My Pre-order should arrive Tomorrow or this week. I am excited so sue me!

No, your idea is just stupid. Has nothing to do with masculinity.

Simply the fact that the multiplayer gameplay is the best, most balanced, most polished gameplay I've seen out of an RTS. You should know that Blizzard typically does not invent, but rather they refine gameplay elements. I asked before, and I'll ask again for another RTS that is superior right now. I see none. I have heard of none. Please don't say idiot-friendly DoW2, either. I can't comment on the single-player, but from everything I've heard it refines upon the experience of the original. I'm more of a multiplayer guy when it comes to RTS games... always have been. The joy for me is in refining tactics and learning how to overcome other peoples' strategies. It was hard for RTS game creators to surpass the possibilities(combined with balance) in SC1, and it's even harder with SC2.

So with that in mind I continue to ask for a better RTS game released right now. "Teh RTS Genre sux0r" or "RTS iZ BoRing!11@" is not really an acceptable answer if the idea is to produce a counter-critique.



I said that they should delay it to account for the single-player game. There are still plenty of reviewers who haven't touched the single-player yet(either due to Blizzard not releasing it to them, not attending events, or otherwise). With regard to what I said, I suppose you could argue that it's based on the determination that the single-player experience won't be a complete mess of a game. If it is, I suppose it could be argued that less than 85-90 is possible. However, if we judged it on the multiplayer experience alone, it would assuredly be at or above those marks. As I said, I'm just asking for one RTS that's better or even comes close to the fun factor.

You could suggest that the RTS genre is lacking, but I'd point out that the game meets all of the basic criteria for a good RTS game - good balance, diverse units, effective unit control/coordination, diverse strategies, competitive multiplayer, effective base-building and choking mechanics, good expansion mechanisms, etc. The only "flaw" in game mechanics that ever seems to be pointed out is that it has a few similarities with SC1. If you can produce one I'd enjoy hearing it.

I will say that I doubt it will have a super-major effect on eSports in America. To a degree that train has already come and gone for us as compared to say, Korea. I think it'll have an impact and maybe bring in a decent number of people, but it won't revive the concept here.

I would LIKE to see it have an impact, because like any intelligent gamer I realize that eSports also has an impact on how the gaming industry continues to mold and shape itself. For competitive gaming to evolve for the casual person, it also needs to evolve for the hardcore folks. Without that edge, you have little middle ground to work with. eSports can still be an effective hype tool, even if not all of us are interested in it. What it should communicate to the average player is that the gameplay itself allows for that kind of play, and that there aren't significant limits placed on the player as to where you can go if you really want to.

I'll be buying it as well, since I did love SC1 and played the hell out of it. What I don't get is folks like Argrax lobbying for Blizzard and their *lawl* Esport like a bunch of screaming japanese girls waiting for the latest Pikachu vibrator to be released.

Get over yourself Argrax...Blizzards cares not a whit for the boner you have for them. They simply want your cash. If you really want to work yourself into a froth over SC1 with nicer graphics...more power to you.

Me? I'll enjoy playing the new storylines and see where they take it. I don't need a commentator foaming at the mouth everytime I move a unit around my base.

I'm still waiting to hear what makes it so great. Specifics, not broad generalities.

The few multiplayer games I played in beta were not fun or game changing.

There is a HUGE difference between playing a video/PC game, and watching someone play a video/PC game. I never said that playing a video/PC game only applies to losers... heck if that is the case, then we all are losers (myself included).

I just don't get the appeal of watching someone play a video/PC game. Maybe someone who does can enlighten me as to why this is entertaining? Because I just find it pathetically lame...

While I am not in the least interested in "e-sports" I could say:

Maybe this is just me, but I find it pathetically sad that some people get enjoyment out of watching others play football on TV.
Maybe this is just me, but I find it pathetically sad that some people get enjoyment out of watching others play hockey on TV.
Maybe this is just me, but I find it pathetically sad that some people get enjoyment out of watching others audition to sing on TV.

Etc...

Where's the lobbying at and who's frothing? You guys are the ones getting bent out of shape with the witty one-liners and the very idea of professional gaming; I'm so sorry I don't have a time machine so we could all go back to 1999 and play Everquest all over again.

