Review: StarCraft II

[Sharkosauros]

i have bought this game, i like it, its quite entertaining , but still , 12 years and 100 million dollares, for releastic cutscenes that really are onyl like 20 mins in total, plus a slight graphic improvement. i mean .. c'mon.. i was expecting a lil more. the game is fun and addicting, but not as good as a game that took 12 years and 100 million dollars to make, thats my opinion either ways

Imo DoW is way better, cept for the campaigns , they suck <.<, then again, all RTS campaigns , are fails imo

 

[abija]

Stop making strawmen - I said the art style is inconsistent, not the level of detail.
You really need to learn about graphics if you think using DX10 wouldn't make a game look better.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/437944396_b2f73a2996.jpg
You really are now just trolling. Why would DX10 exist if it didn't make games look & perform better?

You said the art style is inconsistent and gave an example related to level of detail, not to style.
DX10(11) exists because some games take advantage of it. It doesn't mean every game needs those extra features to look good.
More exactly, your argument "Game is DX9 that means it has bad graphics." is false.

 

[abija]

Level of detail would be saying that the battle crusiers look bad because they don't have the same amount of windows.
Saying that the art style makes it impossible to tell the material the buildings are made from, whilst making the child proof, has nothing to do with the level of detail, but to do with the art style and possibly the in game graphics engine.

Ok, you don't like the art style, we got that since your first couple of posts. How does that make it inconsistent?

DX10 would make a game that is only DX9 look or at least perform better. Same with DX11.
DX9 games look bad nowadays in comparison to all the DX10 and 11 titles. If SC2 was in DX10, it'd look better - you literally can't deny that, so why are you?

Because you talk like it's raining DX10 and DX11 titles that look exceptionally well while SC2 is actually one of the best looking RTS` on the market atm. And that "dated" engine is probably the most versatile.

Both DoW and SC2 are base building RTS' - how are they trying to do different things...?

Really? You could have started like that, at least I wouldn't have wasted my time...

 

[Susurrus]

It makes me cry that in this discussion, Company of Heroes seems to almost invariably get left out.

Especially as the micro/economy bias is perhaps not as fully formed as in other games, and the balance (with a few glaring exceptions... Kangaroos, for example) is actually pretty much spot on - despite a wealth of units/abilities/maps that could spin the balance badly in one direction or another.

Also, Company of Heroes, at higher graphics, looks beautiful.

Anyway. Anybody who is a fan of RTSs, give CoH a chance!

 

[ecoho]

It makes me cry that in this discussion, Company of Heroes seems to almost invariably get left out.

Especially as the micro/economy bias is perhaps not as fully formed as in other games, and the balance (with a few glaring exceptions... Kangaroos, for example) is actually pretty much spot on - despite a wealth of units/abilities/maps that could spin the balance badly in one direction or another.

Also, Company of Heroes, at higher graphics, looks beautiful.

Anyway. Anybody who is a fan of RTSs, give CoH a chance!

ok matzy if your woundering this is how you tell people about what you think is a better game.
(yes i know you didnt say company of heros was better but it would work in the same since
OT:ill check it out man thanks for the recomendation

 

[John Funk]

It makes me cry that in this discussion, Company of Heroes seems to almost invariably get left out.

Especially as the micro/economy bias is perhaps not as fully formed as in other games, and the balance (with a few glaring exceptions... Kangaroos, for example) is actually pretty much spot on - despite a wealth of units/abilities/maps that could spin the balance badly in one direction or another.

Also, Company of Heroes, at higher graphics, looks beautiful.

Anyway. Anybody who is a fan of RTSs, give CoH a chance!

CoH IS awesome. SC2 is more my style of play, but CoH is a fantastic game.

 

[dghjdgdjf]

Can't believe you are still discussing this. I figured my time was more well spent playing SC2 then arguing about why it's THAT good.

 

[ecoho]

ok i couldnt quote you matzy since your on my ignore list. i played DOW1&2 if you check my postings youed know this. i HATED both games i actualy gave it away as a present to my friend he loves them and ill be honest he doesnt care for starcraft 2. Now you wana know the difference between you two? He actualy played the campain all the way through, as well as tried the multiplayer. He didnt blame the graphics, he didnt say it was too easy, he simply said it just doesnt work for me. BTW ive shown him all of your posts and hes currently laughing his ass off at you for being a troll. do us all a favor leave call it being the bigger man call it what ever you have to just leave your not debateing your arguing and its become very anoying.

