Review: StarCraft II

[Xocrates]

....You haven't played Dawn of War have you?...Saying Dow removes the macro side of RTS is a flat out lie as you had to customise each squads weapons, let alone make a base etc. No base building in DoW?! Litte variation?! Please don't talk about games you've never played - it doesn't help anyone.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I HAVE played DoW, both of them with all expansions. I probably even played it more than the original Starcraft. To be fair, I was talking mostly about DoW 2, since that's the most recent and therefore the "most evolved".

Either way, the macro side of of Dow is significantly reduced compared to starcraft, the MICRO however (pertaining to individual units and their abilities) is bigger.

No that's down to artistic preference. Plus from the sounds of what you like SC for, you would enjoy DoW. Simply put SC is an RTS with little emphasis on the S - does that seem like a good idea?

Did you even play Starcraft?

The niche it fills is dated and flawed!

So what? It's still a Niche containing millions of people.

Yes DoW2 did get a lot of flak for no base building, but go have a look at Supreme Commander and DoW1.

I did play those games. What's your point?

You have zero idea what TA is if you really think SC2 is anything like it.

Sorry, where did I say SC2 was like TA? If anything I said they were completely different games (a point I've been trying to make for a long time now)

Starcraft didn't end up being the most popular - it ended up being played by the Koreans and anyone who had a bad PC.

It's by far the best selling RTS of all time. How's that different from the most popular?

I think proof of this is most of the avid fans of Starcraft haven't played many of the modern RTS', and those who have almost always say SC is just pretty crappy.

That's bullshit and you know it. Name a modern RTS. Odds are that I either played it or tried the Demo (if available).

Supreme Commander shallow...? No offence but that just means you were really, really crappy at it as it is one of the largest scale, micro-intense and well balanced RTS' out there.

It still has 3 nearly identical races with each tech tier nearly identical to the previous but with bigger units. I admit not playing it much, but that was because I recognize it as a type of RTS I wasn't terribly fond of.

As I've said before, the people saying it's fun have probably not played most of the last decades RTS'. How is it presented well? What does that even mean? :S The graphics are sh*t.

A lot of people don't mind, or even like, the graphics. And by presentation I wasn't talking about the graphics but the way the story is presented. Namely the briefings, cutscenes and missions themselves.

It's ironic that you claim so much about what SC2 does better than the competition, but you haven't even played them so it just ends up utterly unsubstantiated claims....

Read my posts: I played them, I played most of them. I probably played RTSs you never even heard about.

DoW? DoW2? CoH? Supreme Commander? World in Conflict? Defcon? Multiwinia? Sins of a Solar Empire?
Yep, all of them. And those are just from the past few years.

While I haven't played the single player, I was able to get my hands on the beta, and if the core mechanics are the same, then my complaints of it ignoring all innovation for nothing but fan service hold true.

Single player is a nearly completely different game.

 

[Pyotr Romanov]

SC2 presents itself as DEAD. FUCKING. SERIOUS.

What, where? You mean where it goes Can't say I agree with you.

 

[Jimbo1212]

At no point did you actually say why I was wrong, merely ' You could be, but unlike you I will not reason why'

You know why? Because few if any of your points has anything to do with objective quality and all to do with subjective preferences. What if I like building an economy that can support my army? You don't, I get it.

There's no point arguing because nothing I can say will change your mind. You decided Starcraft 2 is crap, fine. That doesn't mean me or for that matter most reviewers agree with you.

Starcraft 2 does what it wanted to do, and it does it very well. If that means being an old-school and, yes, nostalgic game, I don't have a problem with that, and apparently neither do the reviewers. If you do, just don't play it.

There's no point arguing.

You are doing it again.
Please explain WHY those mechanics which had been universally agreed upon up to a few days ago to be bad, now make a game good?
You can not change my mind with an argument as strong as ' It is good 'cause', and StarCraft 2 is bad because of the slow, simple, dated elements to it.

If a game is popular merely because of nostalgia then people should be honest, rather then saying it is a good game.

 

[Xocrates]

Please explain WHY those mechanics which had been universally agreed upon up to a few days ago to be bad, now make a game good?

I don't recall those mechanics ever been agreed to be bad (unless you mean agreed by you). They're agreed to be old, they've also been agreed that their whole (as opposed to separating them into specific mechanics like you've been doing) to still be rather fun.

