Review: StarCraft II

[JeanLuc761]

Which competition is it faster then? Sup Com and DoW? No, it's slower.
I'm not saying resourcing isn't automated - I'm saying why is it still included considering it just slows everything down and is a waste of units?
The graphics are dated. It has low res textures, low model detail, no native AA support apparently etc. It can be played on AGP cards - that IS dated.
It's not value for money to get poor graphics for an asking price of $60.

Let's do it like this - how is SC2 better than say DoW1 and Sup Com, both very fast paced base building RTS'?

Two things: The fact that the game is accessible to a wide range of PC's means that the overhead gameplay isn't as photorealistic as other RTS games. But how can that possibly be a deal-killer when the game has an appealing art style to compensate? Really though, if you think the graphics are POOR, I think you need to re-adjust your priorities (and standards).

Secondly; why are you and infidel so hell-bent on demanding us explain why we happen to enjoy the game better than Dawn of War or Supreme Commander. It's called personal taste.

 

[JeanLuc761]

You still haven't said how it's value for money by getting dated graphics and yet still having to pay $60....Instead you cry "GRAFIX HOOR!".....

Because I don't pay for the graphics? I pay to have a good time and enjoy the gameplay. If the visuals are competent and the game has an appealing art style, I could care less if the game isn't as photorealistic as Total War.

 

[dghjdgdjf]

snip

I don't know where you're getting that this game has a "cartoon" graphics style. It's colorful and vibrant, certainly, and it has lower texture detail so it's more accessible to a wide range of PC's, but it's not cartoony.

Starcraft 2 IS NOT TRYING TO BE INNOVATIVE. It was designed to appeal to fans of the first game.

Either don't post a reply or stop avoiding the question :
How is a colourful and vibrant art style good for a gritty RTS?
Bar masking poor graphics, Blizzard had no reason to do these, especially when EA had been criticised for doing this to the C&C series.

Since when did Starcraft come out as a gritty, DEADSERIOUS, over the top, hardcore game? It's B-list space opera with A-list voiceactors. Always has been, always will be. The commercials, the news, the sarcastic humour of your units (James Raynor had a unibrow in Starcraft 1 for gods sake, how gritty is that?). I'm sorry, but it seems like YOU played Starcraft 1 for 10 minutes then decided to go do something else. Your badmouthing a game you barely know ANYTHING about.

 

[Jimbo1212]

snip

Since when did Starcraft come out as a gritty, DEADSERIOUS, over the top, hardcore game? It's B-list space opera with A-list voiceactors. Always has been, always will be. The commercials, the news, the sarcastic humour of your units (James Raynor had a unibrow in Starcraft 1 for gods sake, how gritty is that?). I'm sorry, but it seems like YOU played Starcraft 1 for 10 minutes then decided to go do something else. Your badmouthing a game you barely know ANYTHING about.

Space opera? Stop using buzz terms and try explaining what you mean.
Why is it vivid and colourful when it has a very serious story line and very serious fmv's?
StarCraft had a serious storyline, the fmv's were serious and sometimes had adult humour mixed into them, and the game graphics were dark and gritty.
Yet now the ingame is more flamboyant then Gay Pride and personally I find it breaks the immersion of the game, which is obviously something they want to maintain as they have such a strong emphasis on story telling.
A person did say that most Blizzard game had this colour style to it, however this is only really applicable to the Warcraft series as Diablo and StarCraft were never brightly coloured. At the time, the graphics StarCraft provided was the best possible to try to achieve a dark and serious environment.

 

[dghjdgdjf]

snip

Since when did Starcraft come out as a gritty, DEADSERIOUS, over the top, hardcore game? It's B-list space opera with A-list voiceactors. Always has been, always will be. The commercials, the news, the sarcastic humour of your units (James Raynor had a unibrow in Starcraft 1 for gods sake, how gritty is that?). I'm sorry, but it seems like YOU played Starcraft 1 for 10 minutes then decided to go do something else. Your badmouthing a game you barely know ANYTHING about.

Space opera? Stop using buzz terms and try explaining what you mean.
Why is it vivid and colourful when it has a very serious story line and very serious fmv's?
StarCraft had a serious storyline, the fmv's were serious and sometimes had adult humour mixed into them, and the game graphics were dark and gritty.
Yet now the ingame is more flamboyant then Gay Pride and personally I find it breaks the immersion of the game, which is obviously something they want to maintain as they have such a strong emphasis on story telling.
A person did say that most Blizzard game had this colour style to it, however this is only really applicable to the Warcraft series as Diablo and StarCraft were never brightly coloured. At the time, the graphics StarCraft provided was the best possible to try to achieve a dark and serious environment.

