Review: StarCraft II

[Shjade]

Novas the lass from the Starcraft ghost game isn't she? If so then yer, I'd have to agree, she looks very much like her. ...it seems they've settled for really generic character designs.

Yes, she's the character from Starcraft: Ghost that dropped off the face of the Earth before it went anywhere. She makes a cameo in SC2, though, and I have to say playing her level gave me about seven flavors of Kerrigan nostalgia.

About the other bit, I wouldn't say their character design choices are generic. The characters are all distinct and recognizable (even though I'm playing at minimum settings so they all look a bit like cartoony WoW characters) once you get used to them. They're just different, not bland.

 

[Jimbo1212]

Harvesters slow down the game and reduce army sizes.
Again, please tell me how this mechanic is better then what is in place in every other modern RTS. As you have given the game such a glowing review, how do you feel this mechanic is beneficial or at least, why it does not slow gameplay and why?

Well I can't speak for Tito, but I still enjoy the mechanic of harvesters because it widens the breath of strategies available to you. If resources are only coming in from a static source, then most of your focus is on the two armies fighting it out. As soon as one army gains the advantage then that player just has to lean on that until he wins.

When you introduce harvesters, you then allow for strategies like economy raiding. So maybe I made a poor choice with my main army, took bad losses and had to retreat, but I was able to sneak some units into his base and cripple his economy by killing his harvesters or forcing them off the minerals.

This is why they have static resource points spread around the map at strategic locations to encourage fighting, or force fighting, at certain parts of the map. This was the case in all the RTS's I have talked about. Economy raiding is also possible in these games, the pace is merely faster, more fun, more exciting, and just as tactical, possibly more.

>in Reference to the above posts<


Graphics are poor? Tell that to all the people whome had thier graphics card melt.

Starcraft 2 even puts more pressure on my system then every single game you have mentioned as being better, only exception is a mod for TW.

That's like saying the 195 Nvidia drivers were out of this world for every game because they melted GPU's -.-
Before making a really inane comment, look up why cards are melting because the last I checked having an uncapped FPS isn't the sign of good graphics, it's the sign of a technical screw up of monolithic proportions.

Why is "slowing down the game" bad? Why does forcing the player to make strategic decisions on how many harvesters vs. army size make the game automatically bad?

You keep asking for people to to explain "why" something works for them, but it's just as hard for you to justify your feelings. I found the game challenging and fun. I enjoyed making tough decisions in the upgrade systems as well as on the battlefield. The story, while hokey at times, totally sucked me in. I felt like I was building an army and making allies as I gained power and progressed.

You apparently didn't.

The harvester problem isn't a problem for me. You dislike that style of RTS, and that's totally cool. That's why there are different games out there, to cater to different tastes. But you can't just say that a game is complete shit because you didn't like it.

I personally don't like memoirs or non-fiction books. Does that mean that all books that I don't like are bad and shouldn't have been made? No.

If I wanted to merely optimise resource harvesting I would play SimCity, not an RTS.
A slow start is never fun and entertaining...and with the amount of harvesters you need (which you will be able to find out the optimum amount from any forum) it merely limits the size of your army.

Yet again, I have repeatedly explained why it is bad in comparison to every other major RTS in the last 5 years. It is slow, looks worse, less tactical, and has less customisation of game settings. Although the upgrade system is good, how does this make up for the numerous flaws StarCraft 2 has which every other game had fixed?

I'm going finish this post by saying that not one person has explained why it is fun after having all these flaws bar ' It is fun cause I say so derp', and that when I have shown substantiated evidence to back up my points, people merely ignore them eg bad graphics - do you still think it is good in comparison to everything else I showed you? I'll take your silence as 'No, it is dated, my bad'.

 

[6unn3r]

Still in two minds as to weather or not this is gona be just like the original Starcraft but with shiny graphics. The genre and gameplay hasn't really changed and adding new units is'nt really a big "2" worthy, it seems more like a fancy addon to brood war imo. Having said that Starcraft was, and to a degree still is, awesome.

 

[L33tMarvin]

nice reference with the "terrible terrible damage"

 

[Electric Gel]

Novas the lass from the Starcraft ghost game isn't she? If so then yer, I'd have to agree, she looks very much like her. ...it seems they've settled for really generic character designs.

Yes, she's the character from Starcraft: Ghost that dropped off the face of the Earth before it went anywhere. She makes a cameo in SC2, though, and I have to say playing her level gave me about seven flavors of Kerrigan nostalgia.