 

[Jimbo1212]

Please explain WHY those mechanics which had been universally agreed upon up to a few days ago to be bad, now make a game good?

I don't recall those mechanics ever been agreed to be bad (unless you mean agreed by you). They're agreed to be old, they've also been agreed that their whole (as opposed to separating them into specific mechanics like you've been doing) to still be rather fun.

Stop making straw-men.
How are those mechanics fun? How are games without those mechanics the same or worse?
The mechanics make the game clunky, slow, and look bad. If you disagree, then for once, please say WHY they are fun, WHY they give the game a good pace, and WHY they should have kept those mechanics.

 

[Xocrates]

Like crap you've played DoW or Supreme Commander, and if you have you blatantly haven't played enough of it to make any comment on them - to say there is no base building is just a flat out lie as there is a hell of a lot of base building. Don't confuse DoW and DoW 2 as they are very different beasts.
How is the macro side reduced?? You mean with the huge armies and bases etc?
And yes I played SC last night and realised how utterly dated it is with squad limits, over powered units etc.

I said Macro was reduced (from DoW), not removed. Just the fact that you have no reason to create expansions in DoW is a testament to that. Macro in Supreme Commandander however, Is Huge.

Sorry, where did I say SC2 was like TA? If anything I said they were completely different games (a point I've been trying to make for a long time now)

"There are different schools of thought here. Some say it's Starcraft, some say it's TA, some say it's one of the C&C games."
Only an autistic monkey would think SC2 is like TA. Those millions of people are mainly Koreans or people whose PC doesn't have the hardware to play a modern RTS - claiming popular vote doesn't make something the best.

That post wasn't comparing the games, it was saying different people find different games to be the best. TA and Starcraft are very different.

Then please explain your giant cock-ups saying that there was no base building in DoW1 and that the macro is reduced.
Plus don't talk about games you clearly haven't played enough to comment on. Saying that the races and tech trees in SC are nearly identical shows you played a whole 5, maybe 15 mins of it?

Like I explained, that argument was referring to the DoW "series" that did remove base building as it advanced.

Compare the tech trees in Supreme Commander to Starcraft. By comparison the ones in SupCom are nearly identical. (the key word being "nearly") I'm sure that there are nuances necessary to play each individual race well.

We both know the reason the specs are dumbed down is to cater for the people who haven't bothered getting a vaguely decent machine in the last decade.

Yes, how dare Blizzard cater to folk who can't afford to upgrade their PCs every year.

The cut scenes (from what I've seen) look outstanding, but they are just pre-renders...

They're not. (EDIT: More specifically, most aren't. Of the ~45 minutes of cutscenes, about 10 are pre-rendered)

 

[Greg Tito]

StarCraft 2 has terrible graphics when compared to the modern RTS's and exceedingly basic animation which is made even worse seeing that most people play the game on faster. At the $60 fixed price this seems to be very poor value for money seeing that Blizzard have purposefully dumbed down the graphics to cater for very dated PC's.
What modern RTS does StarCraft 2 look better then? Dawn of War 2? Empire or Napoleon : Total War? Supreme Commander and Sins have similar graphics but the games have a far greater scale and are how old?

It looks great on my machine. I honestly have no idea what you are talking about, unless you are pulling out the old "Blizzard's art style is dumbed down" argument. I think they made choices as to how the game would look and feel and made those choices animate wonderfully. Is it photo-realistic? No. Do I want all of my games' graphics to be photo-realistic? No.

As for Sins, do you have harvesters? No - your point is therefore invalid.
Even if it was correct, you can adjust the game speed within the game, resource rates, build times, research times, movement speeds etc. Therefore the main problem RTS's fans have with StarCraft is this horrifically dated mechanic which was resolved many years ago in many different ways.

So your point is that you dislike building harvester/builder units. That is personal preference, and it doesn't mean that the game is not good for people who do not hate "harvesters" as you do.

Also, I'm an RTS fan. I don't have a problem with StarCraft. Stop trying to make your platform bigger than it is.

 

[Xocrates]

SHow are those mechanics fun? How are games without those mechanics the same or worse?
The mechanics make the game clunky, slow, and look bad. If you disagree, then for once, please say WHY they are fun, WHY they give the game a good pace, and WHY they should have kept those mechanics.

