Review: StarCraft II

[Tiamat666]

Those dynamic mission elements are nothing but a script that has no impact on the general experience. Sure, if you'd have random eruptions, a night-day cycle and the ability to set yer opponents lawn on fire and theses affected gameplay I'd give them points for that but now they're just purrty effects.
Not all RTS games are standard, Warhammer is the finest example of this.

It does affect the "general experience" if your base is engulfed in flames because you didn't evacuate soon enough, your workers are melting in lava because you didn't move them to higher ground or your troops are ripped to shredds by a legion of zombies because they were still out of base when the night fell in.

 

[Cristian Capatana]

*

 

[John Funk]

...paying only 60 bucks feels like you are wearing a ski-mask and ripping off Blizzard at gunpoint.

Puh-fucking-lease, if this was any other RTS you wouldn't be so lenient. It has standard mechanics, a cliche story (ancient artifact, prophecy... really?!?, the RPG elements are bolted on and don't really make a difference and those achievements are just another way of bloating the thing, finishing a mission is not an achievement, it's the whole friggin' point of the game!

This is just an average but well polished game and not the paragon of perfection every review wants to jam down our throats.

There is nothing about this game that is even remotely average ... other than the dialogue.

Blizzard really needs to poach some people from BioWare on that end.

...and learn to take a chance once in a while! They have 3 stories and they're beating them to death with the "sameold" stick.

Btw, some argument to back up that "not remotely average" claim would be interesting to have.

Who's discussing story? The story in StarCraft is cheesy B-movie space opera, the same as it's always been. Nobody expects great story from Chris Metzen, they expect a popcorn flick which is exactly what we got.

The mission design is exceptional. The gameplay manages to be simultaneously StarCraft and yet NOT StarCraft thanks to seemingly-small design elements and changes that go a huge way towards how the game plays out. It's a traditional RTS because that's what Blizzard was intending to design, and because elements that work great in Relic games like CoH or DoW (namely, squad mechanics and cover) would have gone completely against what they were trying to do.

The mission and level design is superb; there are almost 30 missions that pretty much never repeat a central 'gimmick,' the entire thing is well-polished and though the story/dialogue are cheesy at best it's well told, with little on-ship interactions and conversations doing a surprisingly good job at fleshing out the world and characters surrounding what's going on.

Blizzard was trying to make a sequel to StarCraft, and they were trying to make a traditional RTS built around fast movements, fast thinking, and precise control. That is exactly what they have done, and they have done so exceptionally well. It isn't SupCom or DoW or Total Annihilation or Total War; it's StarCraft. And that's what it SHOULD be.

 

[Electric Gel]

Huh, your denying yourself so much pleasure but whatever you say.

Nope. Blizzard is denying me and many others that pleasure.

Oh boo hoo, you do not get your precious LAN games, wait a sec. I am not no brain surgeon but can't you just have your friends bring their PCs to your house or vice versa and all sign in to the wireless internet source and THEN play? I know that is what they do in a certain shop in my parts here... and if you are also angry that you have to be online, if you do not have internet then you are either

A.) Poor
B.) To lazy to have someone install it.

Anyways, if you picked up SC2 high chances you planned on playing multiplayer and why would you not have your computer hooked up to the internet damn near 24/7 these days? Haha, sorry if the post seemed rude, I just kinda found it funny.

Is it just me or have the character designs really lost a lot of their originality in the transition to such high end graphics? Kerrigan especially, she looks like typical ultra sexed up woman number four now.

On a positive note it does look like a smashing game, and I can't wait to play it. Just a tad disappointed with how their art directions gone.

Nah, I believe that was what they imagined her since the beginning. I am not too sure however. They do have a statue of her in their offices and it looks just like what she looks like now. I do not know how new that it is but if it has been their for a number of years then it could be the original design but they could not pull it off do to the graphics of the time.

If that's how they imagined her originally then I'm sorely disappointed. One of the things I liked about the original Starcraft was the characters uniqueness, especially compared to a lot of other games where they pander to this idealistic notion of the perfect person. Jim Rayner wasn't handsome, he was an average looking guy with a big personality. Now he's this grizzled anti hero. Kerrigan looked more like a mature woman, and less like an American cheerleader in futuristic armour.

Although I must admit that I've not played the game yet, and I'm completely going of what I've seen in reviews and previews. Some of the characters do look like they've kept a tad of that Starcraft charm, even if the main protagonists easily fit into some hackneyed, overdone computer game goliath man/sexy girl character design.

