In this StarCraft II level, players need to get their units to high ground before the lava rises.
Image courtesy Blizzard Entertainment
Few games live up to 11 years of hype, but StarCraft II’s slick upgrades mean that it’s got a shot.
At midnight on July 27, Blizzard ended over a decade of anticipation when it switched on the servers for StarCraft II. The original StarCraft, released in 1998, became an overnight success, selling 1.5 million copies in its first year on the way to over 11 million copies sold in its lifetime. A decade on, the strategy game is still revered for its precise balance and easy to learn, hard to master game mechanics. StarCraft became especially popular in South Korea, where professional players earn upwards of $100,000 a year and expert matches are televised nationwide.
At first glance, it seems that Blizzard has taken an if-it-ain’t-broke approach to StarCraft II’s gameplay. The biggest improvements to the single-player campaign have been in the presentation. In the first game, you were simply flung from one mission to the next with nothing but a short mission briefing, or perhaps a brief cinema scene once in a blue moon. In the sequel, you spend your downtime hanging out inside the space ship owned by series protagonist Jim Raynor.
Inside Raynor’s ship, you can spend the money you make from missions by purchasing upgrades for your army. A lot of the upgrades consist of simple stat enhancements, but there are some upgrades that unlock new abilities for your units. It’s a fun way of introducing RPG elements that provides a tangible feeling of progression.
Another change from the original StarCraft is that you can now choose the order in which you tackle certain missions. It’s not as if you have complete freedom: You will usually be presented with two missions to choose from. This means that the game follows a branching storyline of sorts, although so far I have always been able to go back and complete the missions that I skipped.
There are also optional objectives within the missions themselves. These range from rescuing oppressed villagers to collecting a number of doodads strewn across the map. This idea is very similar to Blizzard’s 2002 game Warcraft III (the last RTS game the company released). The rewards are usually worth the trouble. If you rescue the hapless villagers, they’ll join your ranks. If you collect the doodads, you’ll be given more money with which to upgrade your units.
Blizzard’s new Battle.net online service, as used in StarCraft II, is visually appealing and easy to navigate.
Image courtesy Blizzard Entertainment
11 years of technological progress means that StarCraft II’s storytelling methods aren’t as primitive as they were in 1998. The first StarCraft employed mid-mission dialogue but the animation was limited to a few pictures of talking heads. StarCraft II, on the other hand, has the fully rendered cinematic scenes that we’ve come to expect of modern gaming.
These scenes are excellent: The facial expressions, character movement, sound direction, and art design all come together to make what I have found so far to be a gripping plot.
Of course, it helps that Blizzard has some of the best artists in the business. StarCraft II is somewhat low-tech compared to graphics juggernauts like Crysis or Metro 2033. But because of its excellent art direction, it is arguably more visually appealing than either of those games.
The game uses a wide range of colors, and the attention to detail, such as the mechanized moving parts on marines or the fluorescent glow of laser beams, is spectacular as well.
I haven’t yet played StarCraft II’s final multiplayer mode, but I did play a great deal of the multiplayer beta and came away impressed. Blizzard’s overhaul of its classic Battle.net service is geared towards helping the strategy newbies out there become competent, offering an array of challenges that are designed to teach important multiplayer skills.
StarCraft II is a long time coming, and with fans currently caught in the throes of launch ecstasy, it’s still too early to tell if it will ultimately prove to be worth the wait. But based on my first impressions, it would have to screw up pretty hard to not be.
See Also:
- Hands-On: Overhauled StarCraft II Welcomes Strategy Noobs
- Games: StarCraft Gets a Hi-Res Upgrade
- Q&A: Making StarCraft II More Accessible