About the other bit, I wouldn't say their character design choices are generic. The characters are all distinct and recognizable (even though I'm playing at minimum settings so they all look a bit like cartoony WoW characters) once you get used to them. They're just different, not bland.

Well I'm still not entirely convinced, but I should probably go and play the game before jumping to conclusions. That cameo ghost level sounds a treat, especially since I was looking forward to that game for ages before it snuffed it.

Right, time to mug some orphans so I can get enough ready's to actually buy this bloody game.

 

[Rythe]

Sigh...

I'm gonna have to back Xocrates on this one, as another person who's been playing RTS games since Dune II and have played a huge if not complete variety of them since. I'll add Homeworld to the list since it's being neglected. I also find Supreme Commander being toted as advanced comparatively laughable because it took Total Annihilation and 'downgraded' it to C&C/SC clone at number 2 and SupCom 1 had *terrible* unit balance between standard and experimentals. DoW as advanced? Are you blurring DoW 1 & 2 together? Because DoW 1 was a fun, alternate take on the C&C/SC formula while DoW 2 campaign was little more than a squad tactical action RPG. Combining DoW 1 & 2 would get you something like SC 2 in scope.

Anyways...

A strategy game is defined by your possible, viable options and limitations. As such, I adore Total Annihilation because of the incredible breadth of choice it offered (And if you thought this game was balanced, then you're stuck in nostalgia mode because the Flash Tank was anything but balanced). But going back to the main point, Starcraft 2 has a compelling and broad set of possibilities and limitations, which is what makes it a great RTS game.

Harvesting resources via workers requires more attention than other methods, true, but it also offers many more options than said other methods. This allows the old school harvester methodology to be compelling if you let it be and think about what strategic and tactical options it actually presents.

The first 2 minutes of a SC 2 match are often rote repeat, but variations in even that little time still make a difference and reveal something of a player's overall strategy. Also, this game is anything but slow. If you think it's slow, you're not playing Multi or Brutal Campaign modes. Third option is your computer is slow and the game is scaling the speed down to compensate for your rig's hardware deficiencies.

And speaking of Time. Time is huge for any RTS, but Time is especially critical for SC 2. The strategic and tactical options in the game are very demanding when put together, so how you use your time is a major measure of a player's skill for SC 2. If that's not your cup of tea, then so be it, however, it doesn't mean the game is outdated. Many 'outdated gimicks' of the game that people are complaining about are still there in order to tax your attention. It's essential to the formula. If you need more of an explanation, then let's just say this sort of strategy game isn't for you, like how Civilization might not be for you.

Saying that this game doesn't have cover and flanking and is thus outdated mostly means you're not in tune to the style of cover and flanking this game does have. Cover is rules of sight, like elevation and terrain obstacles. Flanking is outmaneuvering and outpositioning your opponents forces. We're not talking static, bland bonuses for standing in hex X or shooting someone from a rear arc, we're talking actual field maneuvers here. It's different and very much more demanding while still being deeply tactical in truth.

The UI in SC 2 has also been advanced to the cutting edge for this style of RTS. Complex, Queued actions? Check. Hotkeys for damn near everything? Check. The UI will even let you hotkey your production facilities and automatically spread build loads between them. Total Annihilation was one game I looked to for UI functions I liked, and SC 2 has them all and more (like spacebar cycling to hotspots). And yes, I don't bother with multiple monitors.

And people are complaining about the graphics? Seriously? Have you seen how much environmental detail has been packed into these levels? All the flora, fauna, and geographic details and animations? I have yet to see a game that's even close, including DoW 2 and C&C 4. Have you seen the models for the Thor? Battlecruiser? Mothership? Colossus? Those are crazy detailed and fluidly and complexly animated. Even the protoss warp in animations have a huge amount of detail and complexity. The game just breathes life, and that's before things start exploding, or get sliced and diced, or fried to a delicious crisp.

Oh, right, the story. It was simple, but there was depth in that simplicity, doubly so if you played through SC 1 and Brood War. Also great delivery if some cheesy lines don't turn you completely off. But seriously, you expect to go through all the motions of a complex conversation in 30 seconds like you'd find in a novel? SC 2 story was meant to be more like a graphic novel, and last I checked, branching diologue and plodding conversations were Bioware's schtick.

