Comments on: RPS Half-Verdict: StarCraft 2

By: pistolhamster

pistolhamster — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:44:03 +0000

Perhaps Starcraft II isn’t as much incomplete as “not concluded.” I played it through mission 2 and regretted I paid money for it. 1998 called and wanted its gameplay back – or my tastes in game genres have changed somewhat since 1998.

By: Soundofvictory

Soundofvictory — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:35:46 +0000

I think what a lot of people seem to be ignoring or at least not mentioning is all the NEW stuff in SC2 that isn’t just polishing of the original. I do not know the exact number, but it seems like there are roughly 2x as many Terran units this time around. Some of those are slightly better versions of others, while some offer completely unique advantages. On top of this, in the single player campaign you can upgrade nearly everything which is really fun. These upgrades can be simple “deals +20% damage,” but also there is more interesting stuff such as bunker upgrades as mentioned in the article. These upgrades allow you to take your already awesome army and convert it into a world-ending military force. There is SO MUCH more game here than in the entirety of SC1 and BW, that it is nearly staggering.

By: Morte

Morte — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:57:40 +0000

Is there a demo?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:16:56 +0000

SCII is amazing game (and more), but the scenario in the single-player kills everything. I mean the story its so predictable, that in the end takes all the fun from it. Although the multi – well thats another story.

By: olybenjamin

olybenjamin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:49:01 +0000

Overall, I’ve liked Starcraft so far, sure the story seems like a parody of itself most of the time, but really all I play Blizzard RTSs for is fun gameplay and good cutscenes. As far as it being an incomplete game, I’m not sure, 26 missions(most of which are much more fun than the original Starcraft’s)? Didn’t the original un-expansioned Stacraft include like 31 or something? So we aren’t too far off as far as missions go, and this game definitely feels like they spent more time making sure the missions felt fun as well. I too love that zombie defense mission and wish it was a multiplayer mode or map.

By: tyrspawn

tyrspawn — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:12:03 +0000

“I just love how hopelessly deep the game is.”

lmao. I think Quinn would have a heart attack if he tried to play a proper strategy game like Airborne Assault or Hearts of Iron.

By: Annoyed

Annoyed — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 09:38:23 +0000

Quite frankly, I think SC2 Ep 1
is:
-a full game
-starcraft 1 with nicer gfx, cgi and that’s pretty much it
-worth playing
-very much polished and fitted with high-end production values
-about as sophisticated in it’s plot as a jerry bruckheimer movie

and is not:
-for people who don’t like country music
-deep, intriguing, shocking, varied, completely groundbreaking, exciting and new or innovative IN ANY SODDING WAY
-new, varied and surprising in every mission
-worth paying 60 EUR for
-the pinnacle of rts gaming

Mission design, despite what everyone here keeps suggesting is actually disturbingly narrow:

1. introduce a map story related reason to hurry towards sub-objectives or generally move around with a deadlineish pressure before either map or enemy spits in your soup
2. introduce a new unit that if you just spam it enough(along with a heal or repair crew) will beat the mission while half-asleep for you
3. repeat until 20+ missions are done with

There is actually a problem with this isas in that you barely get any “run of the mill, toy around with what you have now all unlocked” missions left, as every mission is far too much a “introduction to $unit” centric thing. So it starts to feel a bit like a chore, rather than a fun playground sometimes.
I know people will shout and yell and point at skirmish, to which I can only fart loudly and raise an eyebrow.

The people that pretend that there is some kind of uber-mission design in terms of meta-ideas should me smacked in the face.
There is actually a bit of potential wasted, and as an example !SPOILER! i will cite the lava mission, where a side objective is a big zerg monster. Now, the level constantly rises and lowers lava levels, flooding the place.
As somebody who actually thinks beyond clickclickclickhurrhurrdurrhurr I felt that this was a genius setting in which to just hit the big monster zerg thing once, make it follow me into the low ground, get burned by by the lava and save me a lot of shooty work.
THAT would have been fun and varied mission design and a multi-path approach to a mission.
But that was of course no go as this game has all the variation of a corridor shooter. The monsterzerg just didn’t leave his 10 square “home space” and never even entered the low ground.
Period.
Opportunity wasted.

There is ONE other mission where ONE element is actually a bit like what I wanted: SPOILER in the ghost mission you can free an ultralisk so that it goes rampaging down some units for you. Not that it’s needed, but IT’S POSSIBLE.
That’s the only single element of this I have seen in the entire game.
That is not variety or creativity.

All other “ideas” are simply one identical macro structure of “reason to either rush or delay the player in this mission” and generating as many excuses for that as possible.
They are NOT tantalizingly varied, super-fun or new. They are just a nuisiance to “play around” so that you get things done eventually and not made in such a way to give you a varied intra-mission approach with many alternative ways of beating it.
The flexibility of winnning a mission is limited to 1. finish objective as normal 2. kill all enemies and thereby also have finished the main objective

So yes, it IS just the same build base, spam $currentlynewunit and hoover up the enemy.

All these stupid nonsense posts stating the opposite are just written by people who think 50 cars of the same make painted in 50 colors are 50 different cars.

But if you ENJOY spamming units and tank rushing the enemy, then this soup is for you, and no two doubts about it. You get two dozen iterations of that very thing with some hero/soloing thrown in for good measure.

For RTS fans, this is YARTS. For people that will play every RTS that comes out, this is a great game.
For people that are hoping and looking for high-end, innovative, varied and exciting stuff, they will have to face facts on this one. It’s a solid reiteration of the same old, same old, but it’s not the messiah’s second coming by a long, long, LONG massdriver shot.
And for those people I would say wait until this thing dives < 40 EUR.
RTS addicts will buy their new crack at whatever price anyhow.
End of story :p

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:17:42 +0000

You are crazy to think the story of SC is not good. The story is one of the best parts! I love Jim Raynor and I love Kerrigan and all the characters. Its a really awesome story so get off it.

By: geldonyetich

geldonyetich — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:52:07 +0000

I’m actually considering taking that back now. From what I hear, people are finishing Wings Of Liberty in 14 hours. Now, it might indeed be there’s 3 times the effort towards fine detail in those 14 hours, and it goes without saying you can play it again at a higher difficulty another two or three times, but I’m pretty sure the first StarCraft could beat 14 hours in its three campaigns. If you love Blizzard games enough that you want to go ahead and buy it anyway, by all means by my guest, but that’s too rich for my blood.

By: Bowlby

Bowlby — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:24:47 +0000

I’m kinda with Manley Pointer. I don’t know if I have my rose-tinted glasses on or whether I held a lower standard for storytelling when StarCraft was originally released, but I’m about ten missions in and the characters are dull, boring stereotypes, the plot is completely unengaging and the dialogue is god-awful. Everything, narrative-wise, feels like trivial filler, whereas at least in the original the pace of the storytelling was much faster and plot points were communicated way more effectively.

Sure, there is the multiplayer. I might play a bit of it, but I’m just not into competitive RTSs that much. The single player, for me, is where my interest lies. And while the missions are varied, I just feel I’ve played this game before, except now there’s no incentive to see the next cutscene or the next part of the story, because that part sucks. I find myself dipping in and out of the game – playing a couple of missions, and then going off to do something else. It’s still StarCraft; it’s still very good, but it’s not even close to how brilliant the original was when it came out.

By: DarkNoghri

DarkNoghri — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:37:53 +0000

Well, as you can see from the header pic, Quinns still doesn’t have any iron, while Alec is rolling in it.

By: Sovard

Sovard — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 14:28:29 +0000

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that their “Zombie Defense” mission was much better as a custom map in WC3, and is in no way brilliantly original. Thanks.