Graphics in the game are rather dated (even by the 2002 standards) and do remind the original Counter Strike. The guns look well, but there isn't much else to say about the quality of the visuals. The game does feature various environments and player skins and that's nice.
There are a lot of sounds in Global Operations. There are many voice commands for the game. The plentiful guns have to have their distinct sounds. There are many minor noticable points like the ringing in the ears when a grenade explodes nearby. There's isn't much in-game music, except for the main menu soundtrack, but for this particular game the music would be rather pointless. Most professional Counter Strike fans usually play their own music if any.
VERDICT
For whatever reason, this game failed to repeat the magic of Counter Strike and currently only has 3 or 4 servers operating on-line. The original Counter Strike has more. With its single player being rather boring and its graphics average, the game doesn't come very far and somewhere between has now become quite absolite.