Yeah, if you don't count the several games they did before Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, then your right... *Sigh* And as for Diablo, Diablo 3 is just as colorful as Starcraft 2 is. And it looks wonderful. Color ISN'T a bad thing. Take a look outside, the world is full of it, yet thousands die every day. The world itself is gritty, this doesn't mean it HAS to look gritty or "realistic"(a brown filter these days..) As for cartoonish... What the hell? It's a space opera containing alien races. What did you expect? Realism?

This whole discussion isn't about a games faults or anything like that. What you are complaining about is personal taste. You don't like the game, we get that, fine. We, however, do. And so far, you have just replied to the personal touch that each and every comment here has. Not the facts they are putting right in front of you.

To be honest, I'm done here. This is like trying to explain for a religious fanatic that God doesn't exist. No matter how much proof you lay down he/she just nods his/her head and responds in a snarly, condescending way.

 

[dghjdgdjf]

Two things: The fact that the game is accessible to a wide range of PC's means that the overhead gameplay isn't as photorealistic as other RTS games. But how can that possibly be a deal-killer when the game has an appealing art style to compensate? Really though, if you think the graphics are POOR, I think you need to re-adjust your priorities (and standards).

Secondly; why are you and infidel so hell-bent on demanding us explain why we happen to enjoy the game better than Dawn of War or Supreme Commander. It's called personal taste.

#

...The graphics ARE poor. Artistic style is utterly subjective and I think it looks like angry micro machines covered in bloom. But the graphics are poor - the textures are low quality, low poly models and so on. That technical aspect is not up for debate.

I'm just intrigued as to what other RTS' you are comparing SC2 to. Almost all the hardcore RTS fans I know seem to say the same think that SC2 is dated and nothing but fan service. I'm just would like to know why it's apparently one of the best RTS' out there, especially considering that it apparently isn't balanced (Zerg OP in multiplayer so I've heard)

The game is just as balanced as Starcraft 1 ever was. This is what makes Starcraft great. Three completely and utterly different races, yet with impressive balance. There ain't a race or a unit that's OP at all.

 

[JeanLuc761]

...The graphics ARE poor. Artistic style is utterly subjective and I think it looks like angry micro machines covered in bloom. But the graphics are poor - the textures are low quality, low poly models and so on. That technical aspect is not up for debate.

I'm just intrigued as to what other RTS' you are comparing SC2 to. Almost all the hardcore RTS fans I know seem to say the same think that SC2 is dated and nothing but fan service. I'm just would like to know why it's apparently one of the best RTS' out there, especially considering that it apparently isn't balanced (Zerg OP in multiplayer so I've heard)

I'll stop debating you on the graphics because clearly that isn't going anywhere. I have no problem with the textures, model quality, or the artistic style so that's not bothering me.

The game I think I'm comparing SC2 directly to would probably be Dawn of War. Now, I absolutely loved Dawn of War, it's in my top 3 RTS games of all time. I also love Starcraft 2. Everything about the game is polished, using the old mechanics that worked perfectly to begin with. Starcraft 2 really IS fan-service because they knew how popular the game was and continues to be. If they had added all of the innovations over the last decade or so, the game wouldn't have been Starcraft anymore; it would have been Dawn of War 3 in a different universe.

The fans, and Blizzard, wanted Starcraft-style gameplay and that's exactly what we got. I could care less if the mechanics are dated, they're just as entertaining as they always have been. It's the same reason I can play old games on the PS1; the gameplay is timeless.

 

[Jimbo1212]

snip

Yeah, if you don't count the several games they did before Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, then your right... *Sigh* And as for Diablo, Diablo 3 is just as colorful as Starcraft 2 is. And it looks wonderful. Color ISN'T a bad thing. Take a look outside, the world is full of it, yet thousands die every day. The world itself is gritty, this doesn't mean it HAS to look gritty or "realistic"(a brown filter these days..) As for cartoonish... What the hell? It's a space opera containing alien races. What did you expect? Realism?

This whole discussion isn't about a games faults or anything like that. What you are complaining about is personal taste. You don't like the game, we get that, fine. We, however, do. And so far, you have just replied to the personal touch that each and every comment here has. Not the facts they are putting right in front of you.

To be honest, I'm done here. This is like trying to explain for a religious fanatic that God doesn't exist. No matter how much proof you lay down he/she just nods his/her head and responds in a snarly, condescending way.

