Tag: zerg

Starcraft II Review

Ten or so years ago, Blizzard put put out Starcraft. The game was so well designed so well built, that some countries actually held tournaments playing as the Zerg, Terran and Protoss  species/races. The game in some Asian countries was more popular than the Olympics.

After ten years of dormancy, it has come back to challenge us again.

Here is my first day with Starcraft II (I wrap it up with a full review)

Bought My Startcraft II today.

Install took a while but nothing major. Just felt like forever. but what the heck is 5-10 minutes when I have been waiting ten years.
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After install was a download of a patch.
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Then came the video we all saw in the teaser. Seemed there wasn’t a lady talking in the teaser. so… listen closely you might hear something you haven’t heard.
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Oh, video card crashed at the end. It’s okay I have another :-)
On first Install of the game, the cenematics, Really good. This is what I have been waiting for. The cigar is back ( the thing that seemed to have the best detail in SCI).
The Blizzard people really know how to do CGI.

That little ps2/ record player thing with the Hologram . Cool effect.

Difficulty selection for Starcraft II

Casual Normal Hard Brutal
I selected Casual. Come on. I’m learning.

Huge selection for hotkeys.

I can’t imagine I memorized that many keys with the first Starcraft.
Menu Selection for Starcraft II

Video Resolution didn’t go as high as I wanted. Seemed to be a bit of an anti-aliasing issue going on. Kind of wavy. No lag or nothing just an occasional wave in the video and some broken lines.
After finishing the first mission you go back to bar.

They put plenty of items for you to click on and get curious about. I looked at everything. because I want to know all of it.
End of third mission in the game.

it took me 20 minutes to do that. and I had it set on the lowest difficulty.
On board a battle cruiser.

Your bar from the first is now a Battle cruiser. Back Starcraft I, we just called them “BC” gotta type fast mid game.
You can click a lot of stuff there also. You learn a few things that way. It’s not like the first diablo where people just babbled random useless stuff and then the same stuff all the time. They actually change their phrases after each mission.
if you click around enough, you learn tricks about the game, study abilities that you can’t have unless you learn them by clicking stuff and buy better weapons.
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That guy sounds just like Chris Pirillo. He has plenty of videos on youtube. Just type his name. you will see. Kinda looks like him also.

FYI His Name is “Steadman”

Now all of the media is presented. Sorry I didn’t want to install fraps… I’m on strike. So my pics are via cam on my cell.

Time for the Review

Game play

At first I was upset because the buildings didn’t lay out in straight lines like they did before in the first Starcraft. I kept getting my SCV stuck between buildings. That is of course until I found the button that allows me to sink the supply depot underground. After seven missions i haven’t seen if that prevents attacks on them. I am sure a Zerg can attack it… Right ? All of the old buildings look the same, just you get a better look at them now. They seem to do all of the same stuff and the costs and upgrades are still the same. There are a few additions to equipment and to units. I don’t want to ruin to much. Just there is something that looks like a flying vulcher. That thing has some awesome artillery. Turret Lasers :-D !!!! Fire bats are bigger, but still have low range ground attack weapons only. but they can be upgraded pretty good.

You know, I don’t think I want to ruin it for you . So I will not go into it. Kinda hard to talk about Starcraft ii and not same the names of the units. They are all listed on Blizzard’s site with Starcraft unit name next to it. But you just don’t know what it all means till you play. So I don’t want to ruin the surprise for when you buy your copy of Starcraft II.
This game is a 100% must buy for any person who enjoyed Starcraft or Starcraft Brood Wars. They reference so much. The familiarity is there.
If you are a console gamer who has never played a PC game, a game that was created for pc and played on pc only, you will not get the fun in watching the videos. The videos are all very important. This is not a RUSH-RUSH-RUSH-RUSH-complete the game kind of game. This game is not for the console kiddies.
Online play, I think they scrapped the idea of the chatroom. How can you talk smack and get your butt handed to you after? There is a forum option and a community option, but the community option just sends you to Starcraft II website.

I didn’t dig much into the online play at all. I just want to finish teh game first and get the hotkeys memorized before I do all that.

Ladder matches are back.
Everyone is huge Muscular except the women and the scientists.
Jim looks different and voice sounds different. Many return roles. Different voices but similar. could be the same people, it has been ten years and all.

Also they removed the community. I find it hard to make a challenge when you can’t talk crap. So here is the community of Starcraft II Clans.

Scoring for Starcraft II

Scoring is on a 1-10 scale. 10 being best and 1 is sucky.

Resolution 9

Cinematic 10

Game play 10

Audio 10

If you want to understand a pc gamer and how we are a breed apart.