Final Edit - The comic I got in the collector's edition *is* a pretty colorful jumble of terrible. I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been, but still came off as cluttered, bland action sequences and dreadfully boring cast and plot.

 

[J.T.Hipster]

Is this review a joke? Starcraft II isn't a golden brick, its a RTS game that's so goddamn camp I half expect there to be a "biff" every time a Zergling hits my Marines. I mean, not to insult the reviewer or anything, but the game isn't fantastic by any means.

Multiplayer, fine. There are issues with lack of chat channels and map size limits, but whatever, there's always worse things. Multiplayer will be corrected in time.

Singleplayer? Good lord. Brutal is the only level that gives me a challenge, and even then a hefty bioball with my super upgraded medics puts it all to rest. But that's difficulty, and for now I'll refrain from it because its a bit too subjective. Instead, let's look at the dialogue.

Now, I'm a bit spoiled from the conversations in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, so voice acting as a rule of thumb no longer impresses me. Starcraft II wasn't even on the level of Knights of the Old Republic. The lines were just awful, and Mengsk is such a comical villain that I can't take him seriously. 1984 was the perfect way to describe him, because like 1984 the society he built is an oversimplified hunk of oppression and evil that is so mind bogglingly implausible that it becomes unbelievable. Missions have enemies not because its logical for the enemy army to be there, but because the game designers apparently thought that the mission needed something to fight against. Hell, some of the enemies are so forced in to the game that I almost laughed, especially with the Protoss. Religious fanatics? You'd think that a hero like Jim Raynor would be able to go "Hey buddies, I helped your entire race out awhile back, mind lending me this so that we can stop the Zerg?" Fanatical or not, I'd probably give the hero of my entire people something if he asked nicely.

And then those b.s. moral choices that are announced so far in advance I thought I had clairvoyance. There's always this question that leads up to the obvious moral choice mission about an hour before you actually do anything, and then it cuts to a screen where you can pick between Character X and Character Y, with Character Y usually being the attractive female standing up for the side of justice, a.k.a. Nova (who is the right answer.) Why do we even get this? Jim Raynor isn't a custom character, this isn't Mass Effect. All it serves to do is hook in players with a semblance of personalization when its purpose is incredibly unclear. Oh wait, its probably for money.

Honestly, the game isn't bad, and I'd still recommend it to people who really liked Starcraft, but its not the greatest game of the year and its certainly not the best RTS of all time. If you compare it to Starcraft and Brood War, its worse than them (relative to the release date, of course.) But like I said, its not bad, its mediocre. Its a run of the mill, cookie cutter RTS that seems to carry the haunting echoes of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and everything that movie stood for. Which again, was pretty much just money.

 

[JeanLuc761]

If I wanted to merely optimise resource harvesting I would play SimCity, not an RTS.
A slow start is never fun and entertaining...and with the amount of harvesters you need (which you will be able to find out the optimum amount from any forum) it merely limits the size of your army.

Yet again, I have repeatedly explained why it is bad in comparison to every other major RTS in the last 5 years. It is slow, looks worse, less tactical, and has less customisation of game settings. Although the upgrade system is good, how does this make up for the numerous flaws StarCraft 2 has which every other game had fixed?

I'm going finish this post by saying that not one person has explained why it is fun after having all these flaws bar ' It is fun cause I say so derp', and that when I have shown substantiated evidence to back up my points, people merely ignore them eg bad graphics - do you still think it is good in comparison to everything else I showed you? I'll take your silence as 'No, it is dated, my bad'.

Everything you've been bitching about is SUBJECTIVE OPINION. I've played Starcraft, Command and Conquer, Supreme Commander, and Dawn of War. I love all of them, and I enjoy Starcraft 2 IMMENSELY.

Starcraft 2 isn't trying to be a Dawn of War clone, it doesn't need squad tactics or a morale system, it went for what worked in the first and refined it. A lot of people like that system, myself included, and the game is still entertaining.

I like harvesting minerals as a means of getting more units.
I like having slow build speeds (means I actually have to pick which unit I want to spend time creating).
I like the fact that the game doesn't use a morale or cover system just because other RTS games have used it.

As for your continued suggestion that the game has poor graphics, reviewers everywhere have been praising it as one of the best looking games of the year. The cinematics are gorgeous and the actual "gameplay graphics" fit perfectly well. They don't need to be photorealistic to be considered "good graphics."

