Starcraft 2 discussion thread

[Darksider]

i'm not actually complaining about the size of the game, I have 26 gigs left after installing it after all.

Since I don't buy many modern PC games I was just a little surprised at the size. Back when I bought PC games regularly, they took up about 2-5 gigs of space.

EDIT: Speaking of WoW subscriptions, SC2 came with 2 free 10-day passes to WoW. Should I do anything with these or throw them out?

[Thanas]

Whoever can read German, should read this test.

(Done by the only reporter who dared to ask CA about their completely horrid bug fixing in Empire:TW). I found it to be objective and fair.

Here is their summary:


Pro:
- no forced boring tutorial as in SC1 single player
- difficulty level adjustable and fair
- Ingame-Help excellent
- Long SP with 26 missions
- SP starts boring, but after one or two hours the missions get excellent, no boring mission goals a la "mass army, crush AI".
- great editor
- graphics surprisingly good for such low requirements (however, the SC2 style is a matter of taste)
- Hyperion is quite funny, especially the minigame (basically, Blizzard put an old arcade space shooter as an easter egg in)
- Multiplayer is great

Cons:
- manual is very thin, recaps only the backstory.
- micromanagament in fights is unnecessary
- Unit AI sometimes retarded, SCVs for example sometimes get stuck
- voice work
- Some characters are direct clones or copies (Kerrigan for example looks a lot like Angelina Jolie in Beowulf)
- Most characters are not well written, especially your buddy marine is just a walking clichee.


All in all, their summary is:

Starcraft 2 has an excellent multiplayer mode, the game is close to perfection in that regard[...]We also like the SP, but here it is not enough for the highest marks. Especially the slow start, the voice work and some deficits like unit AI pull it down.

We also miss the two other races. Blizzard can claim what they want - of course it would have been possible for them to tell the same story with three instead of one faction. But this is a bit of whining - compared to its closest competitors (Supreme Commander 2 and Command & Conquer 4) Starcrafts SP is clearly superior.

We do not want to lose too many words about the clicheé-filled story and the equally clicheé heroes. Believable characters that cannot just be summarized with a few lines are sadly not the norm in computer games[...] What Starcraft 2 does very well, however, are injokes. [...]The story even develops some gravitas in the end, although it is the gravitas of a motivated carnival actor instead of that of a veteran stage actor.

Is Starcraft 2 the best RTS game of all time? Of course not, if you look at games like Command&Conquer or Warcraft 3 in the context of their time. And even Dawn of war manages to do some things better with its RPG-like concepts than the Blizzard game. However, all in all, Starcraft 2 is the best RTS game of the last few years and a must have for an RTS fan

[Stark]

It's pretty much what everyone should have expected, yeah. The only real surprise is how successful the SP campaign turned out to be.

[Sharp-kun]

Not that surprising tbh. Blizzard's plot and characters are cliche, but they generally do well with them and they do polish things nicely.

[Stofsk]

It's funny how micromanagement in fights is unnecessary translates into a con. I would have had that as a plus to be honest. I can't stand the obsessive micro SC1 needed and stopped playing in large part because of it.

It's pretty much what everyone should have expected, yeah. The only real surprise is how successful the SP campaign turned out to be.

Are you... are you actually praising the story?

I think I might need to pinch myself.

[Stark]

The story is garbage, but the story is presented as a bunch of missions with upgradeyness in-between, which makes it more interesting than I expected.

I think those German guys are saying the combat REQUIRES micromanagement, which is unnecessary.

[Stofsk]

The story is garbage, but the story is presented as a bunch of missions with upgradeyness in-between, which makes it more interesting than I expected.

Uh phew. I was worried there for a minute.

I think those German guys are saying the combat REQUIRES micromanagement, which is unnecessary.

Ah ok, that makes more sense.

[Thanas]

^Yes, they are.

[Guardsman Bass]

I got it today, and played some single-player missions along with a Terran Custom against a Zerg comp.

It's basically what I expected - very similar to original Starcraft with new units and better AI, at least when you're playing Terran (I haven't tested out the Zerg and Protoss in custom yet). Even the medium-level AI on the Custom (I mostly did the custom for testing out the Terrans) was fairly smart, doing things like retreating units once an attack became more or less futile.

I like the story, but then I liked original Starcraft's story too.

Unfortunately, I've had to stop for a couple of hours. I'll pick it up again later tonight (unfortunately, only the home PC meets the requirements to run it).

[Thanas]

This is now the SC2 general discussion thread.

[RazorOutlaw]

I got the game today because I had a Gamestop card to burn from Christmas. Because I had work soon after (and the install took a while, along with the patch update, and DirectX update) I only played about five minutes of the SP. The story didn't blow me away, which is fair because I played so little, but it seemed expected. They really played up Raynor/Kerrigan this time...

