Friday, April 9, 2010
By Sean Yates
News Editor
When it comes to real-time strategy games, Blizzard’s Starcraft is king. No other game in the genre is known as well or treated with so much attention. It is a vast understatement to say that the sequel, targeted for a July release, is highly anticipated.
As of now, only a closed beta version of Stracraft 2 is available. The beta allows players to compete in online matches, giving them the opportunity to build up their bases and armies (with the ultimate goal being total destruction of the enemy).
While Blizzard has struck a balance in making changes from the original, it doesn’t live up to its potential. Given the amount of time and money available to the company that produces Guitar Hero and World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2 should have revolutionized the real-time strategy genre.
Battles follow the traditional Starcraft style of starting with nothing and then building up resources while attempting to harass the economy of the enemy. All three races from the first game can be played, including the Terrans (humans), the insectoid Zerg and the highly advanced Protoss.
The single-player portions of Starcraft 2 are unavailable in the current beta testing, although Blizzard has released some information about them. While released at the price of a full game, the first release of Starcraft 2, subtitled Wings of Liberty, will only have a Terran campaign and will allow full access to multiplayer. Later, additional purchases will be required for the Zerg and Protoss campaigns.
While it is possible to play against AI opponents, these computer-generated enemies can only be set to very easy. This foe will barely put up a fight against any who have worked out the basics of unit control and resource management. Thus, the only worthwhile part of the game that is currently available is online competition against other beta participants.
One of the most important and difficult parts of designing online matches for a strategy game is ensuring that players are matched with opponents at their skill level. Blizzard’s online matching system, Battle.net, solves this problem by separating players into brackets according to skill level.
Everyone starts at the bottom, but the rank of a player’s account rises or falls at a rate proportional to the difference between their score and that of their opponent after each match. This means that no one is placed in a bracket beyond their skill level for long.
Ultimately, any judgment of Starcraft 2 will be based in large part on the similarities and differences between it and its predecessor. Starcraft 2 is by far the visual superior, as it will come out 10 years later, but more importantly it has superior programming.
Units in Starcraft 2 follow commands much more accurately and move much more naturally. In terms of game balance, the units of the three races borrow very heavily from the original game. Combined with a nearly-identical system of gathering resources, the result is altogether very similar gameplay to the original.
Changes to or replacements of units from the original Starcraft all favor making the game more strategic but at the same time more accessible. Many of the most devious or powerful strategies from the original game are not obvious at first glance, requiring an incredible combination of speed and skill to perform.
Starcraft 2 features a similarly-complicated series of decisions about what types of units to use and how to use them. However, it allows a greater number of players to use every possible strategy by making the tactics more obvious and easier to execute. This shifts the focus from manipulating a keyboard and mouse to devising the best possible plan.
In the 10 years since Starcraft came out, other companies have been innovating, building off the blocks Starcraft laid out in order to create new and interesting perspectives on strategy gaming. Starcraft 2 simply feels like a perfectly balanced, visually improved copy of its predecessor without many of those advances.
Starcraft 2 is certainly recommended to those who missed out on the original, and also to any diehard fans who crave modern graphics and a better matching system.
While a beta is by no means the final word on a product, and the world still waits for what the single player Starcraft 2 experience will be, multiplayer real-time strategy fans shouldn’t get their hopes up for a break in the paradigm.
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