 

[Cristian Capatana]

*

 

[ecoho]

Question for those who have bought it:

Is it worth getting if I have no interest in multiplayer and kinda-sorta enjoyed the original?

yes i dont have a great pc in fact i lagged the whole campain and was running it as low as the grafics go and i still ant to replay every mission and plan to. I dont play multiplayer on RTS games just as a rule if it cant stand alone it aint worth it. i am a little mad i cant earn achivments offline

 

[JeanLuc761]

And yes, nothing new does make it an average game: doing the same thing as everyone else is mediocrity (at it's finest but still mediocrity). In every human field of activity there has always been one person that innovated or made a huge difference and for that they are great and many others that followed, polishing on the original concept, and for that they are only average!

...let me see if I can grasp where you're coming from. If a game isn't innovative, it's automatically a mediocre game?

How does that logic work? *raises eyebrow*

 

[Cristian Capatana]

*

 

[Jimbo1212]

snip

Buddy, you haven't actually said WHY you like any of this. What you have done is given opinions.
Why do you like all this? What makes this game better then the competition out there?
Again, look at the picture I linked. Can you really say it is the best looking RTS in the last few years? I think not when the requirements are so low.
Whilst on this topic, why does the childish art style complement a game which is meant to gritty as is shown by the fmv's in game? And if course the fmv's look good, all pre-rendered cinematic's look great.

 

[ecoho]

Harvesters slow down the game and reduce army sizes.
Again, please tell me how this mechanic is better then what is in place in every other modern RTS. As you have given the game such a glowing review, how do you feel this mechanic is beneficial or at least, why it does not slow gameplay and why?

Well I can't speak for Tito, but I still enjoy the mechanic of harvesters because it widens the breath of strategies available to you. If resources are only coming in from a static source, then most of your focus is on the two armies fighting it out. As soon as one army gains the advantage then that player just has to lean on that until he wins.

When you introduce harvesters, you then allow for strategies like economy raiding. So maybe I made a poor choice with my main army, took bad losses and had to retreat, but I was able to sneak some units into his base and cripple his economy by killing his harvesters or forcing them off the minerals.

This is why they have static resource points spread around the map at strategic locations to encourage fighting, or force fighting, at certain parts of the map. This was the case in all the RTS's I have talked about. Economy raiding is also possible in these games, the pace is merely faster, more fun, more exciting, and just as tactical, possibly more.

>in Reference to the above posts<


Graphics are poor? Tell that to all the people whome had thier graphics card melt.

Starcraft 2 even puts more pressure on my system then every single game you have mentioned as being better, only exception is a mod for TW.

That's like saying the 195 Nvidia drivers were out of this world for every game because they melted GPU's -.-
Before making a really inane comment, look up why cards are melting because the last I checked having an uncapped FPS isn't the sign of good graphics, it's the sign of a technical screw up of monolithic proportions.

Why is "slowing down the game" bad? Why does forcing the player to make strategic decisions on how many harvesters vs. army size make the game automatically bad?

You keep asking for people to to explain "why" something works for them, but it's just as hard for you to justify your feelings. I found the game challenging and fun. I enjoyed making tough decisions in the upgrade systems as well as on the battlefield. The story, while hokey at times, totally sucked me in. I felt like I was building an army and making allies as I gained power and progressed.

You apparently didn't.

The harvester problem isn't a problem for me. You dislike that style of RTS, and that's totally cool. That's why there are different games out there, to cater to different tastes. But you can't just say that a game is complete shit because you didn't like it.

I personally don't like memoirs or non-fiction books. Does that mean that all books that I don't like are bad and shouldn't have been made? No.

If I wanted to merely optimise resource harvesting I would play SimCity, not an RTS.
A slow start is never fun and entertaining...and with the amount of harvesters you need (which you will be able to find out the optimum amount from any forum) it merely limits the size of your army.

Yet again, I have repeatedly explained why it is bad in comparison to every other major RTS in the last 5 years. It is slow, looks worse, less tactical, and has less customisation of game settings. Although the upgrade system is good, how does this make up for the numerous flaws StarCraft 2 has which every other game had fixed?

