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aaron · Beast Mode Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 759

So Starcraft II is no longer the Chinese Democracy of the PC game world. I'm reading reviews that say the gameplay is great, but Blizzard has screwed everything else up. Like the fact you only get the Terran campaign in this $60 game, Protoss and Zerg are expansions. You always have to be online to play it, constantly verifying that you are the correct person playing on your key, Blizzard will charge you for premium maps and content online, and no more LAN parties because you can't Spawn a copy anymore. Sounds like a game I'll probably take a pass on at least til the price comes down. I'm not sure my POS Graphics card could handle it anyways.
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mumford · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 1:30 pm Post subject: Re: Starcraft II

ries · Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 10:23 pm Post subject:

I've been playing the Beta for awhile and have liked it a lot, and picked up the game today.

I'm just ignoring the fact that Activision bought them out awhile ago, and their CEO Bobby Kotick is an asshole.

The game itself is very fun. If you enjoyed Starcraft you will like the sequel. They've maintained the same gameplay from the original, with lots of updates and UI changes. The biggest benefit is the online multiplayer, where they've set up an elaborate ladder system. You can find matches within minutes, people play to finish (since their record depends on it), and you quickly get placed next to people of your own skill level. They've really focused on making this a competitive game experience. I'm sure there will also be some amazing custom maps designed in the near future as well (akin to DOTA in warcraft3).

Yes it's not revolutionary, and it doesn't feel overly different from the first one, but it does things right. It's also extremely polished like all Blizzard's games. I was able to play it tonight, with roughly ~1 million users on battlenet playing it. So that's saying something.

The single player is only the terran campaign, but it's much different from the previous games. It has a non-linear plot, you apparently are able to pick and choose the units you tech up with. It's a little cheesy, but still pretty fun. They also have a great set of "challenge maps" that help train you to use your units most effectively. All in all, its a pretty complete game.

As much as I hate to say it, I agree that $60 is too high of a price for a PC game - if it wasn't Starcraft. It bothered me a little to place a price point higher than the norm, but I certainly was going to buy it regardless.

Also it doesn't require amazing graphics cards to run, and the graphics are very scaleable. Blizzard has always made a point to target a wide range of systems.
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mumford · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 6:46 am Post subject:

The single player campaign is supposed to be pretty long I've heard, around 20 hours.

I remember playing Starcraft in the computer labs. That was a pretty cool game. I recall getting crushed by one of the guys I worked with routinely. Then I played a ton of it over the Christmas break and wrecked him when he got back and we didn't play again after that. Ah, Starcraft.
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aaron · Beast Mode Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 759

Well I'll probably grab it eventually then. That ladder system would be helpful, seeing as how I always drug you down when I played. If you could fend off 2 players, I could wipe them out with the upgraded guardian and muta barrage.

1,000,000 players on b.net? That's $60M in revenue from just those online. I've seen sales projections as optimistic as 11M copies this year alone (outselling the previous version of SC in just 1 year!). With other content for sale, parts 2 and 3 for the Protoss and Zerg campaigns, this game could rake in well over a billion dollars over it's life, and that's probably the low side. I wonder how Activision stock is doing.
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mumford · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 9:32 pm Post subject:

Thinking about how much money Blizzard makes is always fun. How many active subscribers are there for WoW? And Diablo 3 is going to be coming out in a year or so to sell another couple million copies.
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ries · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 10:12 pm Post subject:

Eric and Cullen are also playing it Aaron -- a lot. Eric in particular keeps guilting me into playing it all the time.

It's pretty fun to play with them, you get a separate ladder/ranking for each 2v2 or 3v3 team you form as well. Getting a match as a team is just as easy, you form up, and click find match.
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aaron · Beast Mode Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 759

I've got some work to get done, so I doubt I get it any time soon. Maybe by the end of August. I would have preordered it, but I couldn't find any special deals for the preorder. Lately it seems like the big games are sort of being given away by retailers. I got a $20 gift card at Amazon for preordering Red Dead Redemption for PS3 and (2 golden guns codes for some reason, used 1 sold the other on ebay for $10). Preordered Madden 11 and got $20 again at Amazon. As soon as they give that credit to me (game ships August 10th), I'll probably order SCII for $40 and free shipping.
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ries · Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:47 am Post subject:

Yah there's no rush on it. We'll be playing this game for quite awhile. At least I know Eric will. Him and Cullen are going to have a SC2 weekend, but I'm not invited, because I'm not capable of playing that game for 20 hrs in a weekend (and he's right). I have pretty bad ADD, but this is still my favorite game Smile

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