"Diablo 3 is just as colorful as Starcraft 2 is"

Yeah, that is just a lie.
http://images.mmosite.com/answer/dict/upload/2009/06/09/a34b7f29cab15f361f20121cd89dc121.jpg
http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u45849/starcraft.jpg

Also, what the hell do you mean by space opera? Next you will be telling me about the synergy of the game....
Also, if you love this game so much then why are you posting rather then playing it?

 

[carpathic]

Sounds exciting and awesome, but I fell out of love with RTS games a long time ago...too pointy-pointy clicky-clicky!

 

[Swarley]

Oh christ, you people are still talking about this?

We get it, some of you don't like it, some of you do. Now as soon as you realize that nobody really cares if you like it or not you can go do something worthwhile instead of spending days arguing about the same topic.

 

[Joshua Sosnowski]

This game isn't that good. They sell it with the excelent graphics, and luckily for them the public is dumb enough to be amazed by it and blinded from the FLAT and SAME gameplay as starcraft 1. Starcraft 1 was good in it's time, don't get me wrong, but they haven't changed a thing.

Some people see this as a posititve thing, but the game is just STALE and FLAT. They had to alter the units to make them less effective against certain units and stronger vs others etc to compensate for this, and hey it worked. The public is amazed. I weep for the future of RTS games.

 

[JeanLuc761]

This game isn't that good. They sell it with the excelent graphics, and luckily for them the public is dumb enough to be amazed by it and blinded from the FLAT and SAME gameplay as starcraft 1. Starcraft 1 was good in it's time, don't get me wrong, but they haven't changed a thing.

Some people see this as a posititve thing, but the game is just STALE and FLAT. They had to alter the units to make them less effective against certain units and stronger vs others etc to compensate for this, and hey it worked. The public is amazed. I weep for the future of RTS games.

I'm getting tired of having to say this. Starcraft II having the same gameplay was EXACTLY what the fans were expecting, and it's exactly what they got. I don't see why anyone was expecting the core mechanics to change.

 

[Tarrker]

OOOOMMMMGGGG! Is that what I think it is? A female Protoss??? I thought they didn't reproduce sexually, or, whatever? So why is there on gender or another? Or is it one of those things where they are just so advanced that they've adapted just by being in the presence of humans? Guess I won't know until I play the game

 

[mike1921]

Yet now the ingame is more flamboyant then Gay Pride and personally I find it breaks the immersion of the game,

Personally I find that your immersion of a game is broken incredibly easily.. Seriously, you make it sound like it looks like Plant. VS. Zombies

Two things: The fact that the game is accessible to a wide range of PC's means that the overhead gameplay isn't as photorealistic as other RTS games. But how can that possibly be a deal-killer when the game has an appealing art style to compensate? Really though, if you think the graphics are POOR, I think you need to re-adjust your priorities (and standards).

Secondly; why are you and infidel so hell-bent on demanding us explain why we happen to enjoy the game better than Dawn of War or Supreme Commander. It's called personal taste.

#

...The graphics ARE poor. Artistic style is utterly subjective and I think it looks like angry micro machines covered in bloom. But the graphics are poor - the textures are low quality, low poly models and so on. That technical aspect is not up for debate.

I have everything set on ultra and it looks good to me

 

[Rythe]

Which competition is it faster then? Sup Com and DoW? No, it's slower.
I'm not saying resourcing isn't automated - I'm saying why is it still included considering it just slows everything down and is a waste of units?
The graphics are dated. It has low res textures, low model detail, no native AA support apparently etc. It can be played on AGP cards - that IS dated.
It's not value for money to get poor graphics for an asking price of $60.

Let's do it like this - how is SC2 better than say DoW1 and Sup Com, both very fast paced base building RTS'?

SupCom 1 *crawled* compared to StarCraft 2. Moving your army around SupCom 1's huge maps took forever, unless you took the time to airlift everything which would have been a pain for an army in the hundreds. You also had to build two to four times the amount of base infrastructure than in SC 2. Waiting on factories and mines to tech up was slow. Also, unit balance was terrible between experimentals and regular stuff. Satisfied?

The speed difference between DoW 1 and SC2 is based on playstyle. The unit cap in DoW1 is much smaller than SC 2, so your army was full so much quicker. However, you actually have waaaay more you can do with your units in SC 2 battles. If your play style is fill your unit cap and go rampaging, DoW 1 is faster. If you avail yourself in everything SC 2 offers and expects of you, then SC 2 is larger and much more hectic. For early, mid game stuff, they're about the same pace ignoring the part where SC 2 demands much more of you.

