StarCraft II

[BuShinJu]

Anyone played this yet?

Care to give a review or a breakdown?

I saw one of the trailers where the Terran prisoner was being suited up, looked good, and watched some game play.

[tooboku]

It has only been released for an hour and a half... and I only got mine half an hour ago.

Nothing like a two hour wait in line to finish off twelves YEARS of waiting.

From what I saw in the betta though, it's essentially the same game with new units and a 3D engine. You can't even zoom into the map or change the angles.

I just bought it because I was waiting so damn long for it. F***ing Bizzard...

[Allen3373]

Installing right now. Be prepared not to hear from me for a while :-D

[Marcus Septim]

If its any good tell me

[DewFuel]

It has only been released for an hour and a half... and I only got mine half an hour ago.

Nothing like a two hour wait in line to finish off twelves YEARS of waiting.

From what I saw in the betta though, it's essentially the same game with new units and a 3D engine. You can't even zoom into the map or change the angles.

I just bought it because I was waiting so damn long for it. F***ing Bizzard...

you can zoom in AND change angles... so i don't know what game you were playing

[tooboku]

Uh oh... someone blasphemed against Blizzard... :O

[Marcus Septim]

Its a love and hate relationship with Blizzard i have,they create only masterpieces but they make our lives hell until they do
And they price em alot

[Necrosis]

You dont hvae to have the game today to know what it was like. I had the beta for months. I stopped playing because getting good at SC 2 takes too much time :p. It was fun though. The new units are awesome.

@Marcus dont blame blizzard for whats currently happening. Every bad decision is most likely the blame of Activion since they acquired them. Horrible horrible things have happened.


I did have it pre-ordered but best buy cancelled my order for some reason. I'm too lazy to go get it now.

[Marcus Septim]

No money to buy it,well there are money,but its not a priority and also the bastards will sell it in pieces

[N0c7urn3]

Waiting for the digital download to go online (SEA region). Loved the original (plus expansion). Can't say I love Blizzard though (WoW doesn't wow me).

[Malkavia]

I am laughing out loud right now by how popular this thread already is. Go INTJs!

[Seducer]

the hell with you people. Thats my review.

[Rohsiph]

I was having fun until it crashed. I'm worried it'll all feel too little in the end with the Protoss and Zerg solo campaigns year(s) away, but I've learned a lot about appreciating what I have since I finished up my teen years.

[Weber]

Best campaign I've played in a long time.

[Smokescreen]

Best campaign I've played in a long time.

Yup. It's fantastic.

I'm glad too, because I'm no good at multiplayer in Starcraft (Dawn of War, is another story...), so I don't really play it, but the story mode has kept me glued to the game.

[SShack]

Despite being disastrously bad at RTS games, I just bought this today digitally and am downloading it now. I'll play the campaign but probably will not do multiplayer (I'm too caught up on building my perfect little empire and am not aggressive enough).

I bought the digital download version. For those of you that do so and are discovering a terribly slow download speed, click on View>Preferences in the downloader and turn off peer to peer networking to see if that makes things things better. I went from 12 hours to 2 hours.

[machx]

Also - am I the only one that prefers Warcraft series?

IMO Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne is the best game ever made in history. :)

[rahdam]

Also - am I the only one that prefers Warcraft series?

IMO Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne is the best game ever made in history. :)

If I were to get Starcraft II, I should first have to obtain a new PC. No chance presently.

Warcraft 3 was a very fun game, and The Frozen Throne gave it better balance, but the game remains inherently flawed; heroes are too powerful, and units are too weak by virtue of the heroes. There are also several racial matchups that were never balanced correctly (Orc v Undead, for example).

[Effay]

I'm bad at RTSs, but I've had quite a bit of fun with this game. Played a game with my brother that lasted an hour but it didn't feel like it at all.

[Gamgee]

Anyone want to take a shot at typing some of the more prominent characters in the series?

[AnotherNormal]

The problem appears to be located in the main menu, where an uncapped frame rate maxes out the GPU, in some cases pushing it to overheating and potentially permanent failure.

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Blizzard has issued a response on its support site, acknowledging that it was aware of the issue, and offering a quick fix.

