Steam Holiday Sale 2013: Counter-Strike, Bioshock Infinite, Dishonored tips and strategies

As I write this, the Steam Holiday Sale is in full swing, nearing the end of its first day. You’re reading it probably well into Day 2, and I hope you’ve saved some money on the games presented yesterday. In celebration of the Steam Sale Season, here are some quick-fire strategies for a few popular titles on offer: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Bioshock Infinite, and Dishonored.

CS:GO strategy

Counter-Strike is a game with an exceedingly high skill ceiling. Perhaps not as high as the early Quake and Unreal titles, but higher than a lot of recent games with a “competitive ” multiplayer aspect. I’ve discussed CS in earlier articles, but never touched on the subject of spray control. If you can’t spray and stay on target in CS:GO, you’ll be on the back foot against almost every mediocre player on the field.

The issue a lot of new shooter players face is, most FPS’s these days come with an aim-down-sight option that allows easy tracking of where your bullets are headed. Counter-Strike has no such feature except on the high-powered-scoped weapons like the AWP and semi-auto snipers. So how do you counter the heavy recoil when all you have to go on is a “hipfire” viewmodel?

Your answer? Memorize the spray pattern for each weapon and apply the opposite movement with your mouse. Say you’ve got the AK-47, which sprays in a backwards 7 pattern. To keep yourself on target, pull the crosshair down in an upside-down backwards 7. As you do so, try to see where your bullets are headed and adjust to that visual as well. As a rule, you shouldn’t be spraying at all in Counter-Strike, instead focusing on precise one or two-shot bursts. That said, sometimes the situation demands a lack of precision and in a panic you try to lay down as much fire as you can. Sometimes it works. Other times, not so much.

Bioshock Infinite strategy

But Xiant, Infinite is a single player game! Yes, fair reader, it is, but there are a few pointers I can give you. The first, and most important, is: learn how to chain vigors. While you can play all of Infinite with just the basic vigors, and I did for the most part, chaining them is far more rewarding.

For example, send a few guards up in the air with Bucking Bronco, then send a fireball their way for a cloud of levitational explosives. Electrify your Murder of Crows with Shock Jockey for a jolt of birdy death. The list goes on, and as you play Infinite, you’ll find enemies take more and more to kill. These vigor-chains take some of the load of your gun, and generally make life a little simpler, and a little more spectacular.

Because it’s a Bioshock game, there are a few area defense sections as well, so being prepared with vigor-traps is good too. Just hold down the vigor button to set up the trap, and release to place it. Damage values vary, but some enemies rely on quick movements to defeat you, and others move slowly but pack a punch. Stop both in their tracks with a well placed magical mine, courtesy of Fink Industries.

Dishonored strategy

As Dunwall’s newest fugitive, you’ll need all the help you can get, and the Outsider is more than willing to provide. The most useful power is no doubt the short-range teleport Blink, and you’d do well to master it early on. If you want to take a more stealthy approach to your murderous romps, best to combine Blink with Dark Vision and time your jumps according to guard patrol patterns. While you are invisible while Blinking, as soon as you leave it, any guards facing you will detect you.

Another good trick is to Blink into an auto-climb. There are certainly enough places climbable near the ground, the highest points of Dishonored’s maps are still reachable and, thankfully, climbable. Watch any Dishonored speedruns (they do exist), and you’ll see some very advanced Blink work. If you aren’t afraid to burn through your mana, and there are plenty of magic restoring potions around, you can avoid almost every enemy you come across. The game goes faster and your reflexes will be tested, but there are few things cooler than striking and literally disappearing before your stupid AI enemies and their virtual eyes.