 

[werekitsune]

This game looks great, but I'm not sure if I should get it because I never played the first one and I don't want to play catch-up with an outdated game (albeit a classic). Should I still pick this up? I did the same with half life 2, and had no problems.

 

[Snarky]

Starcraft 2 was advertised a lot here, I wasn't expecting fair and balanced, but having bought the game and played it, I wasn't expecting 5 stars, maybe 4 or 4.5 though I guess it IS worth the 60$ price tag, or 99$ in my case. After playing the campaign: I was disappointed by the multiplayer, it just seems much less fun. It seems boring, in the same way that I find Counter-Strike boring, it's more about twitch game play and rapid control of the mouse then it is tactics. While you can hone your about to performs hundreds of actions per minute, but why bother? I don't know, it's just not my cup of tea, I still prefer Supreme Commander 1 as multiplayer seem more like a sandbox war than an arena match.

Also, I had a LAN party last weekend, and Starcraft 2 was one of the games of choice, the lack of dedicated LAN mode didn't seem to be a problem, the game doesn't seem to be taxing on connections, even with 3 people with 3 accounts on one broadband line. The AI is hard and I appreciate the fact that it scouts you, and it doesn't seem to cheat.

 

[Cristian Capatana]

*

 

[John Funk]

M'kay, you're just describing what the game is and is not and not why it's supposed to be better than most other "traditional" RTS games. From what I've experienced so far, adding a few new units and tinkering with the old does not make a game "the best" it just makes it better than the original and considering that in the last 10 years we've seen a crapton of traditional RTS games that started with the starcraft formula and improved on it how can we make the affirmation "SCII rullz!"? On the other hand we can safely say it's an average game based on the plethora of games that didn't take 10 years to make, have been developed by studios with far less resources, had the balls to try something new here and there but use the same general mechanics as SCII.

I don't understand what you're trying to argue. It's the best because it's very well balanced, very engaging and exciting to pick up and play, the breakneck pace means that it's an intense experience from the very moment you start the game because those first 50 minerals could make or break you down the line.

Other games added things to the StarCraft formula, yes. That does not mean they were *improving* it, much in the same way that adding ketchup to a sundae does not mean you're improving it, and much in the same way that an orange is not an improved apple because it has a peel.

There is not a single continuum of RTS design. Just because DoW and CoH have cover systems and squad mechanics does not mean that StarCraft II needs to have cover systems and squad mechanics because that bogs the game down and gets in the way of what the developers were trying to make.

So far your argument just seems to be "Wah, it didn't try anything new." That does not make it an average game, it just makes it an game that didn't innovate. Which is never what they were trying to do in the first place.

 

[chaos order]

the ONLY reason i want this game is because of the story, i LOVED the story in the first SC and i NEED to see what happend in the second, unfortunately i am horrible at RTS's. and SC2 looks eve more brutal and unforgiving than SC1

 

[Sartan0]

This game looks great, but I'm not sure if I should get it because I never played the first one and I don't want to play catch-up with an outdated game (albeit a classic). Should I still pick this up? I did the same with half life 2, and had no problems.

There is a decent write up in the manual that will bring you up to speed on the story. As for game play the game does a great job of teaching you how to play. For multi-player don't miss the challenge modes and skirmish mode.

 

[Richard Allen]

This game looks great, but I'm not sure if I should get it because I never played the first one and I don't want to play catch-up with an outdated game (albeit a classic). Should I still pick this up? I did the same with half life 2, and had no problems.

If you don't mind a few plot holes (like exactly how kerrigan become the queen of blades, they gloss over it briefly and explain but not in-depth) then I would pick it up if resource based fast action RTS is something you like. In the campaign normal mode there were not any points where I felt rushed to the point that I sent my units into a situation I didn't think they could handle but I was also playing on the normal difficulty level so I could get into multi-player asap.

That being said the single player has some great new "gimmicks" and I say that in quotes because while not game changing or industry changing, they make every single map in the single player campaign feel unique.

Mulit-player is where it's at for the most of us however (the campaign can be beaten in about 16 hours if you blast through it, me being a veteran of the game but exploring a bit am at 23-24 ish) and this will make or break it for you I think if your interested in playing the game for more then a few weeks or w/e pace you play it at. It's extremely competitive, on the ladder, many games are over in about 7 minutes (don't think I've had one longer then 20). It's breakneck speed (high level competitors are usually judged a bit based on actions per minute which is in the 250-350 range for sc gods), and good chunk is bases on resource management.