As for model detail, it depends on the unit in SC 2. The big, cool stuff blows everything else out of the water. The small, plentiful stuff was made simpler so the game didn't bog down all to hell. 20-30 marines with full support is suppose to be a walk in the park for SC 2. 20-30 troops is the unit cap for DoW 2. Tyrannids were the exception, and their unit detail was nothing to write home about. SupCom graphics don't count, because their units are basically big chunks of geometry with shiny textures and effects. SC 2 units had to look much more organic for the most part, which puts the detail strain elsewhere. Lastly, style beats out feature lists any day of the week. You seem to think a feature list makes good graphics, it doesn't. SC 2 doesn't use the latest and greatest techniques because it doesn't need to. It pulls off a compelling, richer visual experience with fewer tools and less of a need to lean on your graphics card than the competition. That makes it have excellent graphics. That is why it has much better graphics than C&C or SupCom. DoW 2 is a harder comparison because the graphics engines are trying to do very different things and have very different stresses to deal with. I still believe the attention to detail in SC 2 is much higher, however. And that's before we get to the out of mission models and environments, where SC 2 simply destroys any similar aspects in any other RTS. And that's why the graphics in SC 2 are easily worth $60.

 

[John Funk]

snip

I don't know where you're getting that this game has a "cartoon" graphics style. It's colorful and vibrant, certainly, and it has lower texture detail so it's more accessible to a wide range of PC's, but it's not cartoony.

Starcraft 2 IS NOT TRYING TO BE INNOVATIVE. It was designed to appeal to fans of the first game.

Either don't post a reply or stop avoiding the question :
How is a colourful and vibrant art style good for a gritty RTS?
Bar masking poor graphics, Blizzard had no reason to do these, especially when EA had been criticised for doing this to the C&C series.

Because the only person calling it a gritty RTS is you? Because it makes the units pop out more from the background, and that is TREMENDOUSLY important in a game designed to be competitive in multiplayer. If an opponent comes at me, I need to be able to tell immediately what he's got so I know how to counter it (barring him, y'know, doing something strategic like holding forces back). I can't do that if they're obscured by smoke and clouds and GRIM GRITTY GRRRRRR.

Why CAN'T a game be colorful? What's bad about colors? SC2 looks like StarCraft, not like Dawn of War. That's what it should look like. If EA was criticized for changing the art style of the C&C series than you can hardly point the exact same finger at Blizzard for just making a game that looks just like the original did, only in 3D.

 

[Canid117]

I have a games-more-than-ready PC, and I'm not buying this.

Not until they support LAN, at the very least.

You are going to be waiting a long time then.

 

[dghjdgdjf]

It's funny how you keep posting early beta pictures of the game where the game looks far from complete even though we explained to you it is. The newer pictures from Diablo 3 has alot more color in it and Starcraft 2 looks 10x better then the picture you linked of it.

Do your god damn homework before you start complaining about something you don't even know anything about.

 

[Jimbo1212]

snip

Because the only person calling it a gritty RTS is you? Because it makes the units pop out more from the background, and that is TREMENDOUSLY important in a game designed to be competitive in multiplayer. If an opponent comes at me, I need to be able to tell immediately what he's got so I know how to counter it (barring him, y'know, doing something strategic like holding forces back). I can't do that if they're obscured by smoke and clouds and GRIM GRITTY GRRRRRR.

Why CAN'T a game be colorful? What's bad about colors? SC2 looks like StarCraft, not like Dawn of War. That's what it should look like. If EA was criticized for changing the art style of the C&C series than you can hardly point the exact same finger at Blizzard for just making a game that looks just like the original did, only in 3D.

So the first was not gritty? It too was bright and as colourful as a rainbow? I think you need to get your copy of StarCraft and play it again as well as realise the limitations of graphics back in those days.
Other RTS's have managed to make there units stand out with ease due to having advanced graphics and high unit detail.
Either way, you can not claim the game has 5/5 for graphics when the game has an art style that looks like it has been designed to help downy kids play it rather then look the best it can compared to other RTS's.
And again, are the fmv's grim? Yes? Is the original 10 years old and looks terrible so copying this game is going to be a graphical disaster masked with tonnes of bloom?
So it is perfectly expectable to go to super bright and kiddy simple when C&C where criticised for doing this only because Blizzard made it, so lets warp reality and say that simple = designed to help people play it as people have been waiting 10 years for the game.

It's funny how you keep posting early beta pictures of the game where the game looks far from complete even though we explained to you it is. The newer pictures from Diablo 3 has alot more color in it and Starcraft 2 looks 10x better then the picture you linked of it.

Do your god damn homework before you start complaining about something you don't even know anything about.

Lets see some pictures then if they look so different.
NB. My computer runs the game on full specs, thus it is not a graphically strong game.