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PostPosted: 26 Aug 2010 00:17 
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Joined: 25 Mar 2010 20:32
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Location: Austin, TX.
Well it took Blizzard Entertainment more than a decade to finish development of this game and in that same amount of time, fans of Starcraft eagerly anticipated this game's release. Now that it has hit store shelves, was the 12-year long wait truly worth it or did Blizzard put a ridiculous amount of hype into a game that shouldn't have such a delay time? I'll be putting in my 2 cents on what the experience was like.

First off, I'll post up the minimum & recommended system requirements.

Minimum:

- Operating System: Windows XP, Vista, or 7 with all necessary service packs & DirectX 9.0c
- 2.6ghz Pentium 4 or AMD equivalent CPU
- 1gb of RAM (1.5gb for Windows Vista and 7)
- 12gb of hdd space
- Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT or ATi Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card
- Broadband connection that is always on
- a monitor with a minimum resolution of 1024x720

Recommended:

- Operating System: Windows Vista or Windows 7
- 2.4ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD equivalent
- 2gb of RAM
- 12gb of hdd space
- Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX or ATi Radeon 3870 graphics card

As you can tell from the minimum requirements, it doesn't take a lot of "oomph" to play Starcraft 2 BUT if you want the best gaming experience with Starcraft 2, you'll want to spend some $$$ on upgrades to play Starcraft 2 on ultra settings at high resolutions.

Story: Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty follows the exploits of Marshall Jim Raynor 4 years after the Brood Wars conflict. Since then, he's been pretty much glum about former Ghost ally: Kerrigan and pissed off at self-appointed Emperor Mengsk. Now, I wasn't a fanatic of the 1st Starcraft because the story to me was a bit "meh." After completing Wings of Liberty, I was completely left in a state of "AWE!" and had my jaw dropped to the ground. The story was that damn amazing! The story alone is worth 80% of the game's total price. Blizzard totally went all out with it and the amount of hard work shows. The voice acting is superb and makes each character stand out. Trust me when I state this: this game's story is worth 80% of the total game's cost and yes, it's that epic!

Graphics: I'm not going to even try to compare Starcraft 1's graphics to Starcraft 2's. The reason being is because of the humongous technological time gap between the 2 games. Although the gap between the games is huge, there are some things that Starcraft 1 did better than Starcraft 2 in terms of "looks." When units begin to cluster around other units and structures, it's hard to separate each unit and choose the one you want. Other than that 1 nit-pick, I'd say everything else is superior compared to the 1st game (in terms of graphics.)

Sound: The sounds in the game are amazing and make units pop out with amusement. The units that make a return from the first game have all their sounds and voices intact and the new units sound great and their voices match their in-game avatar. I didn't pay too much attention to the music because, frankly, I was busy concentrating on my forces and enemies. There are some missions that'll pit you against more than 1 enemy and that requires your attention constantly since RTS games are more multi-tasking than FPS games and thus my mind was absent to the music of Starcraft 2.

Gameplay: Two words come to mind in terms of gameplay and those 2 words are: "HOLY CRAP!" Blizzard outdid themselves with the gameplay of Starcraft 2. They focused on keeping the core originality of the first game while putting in new stuff like new units and new upgrades for your units. For example, to choose missions, you are onboard Raynor's battlecruiser and can choose from a handful of missions from the bridge's star map. While on the battlecruiser, you can explore the various areas and chat with a few of the members, purchase various upgrades for units, choose previous missions to earn achievements for that particular mission, earn missed bonuses, etc. Blizzard also really focused on balancing each single unit out so no 1 unit is the "ultimate" killer type. Think of it as rock-paper-scissor. There will always be a counter-unit to balance things out so that way, you develop unique strategies for each unit. Although Blizzard did keep the core gameplay the same as the first, it can be a bit bland to veteran players looking for something new.

Misc: No matter how awesome the game is crafted, it still has some flaws. The core gameplay plays out so similar to the first that it can get boring for those hoping for something new within the Starcraft realm. Another problem I saw a few times was that the units acted kind of dumb when I assigned a specific location to go to. They got "stuck" in some corner when I specifically gave them a spot to go to. Also, the whole "must be online at all times to play the game" DRM is utilized. This saddens me but not to an extreme extent because my desktop isn't mobile (I'm afraid to picture myself lugging around a 50+ lb. desktop from place to place.) For those with gaming laptops, you guys might dislike it since most of you will be on the go. Another thing is that Very Easy & Easy difficulties are tooooo damn easy. Some units in the campaign don't show up in multi-player or skirmish modes. While not being something to take seriously, it is a small shot to the foot since I would've liked to use some of the campaign units in a skirmish. Lastly (and probably the biggest complaint), playing over a local area network is no more an option. This is probably the biggest complaint Starcraft 2 has seen by its fan base. So instead of being able to play locally, you have to sign into Battle.net and start a game. The problem you encounter here is that you'll experience some latency issues whereas playing over a LAN doesn't have the kind of latency issues you'll expect when playing over Battle.net. This does bring up the question: "What will happen to Starcraft 2 competitions now that LAN isn't an option?" Hopefully Blizzard will add the option in via patches, updates, etc.

Conclusion: For someone not being an over-zealous Starcraft fan (which is weird because I'm Korean), I thought this game would've been a waste of money. I was completely wrong and am glad that I was. The story is truly epic and the gameplay is easy to get a hang of. The hard part is trying to find a unique strategy for each unit. I love how this particular RTS doesn't play like some other RTS games out there (for example: C&C) and that just because you have one massive ass force at your hands, doesn't mean you'll particularly win the game. The game's graphics are very polished, making this game look very clean. Besides the nit-picks I've stated above, I give this game a 9/10.

Pros:

+ Easy to play since it plays almost exactly like the original
+ Beautiful graphics when put on high or ultra settings
+ Units aren't over-powered and look absolutely amazing
+ Story was EPIC!
+ Main characters were very interesting
+ Missions weren't too short nor too long to complete
+ Tons of extra bonuses and new content
+ Voices for each unit were epic also!

Cons:

- Units can sometimes be hard to find amidst all the other units and structures
- Always connected broadband connection required
- Units act dumb sometimes
- Easy and Very Easy are WAAAY too easy
- Campaign-only units missing from Skirmish and Multi-player modes
- LAN option is gone

Part 1 of 3
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Part 2 of 3
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Part 3 of 3
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Last edited by DimSumGuy83 on 31 Aug 2010 22:57, edited 7 times in total.

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PostPosted: 27 Aug 2010 20:50 
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Joined: 27 Aug 2010 20:41
Posts: 195
if i wanted to i could do it... LOLs


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