And Joxur, the overwhelming response to the game is positive, it's on you to bring the arguments as to why the game is bad. I'm not about to try and convince a rabid football/baseball/basketball fan that soccer is really a good game.

So long as you've never ever watched poker on television, we can just agree to disagree.

Pre-ordered Starcraft II, i Don't need to bitch about wanting new innovations because all i want is a polished and up to date Starcraft that runs on my new computer.

It aint broke, why should they fix it?

All of these qualities that I mentioned are qualities that make a good RTS good:



I mean, what else are you looking for? Give me an example of a good game, and point out what "specifically" makes it good. I can just as easily suggest that it's a "broad generality". What made WoW good, initially? A good quest system, good combat/game mechanics, relatively solid class roles, an alive game world with very few areas "untouched", interesting and explorable dungeons. These are all given attributes to a good MMORPG. Broad generalities, things that specifically made the game good, or both?

And I'm still waiting on a superior RTS suggestion.

Perhaps something that might be worthy of that 85-90+ mark as well?

I'll give you this one so you can shut the fuck up and stop repeating it. At the moment, there is no RTS worth a shit and I have absolutely no doubt SC2 will revitalize a dying genre.

That being said, it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't DESERVE an 85/90/100% rating or review JUST FOR BEING STARCRAFT.

Again, you all are some of the biggest hypocrites on the Internet...and I'll give you an example...

Lets say The Old Republic gets released WITHOUT A REVIEW COPY BEING MADE AVAILABLE TO THE GAMING MEDIA, just like SC2. The beta will have been out for over 10 months, so by your very logic it doesn't need to be reviewed because it can stand on its own merit. Bioware has just a good of a release record and reputation for making outstanding games as Blizzard does. Every game has been a success both critically and from a player perspective. But I can guarantee 100% that if it were released without any reviews, a good number of you would be calling for EA/Bioware/Lucasarts's heads on platters. How is that any different then what I've said? It isn't. It doesn't matter that TOR is an MMO and SC2 is an RTS...no game should be immune to the gaming press JUST BECAUSE it's guaranteed to sell nor does being a solid game absolve it.

I'll repeat this since Venen seems to think everything needs repeating...No one said the game won't sell, no one said the game won't be popular, no one said it wouldn't revitalize a dying genre (although the assumption that it'll do anything for eSports is just the ludicrous daydreams of a white-knighting fanboy). What was said was "What makes SC2 so special it should be absolved of being criticized or reviewed from a professional perspective?"

So what is it boys? What makes SC2 so next to Godliness that it is immune to being reviewed or criticized (and you can't go asking for a better game as that part of the argument has already been reached and is beyond contention at this point) AND if we're allowed to classify games as immune to reviews or criticism, will you hypocrites come crying back with your torches and pitchforks when a game YOU DO NOT LIKE gets released without a professional review?

How is watching poker on television the exact same thing as watching someone play a video/PC game? I fail to see how they are the same... if anything, watching poker on television is more entertainment than it is sport- since not every hand is shown on television. And if every hand is shown, then it would be closer to watching a sporting event than it would be watching someone play a video/PC game.

But I just think debating this topic with Kuwen will go nowhere. I just honestly want to know what is so exciting and entertaining about watching someone sit in front of a monitor or a television and play the game? I would much rather want to be playing the game than watching someone play- to me, that is boring as hell. And before someone starts talking about football/basketball/etc etc... as you get older, your body can no longer play those sports. Any athlete will say that, myself included. So as much as I would love to go to the court and do what I did 15 years ago... I no longer can. But I can still play a video/PC game, which is why I don't get the happiness of watching someone else play when I could be the one playing.

What are you talking about? More entertainment than it is a sport? What does even mean? The two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Seeing as how you went in circles on your first attempt, I'll try and be more clear. Name me one or two things that distinguishes watching professional poker from professional Starcraft. Clearly there must be some major distinctions given that the mere idea of watching Starcraft games is both pathetically sad and pathetically lame whereas poker on television is a perfectly acceptable pastime.