[NoMicro]

I'm enjoying Starcraft 2 quite a large amount currently. I've already blasted through the campaign and enjoyed it very much and I'm now gaming on multiplayer and having a great time refining my strategies.

[SShack]

I made it all of about eight missions before having to turn on godmode to win a fight. On casual setting, mind you.

One warning if you need to do that. Turning godmode on even for just one mission will keep you from earning achievements forever for the rest of that campaign playthrough. I was able to handle a couple of subsequent missions without cheating, but no more achievements.

[machx]

If I were to get Starcraft II, I should first have to obtain a new PC. No chance presently.

Warcraft 3 was a very fun game, and The Frozen Throne gave it better balance, but the game remains inherently flawed; heroes are too powerful, and units are too weak by virtue of the heroes. There are also several racial matchups that were never balanced correctly (Orc v Undead, for example).

See that's what I love about it. You are right, heroes at their best, can control the entire outcome of the game. It's so exhilarating when you're playing 4v4 and say, 1 or 2 of your allies are killed or leave the game, and through great micro management you destroy 4 players with only one ally. Micro of heroes can totally control the game.

As for racial matchups, I think it was intended to be this way. There are definite strengths and weaknesses. Humans destroy Orcs, Elves destroy Undead, Undead are pretty good vs all, Orcs destroy Elves

[LordCorbin]

Been playing as the opportunity arises and am having a blast. Was going to start on Brutal as I usually pick the hardest setting to start off with, thought better of it and went down to merely Hard and am glad for it. Finally a game that is actually a challenge on the higher difficulties instead of being merely tedious or annoying. Looks like Ill have plenty of solo play time then off to battle.net to get trounced by teenaged Koreans. :wacky:

[SShack]

What bugs me about getting the digital download: The "manual" included is just the quickstart guide. I have absolutely no information about the various units of the three factions easily available to me if I want to multiplayer. No hotkey list (which you think would be in the quickstart guide, but it isn't). The only race I can actually play right now is the Terrans. (I suppose I could handle the Protoss thanks to the side missions in the campaign, but Zerg are a mystery to me). I'll have to go back to the official site to see if I can't download a full manual. That was really odd of them.

[Liberte]

The fact that my computer cannot run StarCraft 2 makes me very sad...

[nacht]

The Opening Gambit challenge really makes you a better player and gets your starting moves down tight, it also helps dramatically with understanding what is going on when you first start with a basic base.

Those of you looking for instructions can check out the armory (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.).

If you want to play around with protoss or zerg, custom missions (either in the single-player vs. AI screen or the custom game screen in multiplayer) are a great way to do it. That's also a good way to try out new concepts and get your patterns down before going against humans.

---------- Post added 08-04-2010 at 03:04 PM ----------

I made it all of about eight missions before having to turn on godmode to win a fight. On casual setting, mind you.

If you need godmode in a casual setting, something is wrong with your basic strategy. You can generally get much better at the game by instead of reaching for the godmode passcode, reconsidering your basic approach.

[NoMicro]

Yeah, I would highly recommend becoming fluid and confident with your hotkeys and building efficiency. This game's basically about money management and timing.

I play on the US server and I'm ranked in the Platinum division. It's a tough skill curve to pursue, but it's great once you start seeing the top.

I really do hope the ranking system sorts itself out soon and starts putting the casuals with the casuals. I don't like free wins. =P

[SShack]

Heh heh. Today's Penny Arcade adequately (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) describes my attitude.

Not uncoincidentally, Tycho also strikes me as an ENTP. I wonder if there's some sort of relationship.

Nacht, I'm sadly well-aware of everything I do wrong when I lose battles, but don't have as much interest in going back through the whole fight again to fix it. In the campaign, I just kind of want to experience it and am not so much into micromanagement, which is why it was stupid for me to buy the game in the first place. But I knew that. I clearly have too much expendable income.

[NoMicro]

For the campaign, I would recommend just constantly pumping out units. Putting down multiple barracks and factories and just always having a large, large army. Marines are easily replenished and tanks move up slowly and own everything. (Just remember to use siege mode.)

[DewFuel]

All right, just got done with the campaign, and I am completely underwhelmed.

