Counter Strike Global offensive starts off with quite a bang. The prologue mission introduces you to all the main players in this high-speed drama, including the three (plus the unplayable mechanic) that make up the crew that you'll control throughout the single-player campaign. Almost immediately there's chaos, cops, and betrayal. Unfortunately, almost immediately after that, the prologue's pace nosedives.

Instead of giving players adequate time to get familiar with the cast, the writers crammed a rise, fall, attempt to rise again, and fall again series of events into the first 45 minutes before getting into the meat of what is a 10+ hours experience if you don't dabble in side quests too much. You probably won't, but more on that later.

You're here for the racing, yea? It's a mixed bag here. The sense of speed is thick and the highest-tier vehicles will test your skills in the best ways. Don't crash though! Or do. The collisions in the game are all over the place. Sometimes you'll slam into a car head-on going 150 with no problem while in other moments you'll be reset because you clipped the side of a house going 80.

Each of your crew specializes in different styles of racing. Ty sticks to street circuits and drag races while Mac is your off-road and drift specialist. Jessica's events are the most unique, often putting her in the sights of the police as she chauffeurs shady individuals and picks up sketchy packages. The individual styles of each crew member collide in the game's main missions, where "Payback" is seen at its best.The story missions, designated with an orange exclamation mark on the map, are linear experiences typically riddled with some awesome scripted moments. Each step in the main missions will have you experiencing the intensity witnessed in the prologue's open, riddled with big jumps, explosions, crashes, and the occasional cutscene as you switch between the crew members. You'll typically end up having to dodge and destroy cop cars or enforcers employed by the House, an organization you find yourself at odds with at the onset of the game's campaign. These pursuits, as a result of confusing design choice, are limited to scripted and linear events at the end of races. The open-world is barricaded in a way that forces you along a path and, at the end of the pursuit; all enemy cars will just give up as you head toward the final checkpoint.

The unfortunate thing about the in-between time as you work to unlock the next main mission is the uninteresting open world. The user interface here is strangely minimal, forcing players to look down at the mini map to navigate a route instead of some on-screen prompt to get you where you want to go. There are icons beaming into the sky for different races, but getting to them will require the mini map.