Company of Heroes is a very solid RTS, can be very competitive at high level even if it's less a resources gathering / base building game than Starcraft. It's also worthy of a 85-90+ score in my opinion even it's it's a different gameplay than Starcraft.

Company of Heroes is a fantastic game and one I still play on a regular basis; it makes me very sad that there isn't an announced sequel yet.

Just because you don't enjoy RTS games doesn't make it a dying genre. It's not as active in terms of games being developed as FPS or MMOs are, sure, but it still has a pretty strong community of gamers that keep it going.



Arguable, even if it WAS just StarCraft. It isn't - a slew of different units, build orders, enormously different(and arguably better) balance, non-isometric collision/maps, superior UI, superior graphics, superior sound, and superior multiplayer with a better ranking system. Perhaps more importantly, it has absolutely massive changes(even a bit beyond what WC3 did) to the map editor which allow people to build custom maps that can make anything from FPS games, to space shooters, to RPGs, and anything in between. This is without even mentioning the lengthy single-player campaign that most of us don't know enough about yet.

As I was saying, even if it WAS StarCraft re-vamped, it would still deserve a high score. Why? For the exact same reason reviewers give "Game of the Year" editions good scores. A game being a "copy" of something has ZERO relevance on whether a game has good *content*. Read that word again, since you apparently like repeating things more than I do: Content. Are these types of re-releases usually money-grubbing attempts? Sure, absolutely. Does it have ANYTHING to do with the content? No. Could many companies do more, most of the time when they do a crappy re-release. Sure. Does that have ANYTHING to do with the content? No.

It's still an incredible game, and it would remain an incredible game as a re-release. People still play the original damned game after all these years, moreso than countless other classics out there. It had incredible staying power because it was good. But if we were just comparing re-releases, SC2 clearly went above and beyond the call based on the things that I mentioned compared to at least 90 percent of supposed game rehashes.



Not at all, I'd be cheering them on for not giving into them. I will say that I think the press should be able to report on what they have seen so long as there is not a EULA that they agreed to that says otherwise. The beta should be judged on the merit that is in fact a beta, and while you usually don't see groundbreaking changes between late open betas and release, things can still happen. MMORPGs also hinge on the fact that there's a mad hype rush in the first opening weeks, and everything's a little more interesting with thousands of players going through the same thing you are... so in the multiplayer sense, it's similar to SC2's release in a way.



Never said that it shouldn't be reviewed or criticized, merely that no one intelligent is going to give it a bad review. You can give it a 50 if you want, but I would highly doubt that that 50 would be based on an *informed*, *thoughtful*, and *unbiased* opinion of the game.

I think asking for a better game is still an important point - mainly in the sense that we should ask: "What can an RTS game do better to become a better RTS game and improve the genre?". I believe SC2 has hit some of the points, and while I mentioned a few possible ideas earlier in the thread that could make it better, I'd still suggest that we've hit a relative high point for RTS gaming as it stands right now. I believe that doing almost everything a genre demands for the epitome of that genre at least deserves credit when it comes to scoring it - after all, what are we basing that score on? I tend to think we base it at least in part on what we've seen games do, and the promise of what the genre can and could do in the future. To that end I think SC2 has met the benchmark.

It is a solid RTS, although I would suggest that the matchmaking system is inferior to SC2's. I know I'd consistently get either incredibly talented(despite an obvious win/loss ratio difference between us), or incredibly horrible opponents in CoH. I also like the separation of matchmaking tiers in SC2. With no base building, despite some contentions by some players, I still felt like I was utilizing less strategy against my opponents. Tactically it was a very engaging game, but not so much strategically. You could define the two as separable genres, similar to DoW2 in that respect.

Also the AI for unit group movement seemed pretty awkward and my units would often get stuck even in a perfectly open field. It just felt far less streamlined than SC2's group unit management/movement.

There also seemed to be a few imbalances, I think it was Axis that could spam the lower infantry units and get away with simple rushes without too many effective counters from the Allies if done properly. Also with the expansion the British seemed pretty underpowered as well.

Overall it was fairly balanced and a pretty good game, but just not quite up to standard SC2 has set. It's difficult to compare the two directly though because they are practically two different genres.

