Starcraft II Review

So the most hotly anticipated Blizzard game of the year! Well for Starcraft fans at any rate. They have been waiting how many years for it? So it’s finally made it to the shelves in part 1 of 3. There is a most beautiful collector’s edition and standard edition. I won’t bother with a historical because if you don’t know the story then you should not be reading this or you have no interest in the game.

Single player

Wow. That’s all WOW!

Oh please...people....come on I am not referring to World Of Warcraft. This is a space game! The campaign focuses on Terrans and there is a mini campaign with the Protoss but no Zergness in the single player. This is the first of 3 so thats expected. This is classic RTS so classic that the gameplay is identical to the original game. So from that perspective nothing has changed at all. What has changed is the graphics, for an RTS its wow, why did we not have this 12 years ago? The units are rendered beautifully and it looks good not matter the pc you play it on. The graphics quality scales very very well, a Blizzard trademark. So what else is new? The in-between bits. There is a kind of RPGness to it, with a hint of the point and clicky. They do not have a direct impact on the game but they are essential if you are an achievement whore. Also there is a classic mini arcade game hidden away for you to discover and boy is it a gem. Well only if you ever were any good at that kind of arcade game. The voice acting is superb to apart from the rednecks (you know who I am talking about). Also now you are presented with the option to choose what order you wish to do the missions which will allow for specific unit unlocks. This will allow you to pick and choose your preferred units and play style. All the maps are different and they all have their quirks, this means you learn to do things in different ways avoiding the ‘turtling’ that inexperienced players are so find of doing.

Having completed the single player portion my first reaction was noooooo I want more! So it’s back to the start to redo the game and change some of the decisions that I took. Hindsight is a great thing, so yes although the game is not cheap there is a lot of replay value, especially if you are a achievement whore. Did I mention achievements? There are achievements here to, for all those useless bragging rights.
Ah finally the most interesting part of the game: Battle.net. Most of you will have heard of Steam, well Blizzard has done its own version and it’s good, you can have real friends or ingame friends. So when you get bored of killing Zerg you can spend the night chatting to your mates who still live in WOW. It’s just a shame it only works for Blizzard products.

Ok enough of the selfish gamers side let’s look at the other side.

Multiplayer

YOU WILL NEVER BE ANY GOOD AT THIS BIT. No matter how good you are against AI in the single player you will NEVER NEVER be any good at multiplayer.

Multiplayer requires a whole new level of skill, so unless you are Korean or you have no life and can click so fast the mouse can’t keep up you are dead. Your skill level is directly proportionate to how long it takes your opponent to kill you. If it takes them 5< skill =" N00B," skill =" N00B," skill =" N00B" 20=""> - skill = Junior ( you made it). If you want to venture down that road then make sure you do your research, this involves learning by heart all the units and their strengths and weakness and watching youtube matches until you don’t want to play anymore.

So... in multiplayer you can play any of the three races. There are AI practise rounds to get you ready for the kind of player carnage you are going to be exposed to and of course there is a matchmaking system that works. After the ten or so placement matches where you will insta-lose before being placed into the N00B ranks.

The units are mostly the same as the ones you find in the single player, but in the art of balance there are quite a few missing. Medics for one something that I wish I had.

Nuclear Launch Detected!

Woops and there is the start of the end.

If you can make it past the frustrating carnage moments the multiplayer is a whole bunch of fun, its more challenging than anything the AI can throw at you.

Hey Blizzard when are you going to do an FPS? So I can spam my Battle.net friends when pew pewing them in the head!

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man