I'm going finish this post by saying that not one person has explained why it is fun after having all these flaws bar ' It is fun cause I say so derp', and that when I have shown substantiated evidence to back up my points, people merely ignore them eg bad graphics - do you still think it is good in comparison to everything else I showed you? I'll take your silence as 'No, it is dated, my bad'.

ok first off i want this to be clear i do NOT play any RTS games online there for all games must prove them selves with single player. Now saying that i loved the campain and plan to keep replaying it till the next one comes out and before you say it yes im a little mad i dont get all 3 campains but hey this one shined for me much better then ANY RTS game ive played in the last 10 years and yes i have played most of them. Now before you go off and say im a blizz fan boy let me say this ahem I HATED YES HATED STARCRAFT 1! IT HAD A VERY LOSELY FITED STORY AND I HATED IT! now that thats out of the way i say pick the game up and stop trying to compair it to art its fun play it. you dont like it pawn it and STFU!

 

[oliveira8]

And then those b.s. moral choices that are announced so far in advance I thought I had clairvoyance. There's always this question that leads up to the obvious moral choice mission about an hour before you actually do anything, and then it cuts to a screen where you can pick between Character X and Character Y, with Character Y usually being the attractive female standing up for the side of justice, a.k.a. Nova (who is the right answer.) Why do we even get this? Jim Raynor isn't a custom character, this isn't Mass Effect. All it serves to do is hook in players with a semblance of personalization when its purpose is incredibly unclear. Oh wait, its probably for money.
.

Nova isn't the right choice. If you go with Tosh you will discover that the Specters were fine all along. There isn't any moral choices in SC2 at all. Just missions that let you pick different rewards and different ways to solve that particular side mission.

So yeah, you just complained about nothing really. ^^

 

[JeanLuc761]

snip

1. Buddy, you haven't actually said WHY you like any of this. What you have done is given opinions.

2. Why do you like all this? What makes this game better then the competition out there?

3. Again, look at the picture I linked. Can you really say it is the best looking RTS in the last few years? I think not when the requirements are so low.

4. Whilst on this topic, why does the childish art style complement a game which is meant to gritty as is shown by the fmv's in game? And if course the fmv's look good, all pre-rendered cinematic's look great.

1. Opinion is mostly what you've been posting as well. You say that (for example) Dawn of War's retribution and morale system is a provably better gameplay mechanic than harvesting minerals and lack of said morale system. It's not provably better, but it may appeal more to your personal preference.

2. While the system may feel "dated," to some, it's polished to a mirror shine, tactical gameplay is omni-present (much more than click spam) and it just...I honestly don't know how to explain it directly other than I just find it appealing. While I enjoy the additions to the RTS formula that Dawn of War brought to the stage, I don't necessarily think those made the genre "better," just "different."

3. I never said it was the best looking RTS in the last few years, I'm simply saying it's not poor. The game is beautiful so far as art style goes, even if the texture detail and lighting isn't as photorealistic as some other RTS games.

4. Colorful and vibrant =/= childish and I'd argue it's somewhat narrow-minded to think so. I like that the game didn't go for the gritty look that Dawn of War and Company of Heroes use, not only because it makes the game stand out from the pack but also because I happen to find it visually attractive. And yes, the pre-rendered cinematics look great, but they always do. The in-engine cutscenes are absolutely gorgeous as well.

 

[Xocrates]

Buddy, you haven't actually said WHY you like any of this. What you have done is given opinions.

Which is what SUBJECTIVE means.

A dictionary, get one.

Again, look at the picture I linked. Can you really say it is the best looking RTS in the last few years? I think not when the requirements are so low.

Starcraft was designed to be readable first and foremost. Of all the screenshots you posted, SC2 is amongst the ones it's easier to see what the hell is going on (and it's an old screenshot at that).

 

[Jimbo1212]

snip

ok first off i want this to be clear i do NOT play any RTS games online there for all games must prove them selves with single player. Now saying that i loved the campain and plan to keep replaying it till the next one comes out and before you say it yes im a little mad i dont get all 3 campains but hey this one shined for me much better then ANY RTS game ive played in the last 10 years and yes i have played most of them. Now before you go off and say im a blizz fan boy let me say this ahem I HATED YES HATED STARCRAFT 1! IT HAD A VERY LOSELY FITED STORY AND I HATED IT! now that thats out of the way i say pick the game up and stop trying to compair it to art its fun play it. you dont like it pawn it and STFU!

Yet again, if I got paid for people saying the game is ''great cause lol ', I would be very rich thanks to this forum.
Why is this game better then then competition on the market? What makes this game the undisputed RTS champion of the decade? Already people have said the story is great, yet others have said it is predictable and the story was based around the missions. The graphics are poor compared to any other RTS, yet people try to say they are great showing that someone somewhere is lying through their teeth.