I remember playing Starcraft 1 many, many years ago. In fact, I also remember playing it about four days ago while waiting for my copy of Starcraft 2 to arrive in the mail. The original game and its expansion pack had a huge amount of longevity and up until the 27th of June a lot of people were still playing it. So does the sequel stand up against its first instalment?
The first thing you’ll experience with this game is the installation. It comes with a marvellous installer, giving you a quick run-down of the story from the first game and explaining where you will be jumping in. I watched it twice, once on my own and once with my girlfriend, who was enthralled by the story, sitting on my lap. (She has little to no interest in Sci-fi, by the way, so this was an achievement in itself.)
While many have complained about the installer requiring an internet connection, it is completely unintrusive. I actually lost my connection at around 60% installed, the installer just continued until the 100% mark, at which point I was back online and registering my key with my Battle.Net account. I had not used Battle.Net at all except to get into the Beta earlier this year and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was stable and simple to use, even offering me a downloadable installer, meaning I wouldn’t need to keep my disc in pristine condition. (An issue I have had with multiple CDs and DVDs in the past)
Upon logging into your account on the title screen of the game, the functionality of the new Battle.Net system is immediately present. The interface is superbly set out and is totally intuitive. There is a help menu with a run-down of all the features of the game’s interfaces if you somehow manage to get lost. I flicked through the tutorials, just to make sure I knew everything, which I did, then jumped straight into the Campaign. I have still not totally finished the Campaign and I have easily put in over 7 hours of gameplay.
The cut-scenes are all beautifully rendered and the voice acting is superb. The story is engaging enough to keep you enthralled as well. The gameplay starts off simple and introduces new units and elements as you progress through the game, gently enough not to throw you off but not in a dull way. Every mission has a unique gimmick, such as a level where you have to harvest 8000 minerals while avoiding rising lava every 2 minutes and fighting off the Zerg, a particularly creepy alien race, in between each lava flow. Or a level where by day you roam the map burning infested structures but by night you retreat to your base and turtle-up as the infested civilians storm your camp.
Every now and then I drop out of the Campaign and play some of the multiplayer segment of the game. This is arguably the bigger part of the game as the campaign will most likely take you more than 30 hours to totally master. The multiplayer however, is almost impossible to master due to the sheer ingenuity of human players. If you even get anywhere near the top of the leaderboards and ladders built into Battle.Net, you’re unlikely to hold that position for any significant length of time unless you’re a tournament level player. The steep difficulty curve could put off a large number of players looking for the instant gratification seen in the modern day FPS player.
However Blizzard has included both AI skirmishes, a practice ladder of 50 matches for new players and a set of Challenge Missions, which train new and returning players alike in useful tactics and skills that will help you start to become competitive.
The multiplayer part of the game has three distinctly different races to play as. The Biologically based aliens called the Zerg, the technological aliens called the Protoss and the Human race known as the Terrans. Each plays very differently yet somehow they’re all well balanced against each other. The Zerg are the cheap race that heavily encourage rushing. (Hence the term Zerg Rush that has been floating around on the internet for the past 10 years) This race excels at winning a game in the first 5 minutes but past then it can be a struggle. The Protoss are expensive to make and maintain, but their units are very strong armour and weapon-wise. If you’re in the late-game and there’s a Protoss faction still playing, be very afraid. The Terrans are a happy median between the two alien races which can be used to rush in early, or can be used to tech all the way up then bombard the enemy with giant Battlecruisers and Thor walkers, two of the game’s most powerful units.
Another common complaint made by the “internets” is the requirement that you have to be constantly online to play the game. This is not strictly true. While you do need to be online to log into your account, if your connection drops mid campaign or skirmish game, a notification appears telling you that you will be unable to earn any achievements until a connection is restored but that you can keep playing. If you have not restored connection by the time you’ve left campaign, you will then be informed that your save has been stored locally, rather than uploaded to the Battle.Net cloud that allows you to access your progress from anywhere and that it will be uploaded once you reconnect. If you find yourself without a connection there is also an option to play as a guest. This allows you to play Campaign and offline skirmishes, but you can’t earn any achievements or connect any saves to a Battle.Net account if you create one later.
Within the game’s box, you also receive two 7 hour/14 day guest passes for Starcraft 2 to hand out to a couple of your friends. (There is also a WoW trial but you can get those everywhere) These allow you to give two of your mates a chance to try the game before you bully them into buying a copy so you can all go 3 on 3 against some brutal AI’s. I have handed out one of my codes already and have an idea of who I will be giving my second one to. These not only act as a nice way to introduce a new game to your friends, it’s also a very clever marketing tool for Blizzard and one I fully support other developers doing.
Overall the entire package has a huge lifespan and deserves to last as long as the original, if not longer. Plus we already have two confirmed expansion packs that are set to come out over the next few years. This game is a must buy for any RTS fan. It also has enough support for a totally new player to jump into the tutorials and campaign and enjoy themselves. It certainly deserves it’s slightly higher RRP than the average PC game and I know I will still be playing this game in the coming years.
Pros
- Great characters in campaign
- Looks and sounds amazing
- Relatively intuitive UI
- Useful tutorials and challenges to prepare you for online play
- Still looks amazing on low graphics settings
Cons:
- Higher graphics settings can (read: will) strain your PC
- Steep learning curve
- AI can be too difficult when set to easy and medium but too easy on very easy. Haven’t even attempted Hard or Brutal
Overall Score: 9/10
Recommendation: Buy It!
Definitely a buy for the Hardcore RTS player. If you’re not so into your RTS games, get a guest pass from a friend and give it a shot if you can. You might just fall in love.
Also, Opinions on the title image. It is a bit too Destructoid? I thought it might be..
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SC sequel is similar like original, there are no major changes. The graphics has been updated a few units added. Still, game is good and enjoyable. It reminds me on good old times.