 

[abija]

- Are you unable to read????? The buildings look cell shaded. Last I checked that wasn't the art style used in either the pre-mission lobbies or the cutscenes.
- SC2 is a DX9 game, and not an impressive one at that. How is it one of the best looking RTS' out there? It's far inferior to DoW2 and Total War, as well as Sup Com and Sins if you take scale into account.

Cinematic:
http://a.imageshack.us/img191/9043/screenshot2010081802173.jpg
Cutscene:
http://a.imageshack.us/img685/9601/screenshot2010081802151.jpg
http://a.imageshack.us/img62/7175/screenshot2010081802233.jpg
Ingame:
http://a.imageshack.us/img835/3663/screenshot2010081802343.jpg

Yeah, cell shaded stuff and no consistency... Let me guess, you play it on medium/low or just don't notice texture details?

 

[ecoho]

ok this next post is for everyone i have Dyslexia so spelling and grammar are very hard for me so yeah mazty i misspell alot of things and dont always use the best putuation but you useualy get what i ment to say.Just for you Mazty: as to your questioning of my age im 21 soon to be 22 and i have a 3.8 GPA in college im studying to be a vet as such im required to take a soicoligy class i printed off a few of your comments and show them to my teacher she seems to think you get off on makeing people angrey and that you probily have multiple problems with makeing friends due to this. So ill be taking her advice and not replying to you again after this. I would also like to say that i now feel sorry for you mostly do to the fact youll always have all this hatred in your life. Please take care and hopefully youll get help. (if anythings misspelled please tell me or just correct it please

 

[abija]

I hope you never do anything related to design work...
The cut scene shows the marine armour looks like some kind of plastic due to the sheen - that shown in game or is it impossible to tell what the buildings are made out of?
Watch that. If you know anything about SC you'd know from the first the Protoss buildings are made out of the sort of metal found on Zeratul's right shoulder.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3259/3260126777_5da2fa24a7.jpg
Now what the hell is that building made out of? In fact, where have I seen this art style/engine where you can't actually tell the material property of anything in the game?
http://mmohut.com/wp-content/gallery/world-of-warcraft-overview/world-of-warcraft-city-center.jpg
Oh right....

And the tank material and the building around it? Isn't the same as the ingame pic? What cell shaded elements are in that ingame pic, what inconsistencies versus the cutscenes/cinematic styles?
Btw, do you even know what cell shaded is? Cause sure as hell WoW isn't cell shaded.
Yeah, Blizzard doesn't do photorealism. Since when it's a requirement for good graphics? Since the DX commercials told you so?

And regarding protoss,
http://a.imageshack.us/img97/716/screenshot2010081810114.jpg
http://a.imageshack.us/img823/3602/screenshot2010081810122.jpg
http://a.imageshack.us/img697/4615/screenshot2010081810253.jpg
It's the same material, even deteriorates the same except the items from Zeratul are older and erosion is a lot more prominent.

 

[abija]

"Cel-shaded animation is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make computer graphics appear to be hand-drawn."

Why did you stop there and forgot stuff like: "Where cel-shading differs from conventional rendering is in its use of non-photorealistic lighting. Conventional (smooth) lighting values are calculated for each pixel and then mapped to a small number of discrete shades to create the characteristic flat look ? where the shadows and highlights appear more like blocks of color rather than mixed in a smooth way."

If you ask me, the last screen shot could have easily been hand drawn due to the utter lack of detail as the material seems to have no reflective properties, just like the Terran buildings.
If you really can't see the difference between those screen shots and how the in game shots, you are just trolling.

Hmm, wonder why a material with no reflective properties gets so shiny when there's a light source near it?

Guess they got all that cel-shaded technique wrong...

Photorealism helps with immersion, and the last I checked, immersion was an important part of a game. Of course though I have a feeling you're the kind of pretentious gamer/cheap gamer who can't afford a decent rig and so then claims graphics are only for the shallow frat boy gamer.

Photorealism is one of the many tools that help with immersion. And considering it's a SF title it doesn't help that much anyway...
Again with that kind of retarded assumption? My computer is more than fine thank you.