Maybe my brain functions a little differently from the rest of the world, but I always find the hardest part of writing reviews to be the introductory paragraph. I know what I don’t want to do with my beginning and go into the usual spiel of “it’s been a long time coming, the sequel to the all time great strategy game is here” because quite frankly, everyone starts their Starcraft 2 review like that. (And I wish people would stop quoting the Tychus Findley “Hell, it’s about time” cutscene.) So bear with me for a moment, this is the best I could slap together.
“I was having burritos with a fairly lovely lady friend of mine after she had just travelled across Europe. After telling me her plans to abandon many upcoming parties in the name of representing Aiur, she had sold me on revisiting this Starcraft business for the first time since high school. I subsequently unsold her on this game she had bought the night before by telling her that Wings of Liberty is merely the Terran campaign and we would have to wait a considerable long time before Blizzard comes around to presenting their story from a creepy alien perspective. Oops. Sorry.”
The campaign is a good point of entry in talking about the ever tender package of Terran meat that is Wings of Liberty. The game presents an all-Terran campaign, which comes with natural disadvantages. Being that the traditional Starcraft 1 campaign served as an introduction to the various traits and units of each faction, one can see how disadvantaged the Zerg and Protoss become in the field of presenting its new recruits. While the human campaign does make quick introductions to some of those races’ new concepts (with a particular fixation on those lumpy little junebugs of love known as Banelings), I still felt like several of the new units don’t receive proper explanation. I had no way of learning the function of the Zerg’s new brain slug monster, the presumed mother of the brain slugs from Limbo. A Starcraft newcomer will have to learn the hard way that “creep” is the Zerg’s bread and butter and not something you don’t want staring at your Facebook page.
But the upside to that focused campaign is that it very successfully fleshes out the Terrans, both as an RTS video game faction and a deranged lifestyle. Between missions, you can explore your spaceship, converse with the crew, watch Intergalactic Fox News, listen to Skynyrd covers and soak in the Southern charm of your rebellion. That your space-faring military army is so delightfully below the Mason-Dixon line gives what is otherwise a cliché story with cliché characters using cliché lines in cliché scenarios more intrigue than it ought to have. (There is a bearded dwarven mechanic and a dreadlocked, African-accented voodoo-practitioner. A friendly reminder that this franchise started as Warcraft in space.) Small tweaks, like seeing new pieces of equipment in the Armory after they debut in missions, or new conversation cutscenes that open up after missions, or the fake arcade game named after Trine’s mistress, give incentive to explore and take breathers after your last Alamo-caliber slaughter.
If anything, I am now dreading the Zerg and Protoss games, because neither race present themselves to me as any more charming. I want to be free as a bird, not serving a collective alien tribe.
The missions are also much better thought out. The main idea behind Starcraft is still “mine resources to spend on buildings and goons, and use your goon-building in a manner more efficient than your enemy’s goon-building.” And while the majority of Starcraft 1’s missions were of the “build a goon-factory and use it better than the AI”, Starcraft 2 manages to find more hooks and twists to trap you with. Like Uncharted 2, the problem with reviewing Starcraft 2 is that you can’t go into detail without giving away the better moments. If you’ve read any number of reviews, you’ve no doubt heard ad nauseam about the zombie mission, the lava mission, or the train mission. (Because video games in general love zombies, lava and trains, eh?) Perhaps there are too many missions built around time limits for my liking, and my brain doesn’t handle being rushed as well as it handles introductory paragraphs. But I still managed to get to the ending on the Normal difficulty. I’ll just say that the game finds plenty of unique mission ideas to maintain your interest, and manages to exploit the assorted unique twists of the Terran race. Expect your fair share of flying buildings, bunker cuddling and Tychus Findley enjoying himself too much.
That rugged, handsome man with the cigar from that ever popular reveal trailer did wind up becoming my favorite character in the Starcraft universe. Though I can’t help but feel the endgame does poor Tychus a severe injustice. Likewise, some plot threads remain untied by the game’s end, and I am reminded that Wings of Liberty is the first of a trilogy. You know, like every current generation game. The game hopes that players find contentment in wrapping up a prior storyline at the expense of several more (and by the way, Starcraft 2 very deliberately ignores the existence of Brood Wars. There was only one real Overmind, folks.) How much positive or negative energy you walked away from the ending of Assassin’s Creed 2 will probably be similar to how you view the end of Wings of Liberty.
There’s also an online multiplayer component designed to scare the bejeebusses out of you. I am reminded very quickly that people have been playing Starcraft for over 10 years while I’ve spent much of that time on things like education and education-defeating liquor. A disclaimer: I can’t figure out hotkeys to save my life and my micromanagement skills don’t exceed setting an alarm clock. My video gaming brain functions better with the “point at something so it dies” set of motor skills than the “arrange these things in efficient killing order” set of skills. I’ve gotten killed many times over playing online and I haven’t even left the beginner mode. This is not my game, and I can’t help but feel like the “challenge mode” missions included, designed to introduce the concepts of rush defense and build order are not enough to brace me for the cruel, harsh world of the internet. Somewhere within the last ten years, “harass the other guy’s SCVs” became a popular strategy amongst players. Players that hate me.
And looking at the Achievement list, this game is designed to be played for another 10 years by those very same maniac individuals. Online avatars and decal designs unlock after playing 100, 250, 500 or 1000 games…per race!
But I will be the better man and admit that this is merely not my cup of tea. The Battle.net functionality seems to be effective at it’s job. It’ll quickly find rival players to pit you against. It’ll divide the online strangers on your friends list from the real friends you know from Facebook. It lets you post its own version of Tweets on Battle.net. (Bweets?) . You can review build orders and stats after each match and find out how your opponent punked you out in detail. The game being all of two weeks old as of this writing, I still don’t have a feel for how the user-created maps function. One of my favorite aspects of Starcraft 1 was the custom maps with custom rules and gimmicks, with certain maps renaming the units as Pokemon or West Coast rappers How they will fare on a more closely monitored, Activision-dictated server, I don’t know.
And the online game still serves the proper Starcraft experience, changing just enough to feel fresh. The new units seem pretty intriguing, from the giant Protoss mechs to the giant Terran mechs that sound like my favorite governor. And you can still click on each unit repeatedly to annoy them to great comedic effect. Certain Protoss units seem to excel in the field of being angered or flattered by your mouse.
The underlying message I’ve been trying to get across is that Starcraft 2 is not my style of game. It’s either too ridiculous for my tastes, or too smart for them. However, it still found some ways in which it forced itself to be my kind of game for a few weeks. Even if I’ll never make any kind of impact on that notorious Korean tournament scene, I was still hooked on the campaign for a long enough time to hamper both my social life and my progress playing through Okami(!) So while I’ll never figure out the secret to defending the dignity of my SCVs, I’ll at least submit myself to the upcoming Zerg and Protoss campaigns and see what crazy ideas Blizzard conjures up next.
Finally, if ever you think this is a dark age we live in, remember that we are in a time where a new Starcraft game and Civilization game are being released within the same year. To me, THAT is amazing.
4 stars
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