There was literally ZERO plot. What the hell Blizzard? The first 15 or so missions, I felt like I was in charge of the Red-Cross circa 2472 and not the rebellion against the Dominion. Ugh. It honestly felt like one giant side-quest.

The missions were fun as hell to do, though. I enjoyed them thoroughly. I'll give credit where its due, but the story accompanying the missions stunk like last week's laundry. I honestly expected more out of Blizz. Would have liked if the missions were a little harder, though.

for people having problems in the campaign, most missions have a unit they "introduce". if you just mass that one unit you should be in good shape. I did not like that about the campaign, to be honest. After you're done with these missions, goliaths + ravens pretty much destroy everything in their paths.

For an honest rating, I'll give the game 4/5 stars. The multiplayer being the saving grace (been playing since april in the beta and I love it), with the single player being kind of a mixed feelings bag. If I were a person buying the game solely for single player, and the first units I see were the marine, medic, firebat, vulture, tank, wraith, and goliath.... I would be pretty pissed.

[rahdam]

All right, just got done with the campaign, and I am completely underwhelmed.

There was literally ZERO plot. What the hell Blizzard? The first 15 or so missions, I felt like I was in charge of the Red-Cross circa 2472 and not the rebellion against the Dominion. Ugh. It honestly felt like one giant side-quest.

The missions were fun as hell to do, though. I enjoyed them thoroughly. I'll give credit where its due, but the story accompanying the missions stunk like last week's laundry. I honestly expected more out of Blizz. Would have liked if the missions were a little harder, though.

for people having problems in the campaign, most missions have a unit they "introduce". if you just mass that one unit you should be in good shape. I did not like that about the campaign, to be honest. After you're done with these missions, goliaths + ravens pretty much destroy everything in their paths.

For an honest rating, I'll give the game 4/5 stars. The multiplayer being the saving grace (been playing since april in the beta and I love it), with the single player being kind of a mixed feelings bag. If I were a person buying the game solely for single player, and the first units I see were the marine, medic, firebat, vulture, tank, wraith, and goliath.... I would be pretty pissed.

Blizzard took no risks with StarCraft II.
It is a direct iteration of StarCraft.

IGN reviewer gave it a 9.0, but, more importantly, the reviewer nailed it in the article.
The last risk evolutionary risk Blizzard took was probably WarCraft III (hero units).

[Synchronicity]

I was willing to tolerate the lack of protoss and zerg in the main campaign if it meant a good campaign with a good story, but Dew is right on. I'm about 7 missions in and the pacing is painfully slow. One new unit per mission, one little cutscene where Raynor makes small talk with Tychus or Horner over recent missions. It's claustrophobic. The zerg are invading, the Queen of Blades is making her move to wipe out galactic civilization, and except for the 30-second news reports in the cantina, there seems to be no interest in the outside world. There's no action, no excitement, no characters I can bring myself to care about.

Someone please tell me it starts getting better, because the one thing I was looking forward to more than anything was continuing the story where Brood War left off.

[nacht]

I was willing to tolerate the lack of protoss and zerg in the main campaign if it meant a good campaign with a good story, but Dew is right on. I'm about 7 missions in and the pacing is painfully slow. One new unit per mission, one little cutscene where Raynor makes small talk with Tychus or Horner over recent missions. It's claustrophobic. The zerg are invading, the Queen of Blades is making her move to wipe out galactic civilization, and except for the 30-second news reports in the cantina, there seems to be no interest in the outside world. There's no action, no excitement, no characters I can bring myself to care about.


You found you had any of that in the Terran campaign of SC1?

[Synchronicity]

You found you had any of that in the Terran campaign of SC1?

Yes.

[SShack]

I did find the plot terribly predictable. I didn't play SC1 so I can't compare, but there isn't a single plot element of the story that wasn't entirely obvious and hadn't been seen elsewhere in the genre. Also, buried ancient alien artifacts are to sci-fi games what mysterious dead gods are to fantasy games.

As for future plot spoilers without giving away the ending.

There are a handful of missions where you play as the Protoss in order to "relive" what Zeratul has been up to while you've been Fireflying around with Raynor.

