Post by Steve Farrelly @ 05:04pm 02/08/10 | 42 Comments
Our resident StarCraft 2 expert, Hogfather, smashed through the game in both modes to deliver us an in-depth review we're sure he probably would have liked to flesh out even more. This covers everything you need to know about the year's biggest PC release, so get into it.
Click here for the full review.
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Posted 05:29pm 02/8/10
Posted 05:39pm 02/8/10
Posted 05:42pm 02/8/10
It's so deeply integrated into the game theres no way you wouldnt factor bnet2.0 into sc2's score. Besides that why wouldnt you factor the multiplayer interface into the games...multiplayer...?
derp
last edited by CSIRAC at 17:42:14 02/Aug/10
Posted 05:44pm 02/8/10
Posted 06:03pm 02/8/10
Posted 06:08pm 02/8/10
Heh I supplied text not imagery :P The colossus in particular stands out as a little dated ;)
Posted 07:22pm 02/8/10
It's easy to be picky when it comes to Blizzard games... I think it's a fair assumption that people will still be playing this game in 10+ years time so in my opinion it deserves a 10 just for that.
Posted 07:28pm 02/8/10
Posted 07:36pm 02/8/10
Posted 07:39pm 02/8/10
Posted 08:40pm 02/8/10
Yeh I had a really hard time settling on a score. I sat there for some time. On the one hand, the game is brilliant. It really is. I desperately wanted to give it a ten - and it may deserve it, I've been post-midnight in StarCraft II every night since launch! - but with the list of shortcomings I found that hard to justify. BNet 2.0 is a feature of the game, and in so many ways it managed to be worse than BNet 1.0.
A review targetted at Americans may well merit a 9.5 or 10.0.
But Battle.Net is a listed feature of the game, and its deficient at the moment. You just can't deny that. Regionalisation has hit Aussies very hard too, dividing the players -- poor deface! -- and together its a bit of a black mark. The problems and confusion around launch for Australia were poorly communicated and unnecessarily meant that some players are for now STUCK on the wrong server (USA) with no option but to wait for the unlock.
Regionalisation means that SEA custom maps are scarce and lower quality that EU or USA. SEA's RealID is almost entirely pointless. Achievements may not really mean anything, but I don't relish starting at 0 again when I get to the server I want to actually play on.
None of these problems were necessary and the fact that they've decided to fix it after launch is short sighted, but it meant I couldn't give it a ten and be honest about how I felt about the entire game right now :(
Posted 08:21pm 02/8/10
Posted 08:49pm 02/8/10
Posted 08:54pm 02/8/10
Posted 08:57pm 02/8/10
Agree with everything, except for maybe the B-Net 2.0 stuff. I totally agree that it should be in there. However its pretty obvious that B-Net 2 is still evolving, so a lot of the listed problems will be gone soon enough (blizzard have already said there is coming chat + clans etc). I dunno, to me, a review should be able to be looked back on in 6 months and its still relevant (unless there are show-stopping bugs that would influence my decision to buy).
Posted 09:31pm 02/8/10
Well, the elements of the review that would influence a buy will remain valid really - a 9.0 is in my mind a ringing endorsement, and I lavished the game with praise throughout. I don't think anyone coudl come away from the review with other than a positive rap with a solid indication of value for money and repla. I
If someone is reading this in 6 months time wondering, yes, you want to buy the game. Its awesome, and I'm still playing!
But Battle.Net's essentially incomplete nature and the mess that is Aussie regionalisation (to me) prevented a perfect 10.0. If the game at the time of review isn't technically perfect or is clearly incomplete then -- to me -- you can't give it a perfect score. As I say this is my favourite game franchise of all time, I'm the biggest fanboy on the planet, but it felt weird to serve up criticism of the launch and give it a 10.
Each to his own!
Posted 09:32pm 02/8/10
Posted 09:33pm 02/8/10
Posted 10:18pm 02/8/10
Here's a couple of screens you can have ahahahhah!
AND THEN
KABOOM BABY
Posted 09:58pm 02/8/10
I've had a blast with the single player. going to give the multi player a go soon and inflate someone's win tally
Posted 11:04pm 02/8/10
Posted 11:44pm 02/8/10
last edited by infi at 23:44:21 02/Aug/10
Posted 11:52pm 02/8/10
Posted 02:34am 03/8/10
Posted 04:05am 03/8/10
Posted 07:38am 03/8/10
Posted 07:40am 03/8/10
Posted 07:51am 03/8/10
Posted 08:10am 03/8/10
Think I got through about 1/4 of the campaign before I got bored. RTS SP is still carp.
Confirmed what I thought it would be before it was released. Four types of missions
-Defend this base for X mins
-kill these dudes with limited reinforcements
-protect some vip units
-heres some marines. kill a few enemies go to the base ahead and start a skirmish match
Posted 08:29am 03/8/10
can you stay in the practice league for as long as you like?
Posted 09:06am 03/8/10
deface - yes. Everywhere. I'm trying to work it into my sig...
Posted 09:13am 03/8/10
Posted 09:14am 03/8/10
I've been searching around and can't find anything, nothing from the OSL or MSL.
Posted 09:34am 03/8/10
Posted 09:38am 03/8/10
though i've only played a couple of skirmishs with protos so far
those colossus's are pretty f*****g sick
Posted 09:44am 03/8/10
Gameplay wise this is the first RTS i have really enjoyed the SP in. REALLY pollished and the story has been great so far.
Multi player wise, i'm really enjoying teaming up with mates and working together. The Co op mode vs AI saw us through a carton of Beam on sunday and i spent all day at work yesty getting over it... So yeah, SC2 is a definately taking up all my time at the mo and i'm really enjoying it... Don't know if i'll be into the online MP that much but i haven't tried it yet so i'm not ruling it out... just been having so much fun playing with mates at the mo
Posted 10:06am 03/8/10
Theres still lots of discussion between the organisers of the MSL and OSL and blizzard, since they have such a long history with SC. Off the bat though, blizzard has made a contract with GOMTV in Korea to host leagues. In terms of already established SC2 leagues, there are literally 10's and 10's of them in the states and in europe.
For now sc1 hasnt died yet, the teams in Korea are in the middle of their leagues so we'll see what happens there. GOMTV have hosted 3-4 TV matches between the top 2 Korean SC clans as show matches if thats any indication.
Posted 01:48pm 03/8/10
Posted 01:58pm 03/8/10
Posted 05:20pm 03/8/10
I find that to be the best part.
I've focused on the Terrans, my first game I got rushed pretty hard. I quickly learned from that match to make HEAPS more SCV's.
The next match I got smoked by a single invis unit because I didn't which of my units was a detector, I figured the radar would show it, it didn't. I quickly learned the raven was a detector and to build the command base upgrade thingy.
It has been good, now at about 50% win rate.
I could get higher if I didn't experiment with different tactics and whatnot. Still in practice league.
Posted 06:12pm 03/8/10
Hahaha, nuclear launch detected!
Posted 06:49pm 03/8/10
Protip: never stop building scv's.