-
StarCraft 2 - Wings of Liberty - Source: Gamefreaks -
Related
Platform: PC
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
There might be a game or two that will be released in the next 10 years that engenders as much mouth froth as the sequel to the most popular Real Time Strategy title on the planet. But StarCraft 2 has been without a doubt the most froth-inducing (90% of statistics found in this article have been made up due to the author's near paralytic laziness).
Entire nations (well, one entire nation at the very least) have dedicated pro-circuits and television a channel to the original StarCraft title and it's been said even a national holiday was proposed in Korea when the sequel was announced. This game has been, and still is, mind-blowingly popular.
There's been so much anticipation and fierce, almost religious fervour over how the game should play in fact that it's quite possibly clouded a lot of people's judgement on the subject. Well, not ours. We're here to tell you that yep, StarCraft 2 is awesome; it's not groundbreaking or resource-hogging, nor is it going to blow anyone's mind, but in our opinion, that's kind of OK and we reckon you're going to enjoy it.
If you're not familiar with StarCraft, or even the concept of a Real Time Strategy title, games are played on a fixed size map, with a top down view of the action which, funnily enough, unfolds in real time. You harvest and collect resources with which to build buildings and train combat and support units with which to annihilate your opponents; StarCraft is set in a war-torn future where three unique races refuse to coexist so the games revolve around various combinations of these races meeting on the battlefield to tear each other limb from slimy alien claw.
StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is the first instalment of a sequel to be released in three parts, and focuses predominantly on the human race, also known as the Terrans. Our hero, Jim Raynor, is the leader of a small force of revolutionaries whose aim is to bring down the tyrannous Terran Dominion and its grumpy overbearing leader.
The single player campaign, aka the bit you play if you're worried how badly you're going to be served when you jump online, is conducted from Jim Raynor's ship. There you can start new missions, get details about the revolution's current situation, watch previously unlocked cut-scenes and in perhaps the nicest of the new features introduced in the title, chat with other characters; who can either advance the story by offering up new information about current events, or give you new missions, or both. These interactions give an almost RPG feel to some of the game and definitely make in-roads towards giving it some more depth.
Gameplay in its simplest form remains more or less unchanged from its predecessor; harvesting, building, grouping units and sending them into the fray, it all feels very familiar, and that's something very central to how Blizzard have designed this sequel: modernise rather than try to break any new ground, lest the zealots get upset. Simple fact of the matter is: Blizzard could never and would never mess with a formula as wildly popular as the StarCraft franchise.
As well as making sure they don't upset the fans, Blizzard has done a lovely job making sure new players aren't left behind. From the moment you install the game you are led by the hand from the incredibly simple tutorials right through the single player campaign. Units and tactics are introduced gradually and by the time you finish the campaign you feel almost ready to take on the rest of the world.
Graphically speaking, StarCraft 2 looks very nice. The stonking cinematics are both immersive and beautiful to look at and the units and maps have been beautifully crafted. Even if you've got a fairly basically spec'ed machine you'll be able to fire this bad boy up and on Gamefreaks' fairly modest gaming rig (Core i7, 6GB RAM, GTX 260) we had everything cranked up to "Ultra" and it ran like a dream. Things were a bit jaggy due to lack of anti-aliasing however and we were left wondering if there couldn't have been an "OMG MAKE IT PRETTY LOL" mode for the really high spec'ed but on the whole we think the majority of people who pick this up will not only be able to run it, but be happy with how it looks.
Of course, StarCraft wouldn't be StarCraft without a multiplayer mode, in fact, without a multiplayer mode there would probably have been real life deaths. Blizzard's new gaming portal, Battle.Net, plays a huge part here - you can't even play the single player campaign without registering for a Battle.Net account - from there you can chat with friends, check your position in the league, find matches etc.
Before you can begin your multiplayer StarCraft career, you have to play five seeding matches where you are pitted against other unseeded players; your success in these matches determines where you are placed on the leader board and who you play against in future matches. There are no LAN matches either; it's all done over Battle.Net so if you're thinking of just playing against your mates you're still going to have to play those seeding matches and likely embarrass yourself stupid in the process. We did.
There's a lot more to this game than can be adequately covered in a piece as short as this. Blizzard has done a great job balancing a desire to advance the Real Time Strategy genre and not wanting to mess with a solid, tried and true formula. There's enough here to keep existing fans happy (although they may just want to avoid the campaign and dive headfirst into multiplayer heaven) and the pace is set to nicely ease any newcomers into the world.
Rating: 9/10
This review was brought to you by
Gamefreaks