Edit: Writing has never been Blizzard's strong suit. They seem obsessed entirely with stories about either corruption and redemption. You can't swing a dead cat in Warcraft without hitting some NPC either in the process of being corrupted or being redeemed.

[DewFuel]

I was willing to tolerate the lack of protoss and zerg in the main campaign if it meant a good campaign with a good story, but Dew is right on. I'm about 7 missions in and the pacing is painfully slow. One new unit per mission, one little cutscene where Raynor makes small talk with Tychus or Horner over recent missions. It's claustrophobic. The zerg are invading, the Queen of Blades is making her move to wipe out galactic civilization, and except for the 30-second news reports in the cantina, there seems to be no interest in the outside world. There's no action, no excitement, no characters I can bring myself to care about.

Someone please tell me it starts getting better, because the one thing I was looking forward to more than anything was continuing the story where Brood War left off.

Unfortunately, the campaign doesn't get better. It's just a reiteration of the first few missions, repeat with new faces & objectives. The protoss mini-campaign kinda gives some story where BW left off, but I guess we'll have to wait for the expansion pack. I really expected to see a direct continuation of the Brood War story, instead we got this hap-hazard "story" about Jim Raynor's return to glory.

---------- Post added 08-06-2010 at 08:45 PM ----------

You found you had any of that in the Terran campaign of SC1?

The terran campaign in SC1 & Brood War was awesome. I suggest replaying them if you are comparing them to SC2's. It's littered with characters you can care about (Artanis, Zeratul, Raynor, DuGalle, Stukov, and Fenix & Duke(!!!!) in the zerg campaign). Hell, even the Queen Of Blades got more screen time in the Terran campaign in Brood War than she got here, and the goddamn game is supposed to be about her... or at least that's what the previews / teaser cinematics were hinting at.

---------- Post added 08-06-2010 at 08:47 PM ----------

Blizzard took no risks with StarCraft II.
It is a direct iteration of StarCraft.

IGN reviewer gave it a 9.0, but, more importantly, the reviewer nailed it in the article.
The last risk evolutionary risk Blizzard took was probably WarCraft III (hero units).

I'd put WoW under the risk section for Blizzard. It just so happened that it became the most popular game on the internet in history.

They're unveiling a new IP during Blizzcon this year. Hopefully its something worthwhile, maybe an MMO model similar to Guild Wars. Who knows.

[tooboku]

I just cannon rushed the AI on hard in just over 4 minutes! XD

[nacht]

The terran campaign in SC1 & Brood War was awesome. I suggest replaying them if you are comparing them to SC2's.


I have played them fairly recently, and standing in isolation they are pretty much just a series of science fiction tropes. The only additional element that may make some people care about them more is that you control them directly more frequently.

[Daimai]

Well, I got SC2 at release. I didn't think anything special of the campaign, although I really enjoyed the mission "In Utter Darkness". Making the last stand against the hybrids and the zerg with my favorite race, that got me nerdchills.

Also, multiplayer is really the reason I bought the game. Play as Protoss and I am in Diamond league atm, having a blast.

If anyone would want to play some SC2, I am all for it. I am on the EU server though, seems the majority of the INTJforum is from North America.

[No sense]

I am shocked that there is only 40 posts in this thread so long after release.. tsk tsk

Why am I shocked, you ask me?
The Starcraft2 community is dominated by young xNTJs, and since this is INTJf (where most are relatively young INTJs), one would expect more sc2 lunatics around here..

Or are you too shy or too superior for this thread? :P

Anyway.. I've been playing some since beta, and plan to play more now that terran received his nerf(s). I just couldn't stand the whining about terrans being too imbalanced..
Although I'm gold at the moment, I predict I will be mid diamond sometime in the next couple of months since I am constantly matched with plats and diamonds (and win a fair share of those games).
And to me that doesn't even sound too ambitious since most of the players there are one build (read: cheese) wonders.

What's your guys rank/league?
Thoughts about multiplayer?
Did you get your Mengsk portrait yet? :P

I'd also love to hear some thoughts about the lack of chat channels and if that makes you sad.

[Commissar]

I'm sitting somewhere in Bronze now...I really haven't played ladder too much, only like 8 games since I bought it a few weeks ago (pathetic, I know). I blame my recent obsession with Call of Pripyat...