The matchmaking definitely is where the game falls down, even just today I had some time to burn and tried to jump into a 3v3 or 4v4 and kept getting booted because my 'custom games' rank was too low and nobody took the time to see that I had a decent '1v1 ladder' record. The balance isn't perfect as the British are still far and away the weakest faction but by people not playing them, it makes it less of an issue.

CoH also gets huge points for doing something different for the genre by way of its resource gathering mechanism, very creative and well executed.

I didn't know COH was RTS. I am so out of the loop!

I'm really quite surprised that this thread stayed quiet today as the game actually became available.

I picked up the Collector's Edition........because I am a WoW pet whore lol...but honestly, this Collector's Edition is really how they should be done. It makes the WoW CE look like a dried out dog turd in the back yard.

Firstly: The box weighs a ton and is very solid.

The soundtrack is nice. I've not gotten a chance to really listen to it completely but it seems better recorded, without the faint white noise hiss that the post vanilla WoW soundtracks had.

Reynor's dog tag is cheesy but still cool. It comes with a neck chain and the tag itself is made of metal and not plastic as I'd assumed it would be. The blue activity light seems a bit fragile as does the glowy orange plastic "screen". Looks very cool when plugged in and has a copy of the original starcraft on it. It's a measly 2 gig drive but It's still a neat little addition.

The "mini-thor" pet is kind of sad. It has a whopping 2 animations: It flies around....it shoots. It doesn't patrol around, it doesn't talk...and most ridiculously........it doesn't kill the damn zergling pet.

The art book is also very nicely done. I've not watched the "making of" dvd with all the cinematics. I wanna see them in game.

The game loaded smoothly for me but I've seen that a lot of folks are running into the same "dvd doesn't work" that a ton of folks ran into with both Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. Not sure what is is about the dvd's they are shipping but folks' computers are simply not recognizing them.

The pet is already more annoying than cool.

I bought the digital download for $60. Compared to what else I spend $60 on the game is well worth the money. It is easy to play, difficult to master and definitely fun.

Uh, no.

Several media outlets ignored Blizzard's "review embargo" and literally trashed the game. All of them are gone now except the headlines in various search engines.

StarCraft 2 Trashed by Gamers, Called Incomplete News
07/28/2010 - StarCraft 2 Trashed by Gamers, Called Incomplete. starcraft sc2 starcraft2. Many consumers who purchased StarCraft II are trashing the game based on known shortcomings.. Just one day after StarCraft II: Wings of...


That was the headline of one of the tamer articles. 10 year old graphics, poor design, no LAN play.

People are pissed. You don't spend 100 million dollars to make a story clone of a 10 year old game.

I played it yesterday at my friend's place. It literally felt like I was playing # 1 with a new story.

GG Blizzard.

I haven't seen a review below 90 yet from any major review site. Still looking. Plenty of fussy customers, though.

Even with all the fussy buzz generated on amazon and the like, VGchartz is estimating 1.8 million sold on day one excluding Korea. At this rate, it could surpass the record-holding 2.8 million day one sales of WOTLK once everything is tallied. Some buzz via blogs and elsewhere are pointing to the idea that IGN, 1up, and Gamespot are leaning towards heavily positive reviews as well. Will be interesting to see what happens when the majority of reviews are posted =)

edit - Really enjoying the single-player campaign so far. Surprised to say that it's actually more than I expected. The different dialogue decision options as well as the armory/tech upgrade trees outside of the individual maps make for some decent replayability. The maps themselves also have some fairly interesting objectives.

MW2 also sold eleventybillion copies right out the gate...and then was immediately ripped to shreds by players and critics alike. Blizzard/Activision have absolutely mastered the hype sale frenzy...I'll say that.

As for Sc2, I've not gotten to play it yet as I'm up at a family thing.

Yup, people hate MW2. You can't be serious.