[Koolaidkirby]

just finished the SP, there were some good bits, and the missions were mostly pretty fun.

but then there were some bits of the story that were pants on head retarded.
Spoiler

like the bit where you have to choose between pissing off that one scientist girl who thinks she can cure an infection to which she already said would be impossible to cure vs declaring war on your allies, the entire protoss fleet to protect people who are already infected anyway? I just sat there and went "really blizzard? are you actually expecting us to treat this as a legitimately difficult decision to make?" it was WoW-level story moronic at points.

although Kerrigan going human again could be interesting, I'd like to see where that goes

also, I very much dislike the new Kerrigan voice, she went from good tough girl gone bad to "mwahahahahahaha, look at me, I'm so evil mwahahaha" reminded me of a fucking Disney villian. At least they buckled to fan pressure to keep the old Raynor voice, cant imagine what a disaster that would have been.

[Thanas]

Like most people, I vastly prefer Kerrigan's old voice. That one sounded far better in context of the game than Tricia Helfer's does.

[Whiplash]

The story is garbage, but the story is presented as a bunch of missions with upgradeyness in-between, which makes it more interesting than I expected.

I think those German guys are saying the combat REQUIRES micromanagement, which is unnecessary.

Wait ... did Stark just agree with a video game review. Can anyone check if hell has frozen over.

[Samuel]

The story is garbage, but the story is presented as a bunch of missions with upgradeyness in-between, which makes it more interesting than I expected.

I think those German guys are saying the combat REQUIRES micromanagement, which is unnecessary.

Wait ... did Stark just agree with a video game review. Can anyone check if hell has frozen over.

Yes, but the review is German and attacked Empire Total War for its bugs. Everything is more effecient in Germany, especially the video games sector.

[Gaidin]

Spoiler

like the bit where you have to choose between pissing off that one scientist girl who thinks she can cure an infection to which she already said would be impossible to cure vs declaring war on your allies, the entire protoss fleet to protect people who are already infected anyway? I just sat there and went "really blizzard? are you actually expecting us to treat this as a legitimately difficult decision to make?" it was WoW-level story moronic at points.

although Kerrigan going human again could be interesting, I'd like to see where that goes

Spoiler

In their defense, it'd hardly be the first time in any story across any medium of storytelling that a scientific epiphany was had at a very convenient moment regarding something previously thought impossible.

also, I very much dislike the new Kerrigan voice, she went from good tough girl gone bad to "mwahahahahahaha, look at me, I'm so evil mwahahaha" reminded me of a fucking Disney villian. At least they buckled to fan pressure to keep the old Raynor voice, cant imagine what a disaster that would have been.

I'd dispute that and say it's to attitude, not voice. She became, and I quote the character, "Queen Bitch of the Universe"(and a practical disney villain) in Brood War when she started backstabbing people for practically no better reason than she could. Of what few human Kerrigan portions we've gotten to see so far(Tarsonis animation), Tricia Helfer was good there too.

Sure, Glynnis Campbell was better, but that hardly makes Tricia Helfer bad. Either way, according to wiki, Glynnis has been doing quite a few book releases in the past five years. She might have been busy.

[Skylon]

I've been side-tracked from the campaign by getting in some multi-player games. Is the Thor the blunt hammer of the Terrans that will get nerfed by the first patch? Right now my "race to pump them out ASAP" is working out rather well, against any race.

[Skgoa]

I've done 11 Missions. The only thing I have to add to the thread is: there is an ungodly amount of easter eggs and injokes.

[Pelranius]

Spoiler

I think that Heart of the Swarm will be split into two parts: One, maybe five to ten missions, where Raynor and Kerrigan take down the Dominion (and whoever's behind Mengsk little schemes.

Then a part where Duran/the Fallen One takes over the Swarm and spams hybrids, probably with some infested Terran as a strategist of sorts (Findlay, Nova, Tosh, Arcturus, Valerian, Stukov, who knows?)

[Gaidin]

Spoiler

I think that Heart of the Swarm will be split into two parts: One, maybe five to ten missions, where Raynor and Kerrigan take down the Dominion (and whoever's behind Mengsk little schemes.

Then a part where Duran/the Fallen One takes over the Swarm and spams hybrids, probably with some infested Terran as a strategist of sorts (Findlay, Nova, Tosh, Arcturus, Valerian, Stukov, who knows?)

Spoiler

Stukov was killed by Duran, and while they've shown great ingenuity for genetic manipulation, they haven't even hinted at resurrection. I doubt he'd be one, though I do find that idea in general intriguing.

[Pelranius]

Spoiler

Actually, Stukov was resurrected by some renegade Zerg Brood and then deinfested by Raynor and Artanis is some bonus mission for, I think,the N64 port of Starcraft. Blizzard's declared it canon.

[Xenophon13]

I was skeptical, since SC gameplay tends to have about as much real strategy as pokemon, but I really like it. The first few missions are pretty tedious though and I haven't even tried the one where you get the firebats ever since I saw my friend play it. It was easy but it took him and hour of repetitively escorting transports everywhere.

[The Yosemite Bear]

t's 2 pm I am now going to check to see if my copy has arrived yet. (curses something about living in the middle of no where.)

[Pelranius]

I'm sort of in the same boat too. I live in Irvine but I was cheap enough to choose free shipping from Amazon.

[General Zod]

t's 2 pm I am now going to check to see if my copy has arrived yet. (curses something about living in the middle of no where.)

I cheaped out and went with free shipping on Gamestop, so I won't have it until I get home according to my tracking info. Should have gone overnight, but oh well.