Rock, Paper, Shotgun

UPDATE: Blizzard are a-fixin’ it, claiming the deactivation thing is an ‘issue’ rather than a decision, and will be sorted in an upcoming patch.

ORIGINAL: While we all knew Battle.net’s careful weaving into StarCraft 2′s fabric meant Blizzard’s latest wasn’t something to be played in an entirely offline vacuum, it allowed the less bewebbed players amongst us to have some singleplayer fun without being chastised. A quick nod to the Blizzardian mothership every 30 days was required, but other than that, carry on Zerging. That may have changed, with the game apparently now losing its activation every time you turn your PC off.
Read the rest of this entry »

You won’t find many people hailing Starcraft 2′s narrative. The characters are lumpen, the dialogue weak and the general plot simultaneously archetypal to the point of cliché while only really working if you assume players are invested in characters like Kerrigan. Which even for a game as successful as Starcraft, is a big assumption to make. There’s people playing it now who weren’t even alive back then.

However there’s one area where I think it’s quite clever and even genuinely ground-breaking, at least as far as mainstream games go. I talk about it below. There’s no direct spoilers, but there’s structural spoilers which may be even worse. I’m about to basically explain how a card-trick works…
Read the rest of this entry »

In what journalists are calling a “Dick Move”, Blizzard has announced that there will be no reviews of StarCraft 2 before lunch. Would-be reviewers are going to have to wait until after everybody in the office has had lunch before posting their review of the hotly anticipated RTS.

Wait, hang on. Sorry, I misread my RSS feed. Blizzard has announced there will be no StarCraft 2 reviews before launch. Before the game’s launch, on Tuesday, when the BattleNet servers go live. According to Eurogamer Blizzard was “unable to offer an official comment at the time of writing”, though they gather that it’s to do with Blizzard not wanting anybody to play the game without the full suite of BattleNet features. What did you have for lunch today, readers?

I was just reading the VG247 story about someone getting hold of their Starcraft 2 collector’s edition early, and then excitedly unpacking it all on video (and failing to get the game working because of the online aspect of it). The video’s below the cut, but the growth of special editions across the last five years is an undeniable trend (For extra money! And you can’t pirate a little key bobble in the shape of Shodan’s head, natch). I was thinking about what – if anything – makes me throw down for the full bells and whistles version. I often don’t, simply because I don’t have room for the gargantuan boxes… but I like that they exist. So, to throw the question to the floor, what attracts you to these editions? Do you often buy them? What would you like to see them? And what games in history do you wish had one – and what would be in it?
Read the rest of this entry »

Turning up to a hands-on event for a much-anticipated game when you’ve already been playing the game for a good few months is a strange one. Of course, I haven’t been playing it. What I’ve been playing is the Multiplayer Beta – and WORD WAR THREE will actually return one day – and that’s not Starcraft 2 at all. To see what else Starcraft 2 actually is – the entirity thereof – is the reason why I’ve made my way across London.
Read the rest of this entry »

There’s something distinctly feminine about choosing to get really good at a game. Unlike the very male experience of playing whatever, whenever, basically playing as much as you can get, basically waddling around the game shop with your trousers round your ankles, choosing to get good at a game requires commitment, or even devotion. More difficultly, it also requires that you choose a suitor.

Read the rest of this entry »

I half worry that my 1999 self would be disappointed. We’re living in the last of the great sci-fi-sounding years, and he’d have been hoping I’d be playing some kind of ludicrously intricate immersive-sim derivative. But if he asked, I’d be forced to confess that I’m playing Starcraft and Freespace. He’d have been disappointed. But fuck him. He always was a snot. I’m back with two of the best games of the late 90s. And what interests me is that in two games that were relatively contemporary with one another can walk such radically opposing paths and still end up in the same place…
Read the rest of this entry »

[As you're probably aware, the Starcraft 2 Beta is ticking along. We've played it enough so each of the RPSers have their own favourites. Or, at least the one they've gravitated towards so far. We thought we'd take it in turns giving a little picture portrait of each of faction, and why we've been drawn to them and how playing them is effecting us. First up is Quinns...]

I got my hands on the Starcraft 2 beta and I chose…
Read the rest of this entry »

As in, Eurogamer have just posted my hands-on preview of my time in the Starcraft 2 beta to date. In that piece, I’m two days on from the stuff we were talking about in the chat-o-fight here earlier this week, so I’ve gotten to grips with the game a fair bit more, even if I’m still pretty rubbish. I sure have spent a lot of time comparing build queues post-match, though. The preview? Oh, it’s here, and it includes things like this:

I could see exactly what I had to do, the sustained clicking and planning, and how quickly I’d need to do it. It was eminently possible. But I lacked the will. I was weak, I was feeble, and I succumbed to the tiredness I felt when I thought about the physical and mental exertion involved. It was the point where your legs start to burn when you’re out jogging; do you listen to the invisible PE teacher screaming at you in your head and push on, or do you give up and go buy some Monster Munch and a Fanta from the corner shop?

Kieron: RIGHT! The Starcraft 2 beta is out. We’re all in, except John, who doesn’t want to be in. Is it the most anticipated RTS ever? Yeah, on the mass-cultural scale, probably. We’ll almost certainly be writing a load more down theline, but we thought it’ll be an idea to get those first impressions down. Does nothing compare to Starcraft 2?
Read the rest of this entry »

The StarCraft II beta is up and running, and keys were apparently distributed last night. I’ve got one, so I’ll pen some thoughts on it as soon as I get my arse handed to me by some RTS ninja on Battlenet we’re able. Right now the downloader looks very much the World Of Warcraft one, and I have to write something about Stalker.