What I find amusing about the reviews on metacritic is that literally every review acknowledges that it has nothing all that new... And yet the reviews are higher than... the original? Lol

Well for starters, it's pretty obvious that the quality of Starcraft wasn't fully appreciated when the game was originally released. lolol

Which reviewers? There were a few that gave it less than admirable scores, but it averaged quite high. People were mainly pissed about the whole "no dedicated servers for PC version" whinefest, which is why you see the PC version of it dip considerably in terms of scores. Short story: A lot of people whined, but a whole truckload of people bought it anyway. Despite a few of its flaws, it's still one of the better FPS games out there. In a way similar to SC2 and multiplayer - If you just want to jump into a classic fragfest, it's still one of the better FPS's for that. Personally, I still prefer TF2, but it's different gameplay for different folks.

who the hell bought SC2 for the campaign?

Those same mystery people who bought MW2 for the single player and hated it so much they "shredded it" in thousands of reviews on the interwebs.

I did, for one.

I did. Also playing some Co-op VS AI with friends. Also can't wait to see what kind of RPG/tower defense mods people come up with using the editor.

Don't care about the matchmaking/ladder system.

Why aren't +500 build orders/unit tactics, vastly superior rating system, vastly superior map editor, better sound/music, vastly superior campaign with RPG elements and more interesting missions, superior physics engine(or rather, HAS a physics engine), superior collision/follow/order mechanics, superior macro/unit selection, along with a slew of challenge modes and achievements included in that SC1 vs SC2 summary? =(

Not quite sure what Joxur's agenda is and why he deems it necessary to bash the game and/or try to convince everyone that it's a pile of shit, but it's pretty weird, isn't it? I was probably one of the biggest early haters in the discussions of this game (and Blizzard in particular) and even I know when to say when.

Tough to beat that Golden Girl achievement.


On a side note: What Venen said

What's most amusing is that half the stuff in the comparison is wrong but who's concerned about such petty facts; and for Solanthious, metacritic is still showing 96%. At what point can we qualify the reviews of the game as overwhelmingly positive?

Here's what SC2 lacks. I'm early on, I'll post more happy thoughts when I finish more of it.

- Early campaign sucks. Where's the epic storyline? Feels like filler to beef up the mission count.
- Impact of the environment on units is weak at best. C&C Generals and COH have much better RTS experiences in this regard.
- No ability for units to assume a defensive posture. COH shines in this department.
- Unit AI is terrible. Groups with complex makeup lack any formation whatsoever. I consistently have problems with tropper groups where the medics are at the front of the pack when I try to organize them into a strong base defense. Games all the way back to Praetorians allowed me to organize this much better. A simple facing mechanism would be nice.
- Graphic performance is *horrible*. Cutscene/ship scenes have sound stuttering. While playing a mission, after 10 minutes my framerate drops to garbage. If I save and reload the game immediately, it's fixed for another 10-15 minutes.
- On normal difficulty, it's extremely easy to create an absolutely impenetrable fortress. Computer AI is so terrible it can't even organize a tank rush effectively. There's also so many resources available right at your base to just wait out the trickled in attacks by the AI and create an unstoppable force, at which point I win.
- There's hardly any new units over SC1, but it doesn't matter, because all you need to do is create a huge group of seige tanks with a few mechs for anti air and you can obliterate literally everything. Base destruction becomes moving your tanks into the area, setting up seige mode and then within about 10 seconds, the entire base is gone.
- Hero units lack depth. Hero units don't level up, and don't collect items to make them more powerful. Warcraft 3 did a great job with this. Maybe it's coming later in the campaign, but I doubt it.
- Missions in WC3 were epic and long. When you thought you were through, some new wrinkle would get thrown in and you'd have even more to do. The early campaign here has none of this. The bonus objectives aren't exciting, they are "go to this part of the map and collect this thing".
- Voice acting is mostly terrible. Tychus and Tosh in particular are cliched and predictable. But the Protoss units aren't even intelligible during missions.
- Last but not least, I've always thought the Marines were a direct ripoff of Warhammer 40k's space marines. What I love about this game is that they even ripped off the name of the most famous WH40k space marine, Horus, by naming Mengsk's big general Horus.

At least 85 percent of those complaints have to do with single-player, which is maybe 20 percent of the overall experience. It's an RTS, not a single-player roleplaying game, even if some of the single-player content is arguably good. If you want to see what the SC2 engine is capable of in terms of producing hard-fought battles with fast-paced gameplay and strategy, try playing in the diamond league or watching a few matches.