Here's the other thing though, the map editor is just about the most powerful one to date. You can litterally turn a map in to a first person shooter experience if you want to so I would expect some very clever maps and game modes once the community gets involved.

Question for those who have bought it:

Is it worth buying for someone (that is to say, me) who has no interest in multiplayer and kinda-sorta enjoyed the original?

Get ready for massive DRM, The story is good, the levels are just copy and pasted from WC3

remember you wont be able to play this game THROUGH LAN so if you want to VS your brother sister friends etc you wont be able to

1st: Yes the game is well worth it for the campaign alone, they definately didn't skimp out on the single player for multiplayer. If you enjoyed the original then your definately going to want to add this to your collection.

and

2nd: Really? REALLY? Can we just drop the whining and crying about DRM already, it's not going anywhere. Those of you who are against it have reason to fear it, which means you were doing something illegal with the software in the first place and essentially created this problem for yourselves.

REALLY REALLY (seewhatIdidthere)? You going to pull that same crap about drm. I've got a finger to show you. I bought the game just like I buy every other game. I understand lack of lan, I hate it, it goes against what Blizz has done in the past (spawning was soooo nice) but in all reality there are very few situations that this will affect people but there are some. I regularly play ad-hoc games while traveling and there are plenty of times where peoples internet goes out and are looking for something to do. Just because my situation is different then yours and you can't possibly conceive a situation where you might not have internet doesn't mean it's not a real issue. Maybe you shouldn't lay down blanket statements like your all thieves when I can guarantee I have supported the video game industry since the beginning and have been buying blizzard games since before they were blizzard.

 

[GoGo_Boy]

Lol at the "terrible, terrible damage"

And I actually laughed quite a bit at that one point in the campaign where it came up. Oh god I really didn't expect it and then... so funny.

For those who actually don't know about "terrible, terrible damage". It's a Battle Report insider regarding Dustin Browders (Lead Designer) often repeating that phrase.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsWhpf7D_EQ (haha so nice)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKZlcgOzi_E

Ah found the campaign scene

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8bieEfkoOs

 

[ninjajoeman]

I enjoyed the game but it did feel like the story is rushed through, not much time spent on each part of the story.

Still a great game, even if it seems to be slowing down the longer i replay it.

rushed you say...
well not to say zerg rush but how was this game rushed at all?

 

[cthulhumythos]

sweet, i've always wanted ravage in an rts (reaction to seeing the predator).

 

[Richard Allen]

Question for those who have bought it:

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

Another question like this:

Is it worth getting it if you'll like the story campaign and are kind of interested in the multiplayer, but know that you're going to be terrible at it? I'm assuming that plenty of multiplayer... players are veterans from the original starcraft; is it possible to get into multiplayer, maybe after going through the story, and not getting the shit kicked out of you to the point of frustration?

Depending on how bad you are you will probably loose all 5 of your placement matches and maybe a few more while it gets a feel for how good you are. Unless you are the worst player on earth the match making system will eventually find a good set of people for you to play with at or near your level. They had to detune it a bit during beta because every single match became a fight for your life match which was pretty intense during a marathon session. Now it will give you a good mix of easy matches, hard matches that you probably can't win (but are very good to watch the replays and learn from), and some that take every ounce of attention and skill you got but make you love the win all that much more. There is a 7 hour free trial with every game, if you can pick up one and do a marathon session of multi-player, and see how you feel at the end. I'm sure you it will find some good opponents for you.

 

[Tiamat666]

the ONLY reason i want this game is because of the story, i LOVED the story in the first SC and i NEED to see what happend in the second, unfortunately i am horrible at RTS's. and SC2 looks eve more brutal and unforgiving than SC1

The story might disappoint you, but I found SC2 to be alot easier than SC1. Also, you can set the difficuilty to easy, so I wouldn't worry about that.

 

[DTWolfwood]

i absolutely adore this game! and dammit for that secret mission! have to do the campaign again! >.<

 

[ark123]

If you have a computer, it should have SC2 in it.
I'm sure Blizzard is crying their eyes out the "OMG no chat! No lan!" crowd isn't throwing their 60 bucks on top of the humongous pile of money they already made from this.
Who cares about LAN support, just log into your battle.net account and play from anywhere.

 

[Richard Allen]

This game looks great, but I'm not sure if I should get it because I never played the first one and I don't want to play catch-up with an outdated game (albeit a classic). Should I still pick this up? I did the same with half life 2, and had no problems.