They're fun because I have fun playing with them. They should have kept those mechanics because a lot of people like (and even miss) those mechanics.

How exactly do you expect me to explain subjective concepts?

 

[Jimbo1212]

StarCraft 2 has terrible graphics when compared to the modern RTS's and exceedingly basic animation which is made even worse seeing that most people play the game on faster. At the $60 fixed price this seems to be very poor value for money seeing that Blizzard have purposefully dumbed down the graphics to cater for very dated PC's.
What modern RTS does StarCraft 2 look better then? Dawn of War 2? Empire or Napoleon : Total War? Supreme Commander and Sins have similar graphics but the games have a far greater scale and are how old?

It looks great on my machine. I honestly have no idea what you are talking about, unless you are pulling out the old "Blizzard's art style is dumbed down" argument. I think they made choices as to how the game would look and feel and made those choices animate wonderfully. Is it photo-realistic? No. Do I want all of my games' graphics to be photo-realistic? No.

As for Sins, do you have harvesters? No - your point is therefore invalid.
Even if it was correct, you can adjust the game speed within the game, resource rates, build times, research times, movement speeds etc. Therefore the main problem RTS's fans have with StarCraft is this horrifically dated mechanic which was resolved many years ago in many different ways.

So your point is that you dislike building harvester/builder units. That is personal preference, and it doesn't mean that the game is not good for people who do not hate "harvesters" as you do.

Also, I'm an RTS fan. I don't have a problem with StarCraft. Stop trying to make your platform bigger than it is.

The graphics are poor, hence why the requirements for it are so low.
The art style is childish and takes away the gritty feel the original had. C&C was criticised for going down the 'Micro-machine style' of graphics, yet again, everyone believes StarCraft 2 looks good because of this.
The level of detail on each unit is very low along with the animation. Even DoW (2004) had better animation per unit as each unit had casings from guns, sustained fire rates etc. compared to lift gun, twitch fire, lower gun, repeat.

Whilst I am on the topic of graphics, why is the camera limited? Seriously, what is Blizzards excuse for this?

[http://h.imagehost.org/view/0574/StarCraft_2_comparison]

Here is a comparison.
Please tell me how the top left picture looks great in comparison to these games or justifies how it looks.

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?

 

[Nunny]

>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.

 

[Greg Tito]

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.

 

[AceDiamond]

>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.

The graphics cards melted due to a coding error on the menu screens, not the actual gameplay itself. Considering this was a story on this very site I fail to see how you could make such an error.

Anyway here's my thought. Fuck hype. Seriously. This is why I dislike Blizzard's fanbase. Nothing but constant hype and fawning praise; it's like you're all a bunch of 4-year olds and Blizzard is your mother. Mommy is perfect and anyone who says otherwise is a horrible and evil person.

Starcraft I is not the undisputed once-and-future RTS king. There were already games in 1998 and 1999 pushing the RTS genre in directions that Starcraft feared to tread. Now I'm not saying that Starcraft II should've been innovative in new directions, because I know it would've shattered the fragile minds of the fanbase who seem to be stuck 12 years in the past. Of course it's ironic that in a time where we rail against sequels for being too samey, we give Starcraft II a free pass because "it wouldn't be Starcraft". You never hear people say "it wouldn't be Contra" or "it wouldn't be Mario". But I digress.

What I am saying is the constant fellatio of Starcraft II when it's becoming very very clear that it's not the power of Jesus in a box is turning off myself and others. Yes I include myself despite my constant railing against Starcraft II. See one of my friends owns the collector's edition, and when he talked about the game he didn't go on and on like it was the best game ever, instead he answered me a simple question: "is it fun?". And he said yes. Based on the concept of it being fun, and based on my preference for RTS games, I had him give me a guest pass. A guest pass which is currently installed on my computer and has 13 days left on it. I have not touched the game for two reasons. One is my job. The other is this thread and others like it. Not that the blathering masses of Starcraft II fans need any more support but simply I feel that it is getting less and less worth taking the time to see what the fuss is about when the only positive assertion about the game simply has to be "It is the greatest game ever", with no middle ground. And that is a childish and unrealistic expectation. It's not perfect, deal with it.

 

[technoted]

LAN would have been nice, but let's be honest, it's outdated technology and will one day be obsolete (if it isn't already).