Storylines tend to be a little slow to start. It's, you know, to build suspense. Still, some of the earlier missions were decent. I particularly liked the convoy escort and a couple of the early defense ones. Basic and easy especially on normal, but still nice for getting people acquainted with the game.



Environment? You mean in terms of terrain and manuvering around it, or general physics?



The problem with this is that there's already plenty of mechanisms in the game to take advantage of. It's not like there's any shortage of things to click. Exchange "defensive posture" buttons for something like a sentry shield button along with other abilities and you have what amounts to conceptually the same idea.



I will agree a facing mechanism would be nice, but this isn't a Total War game. A few other faster-paced RTS's did allow this, but most of them have units on a massive scale with slower-paced gameplay than SC2 has. What's more, it allows for people to expand on their micromanagement skills and use the macro interface. It's much more simplistic to have a mechanism that automatically puts your medics in the back than it is to manually control them with a macro to target every medic in the group, and it allows for a certain micromanagement skillset to shine along with the player's reaction time.



This sounds like a performance issue with your computer, I would get it checked. I haven't had a single instance of framerate problems or stuttering during any scene or part of the gameplay. I have had battle.net lag during multiplayer, but it seems like after the mad rush most of that has stopped.



Well, I'd imagine so, normal difficulty is a cakewake. Plus, Terrans are masters of the "impenetrable fortress" base, but good luck making one against any seasoned player.. and on higher difficulty such as Brutal. Earlier missions are obviously going to compound the easymode with this.



There are close to the same amount of units(I think slightly more in SC2), but I think the difference comes down to diversity of abilities and upgrades for each. There's a surprising amount of stuff to micromanage at the endgame level, especially during long games. I tend to think that's mostly due to the fact that there are more abilities, as well as the diversity and uses for each of them. A lot of the old units were replaced with similar units - but a closer examination reveals that they fulfill only parts of their former unit's roles - in some cases excelling *more* for certain roles but doing more poorly for others.

As I said, good luck making your standard build beyond normal difficulty, or more importantly multiplayer. It's a pretty poor standard to judge the game on. Next up, Mario 3 sucks because level 1 was beaten in 30 seconds.



Pretty sure Blizzard stated that this was intentional. Hero units in WC3 detracted from base-building and strategic elements, and focused a little too much on a simplistic micromanagement of a few elite units to win the game for you. Personally I welcome the change, and it reflects better on the enjoyment that was the original SC as well as WC2.



A few of the later campaigns are pretty long and drawn out, as well as having a few twists and turns "just when you think it's over". There weren't any "exciting" bonus objectives in WC3 either.



Those two in particular are supposed to be cliche and predictable. Tosh with the Jamaican dreadlocks, and Tychus as the bored jailbreaker. I think there's maybe one scene where I didn't understand what a Protoss said. I'd call most of the voice acting so-so - nothing to write home about, but not horrible either.



Blizzard does this all the time, and it's always been intended as more of a tribute than a ripoff. IIRC, when SC1 was first released there wasn't much talk of Warhammer RTS games for the computer. Anyway, there are plenty of examples where Blizz references pop culture and the like in almost all of its games.

Played it the last two days, two more I guess and then its back to CoH.

Enjoying the Single Player campaign a lot. Not done with it yet but then again im slow at it :0 Really enjoying seeing old units in the single player!

Havent even touch multiplayer but then I was in Beta for the Multiplayer part.

Yeah I'm currently stuck on the Korhol planet mission lol....stupid npcs can get up on this wall where you can't even fire back, or reveal the tile they are on....so they keep ripping my base to shreds. That and they magically embed anti-aircraft towers up on elevated tiles that also cannot be reached.

A flying unit to spot the enemy + siege tanks at the bottom of the wall will take care of that.

Normally, yeah but they showed up too early in and there was like 10 of them. Oddly enough.....I had one of those detector thingys set up where you can see a huge area, and it still didn't reveal that rooftop. I finally had to use the Odin's barrage on the edge of the wall to kill them but by then they'd killed several tanks, a bunker and other crap lol.

Having a blast so far, haven't even clicked the campaign.

What league are you in?