If you don't mind a few plot holes (like exactly how kerrigan become the queen of blades, they gloss over it briefly and explain but not in-depth) then I would pick it up if resource based fast action RTS is something you like. In the campaign normal mode there were not any points where I felt rushed to the point that I sent my units into a situation I didn't think they could handle but I was also playing on the normal difficulty level so I could get into multi-player asap.

That being said the single player has some great new "gimmicks" and I say that in quotes because while not game changing or industry changing, they make every single map in the single player campaign feel unique.

Mulit-player is where it's at for the most of us however (the campaign can be beaten in about 16 hours if you blast through it, me being a veteran of the game but exploring a bit am at 23-24 ish) and this will make or break it for you I think if your interested in playing the game for more then a few weeks or w/e pace you play it at. It's extremely competitive, on the ladder, many games are over in about 7 minutes (don't think I've had one longer then 20). It's breakneck speed (high level competitors are usually judged a bit based on actions per minute which is in the 250-350 range for sc gods), and good chunk is bases on resource management.

Here's the other thing though, the map editor is just about the most powerful one to date. You can litterally turn a map in to a first person shooter experience if you want to so I would expect some very clever maps and game modes once the community gets involved.

Question for those who have bought it:

Is it worth buying for someone (that is to say, me) who has no interest in multiplayer and kinda-sorta enjoyed the original?

Get ready for massive DRM, The story is good, the levels are just copy and pasted from WC3

remember you wont be able to play this game THROUGH LAN so if you want to VS your brother sister friends etc you wont be able to

1st: Yes the game is well worth it for the campaign alone, they definately didn't skimp out on the single player for multiplayer. If you enjoyed the original then your definately going to want to add this to your collection.

and

2nd: Really? REALLY? Can we just drop the whining and crying about DRM already, it's not going anywhere. Those of you who are against it have reason to fear it, which means you were doing something illegal with the software in the first place and essentially created this problem for yourselves.

REALLY REALLY (seewhatIdidthere)? You going to pull that same crap about drm. I've got a finger to show you. I bought the game just like I buy every other game. I understand lack of lan, I hate it, it goes against what Blizz has done in the past (spawning was soooo nice) but in all reality there are very few situations that this will affect people but there are some. I regularly play ad-hoc games while traveling and there are plenty of times where peoples internet goes out and are looking for something to do. Just because my situation is different then yours and you can't possibly conceive a situation where you might not have internet doesn't mean it's not a real issue. Maybe you shouldn't lay down blanket statements like your all thieves when I can guarantee I have supported the video game industry since the beginning and have been buying blizzard games since before they were blizzard.

Ok here's a bag of ice for your puss puss and Steel Magnolias for you to cry over. Oh and a tampon because you are one massively whiney ****.

Yes because I am sick of being called thief because I want to play on a lan that makes me a whiny c***. FWIW I could give a crap what you think of me but you follow the same line of thought as some of the greats like Kotick who feel that by punishing the people who actually buy the game while doing zilch about piracy is a good idea. The day every single one of your games has an always on internet connection and every time your internet has a hicup and you get dropped to your last save remember this post, it's people like you who are causing it. Also if your just going to drop obscenities and not even make an argument your pretty worthless as a commenter and I would ask you to troll somewhere else, this is one of the better communities and I think most of us would rather have you out of here.

 

[ark123]

Question for those who have bought it:

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

Another question like this:

Is it worth getting it if you'll like the story campaign and are kind of interested in the multiplayer, but know that you're going to be terrible at it? I'm assuming that plenty of multiplayer... players are veterans from the original starcraft; is it possible to get into multiplayer, maybe after going through the story, and not getting the shit kicked out of you to the point of frustration?

Depending on how bad you are you will probably loose all 5 of your placement matches and maybe a few more while it gets a feel for how good you are. Unless you are the worst player on earth the match making system will eventually find a good set of people for you to play with at or near your level. They had to detune it a bit during beta because every single match became a fight for your life match which was pretty intense during a marathon session. Now it will give you a good mix of easy matches, hard matches that you probably can't win (but are very good to watch the replays and learn from), and some that take every ounce of attention and skill you got but make you love the win all that much more. There is a 7 hour free trial with every game, if you can pick up one and do a marathon session of multi-player, and see how you feel at the end. I'm sure you it will find some good opponents for you.

If you play through the campaign and do the challenges I personally guarantee you will not lose all 5 placement matches.