The only deserved complaints are at B.net, which needs some work - chat channels, cross-region play are the glaring standouts.

I stil occasionally have LAN games which I enjoy, I mean theres nothing better than having fun with your mates whilst playing some Starcraft. However I don't see why everyone is complaining about the LAN not being there, you can still get friends round together and connect to the same internet connection and have some games, and from what I've heard there's pretty much no lag when you do this either.

And you say there's problems with B.net like the cross region play, I haven't played any online games yet since I didn't get a chance to play SC2 till late on Monday night and story comes first, are this problems really big or just minor irritants?

 

[Greg Tito]

wonder if tito had a spoon to go with eating out blizzards ass like this..... game is no where near as flash as hes jerking it off to be

Yes, a titanium spoon! http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/ddda/

 

[Slycne]

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.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

"Playing all of StarCraft II after paying only 60 bucks feels like you are wearing a ski-mask and ripping off Blizzard at gunpoint. It's that good."


But it's not all of Starcraft II....I'm confused. Did Blizzard package all three stories at the last minute?

StarCraft I was The Hobbit. A smaller, self-contained story. This is Fellowship of the Ring. It is a huge campaign experience that happens to be the first third of an even larger story.

I was immensely satisfied with the content present in Starcraft II. There was a complete narrative arc from humble beginnings to a valiant stand against the swarm on Char. The story is obviously far from complete but what was presented was satisfying enough. The greater threats of the universe remain, certainly, but the immediate problems of the moment were resolved to my satisfaction. Beyond that, the game took three fairly lengthy sittings to complete so I could not lodge a complaint about quantity of content. Even if I never stepped into the multiplayer, the single player content alone was satisfying enough that it was worth my 60 bucks.

While I originally resented the idea of having to pay for three separate campaigns, should they meet the same level of quality I can now say that I have no problem with such a request.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Congratulations in merely reaffirming that StarCraft has the strongest fanbase who have no reason to say the game is good bar Blizzard made it and it's a game from their childhood.

I would like to point out (even though you were referring to an entirely different person with this quote) that I enjoy StarCraft 2 immensely and I don't fit into your sweeping generalization. I played StarCraft in passing only - my RTS series of choice at the time was Command and Conquer. There is no nostalgia there for me. More to the point, my preferred style of RTS has been the sort that focuses on the small scale tactical combat like Dawn of War. In spite of this, I still enjoyed the game.

 

[Celador]

Yes, dated.
It is dated because other games have used methods of making the genre better, and as I thought, people who like StarCraft 2 have not played any other RTS since Starcraft, RTS's such as:
Dawn Of War
Company of Heroes
Total War series
Dawn of War 2
Supreme Commander
Sins Of a Solar Empire

Played, all expansions
Played
Tried, not a huge fan of the series
Played, with expansion
Played, not terribly fond of, and in fact consider it more old school than Starcraft
Played, all expansions

My most anticipated game of the decade? Starcraft 2.

These games are more fun, more tactical, and have a far better pace eg faster then StarCraft 2.

Arguable and up to personal preference.

So before posting or trying to argue that StarCraft is a great game, please do your homework on what else is out on the market.

I have, and also played plenty other innovative RTS like Defcon, Multiwinia, or World in Conflict.

I have played RTS since Dune 2. I love the big "modern" RTS you're championing. I still love Starcraft 2 to bits. Do not make erroneous assumptions and silly generalizations.

Congratulations in merely reaffirming that StarCraft has the strongest fanbase who have no reason to say the game is good bar Blizzard made it and it's a game from their childhood.

At no point did you actually say why I was wrong, merely ' You could be, but unlike you I will not reason why' ergo, you like it because of nostalgia, not because the game is actually any good.
Just tell me why:
-Harvesting minerals is fun
-Slow build speeds is fun
-Bad animation and poor graphics looks good

If it makes you feel any better - im "in" on this with you. Reminds me of people that just keep remembering how delicious was that particular ice-cream 20 years ago.

In regards to Starcraft 2 - they should've called it cyber-sport clicking game (CS-CG?) since it lacks "strategy" in it.

-Fixed game speeds are useful
-No cover, moral, melee mechanic, and small mirror image maps make the game more tactical?

Could also add - unbalanced damage across unit types and general lack of unit/building types.