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jp's Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (PC)
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| [March 5, 2017 07:53:28 PM]
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I'm surprised by how little interest I had in getting the sequels. I'm not entirely sure why. On the one hand I wasn't too happy with the decision to make two more games for the rest of the story...but on the other, I'm feeling rather apathetic about the whole thing - like I didn't really care too much for the story and how it ended. I was really excited for the game when it came out, but now it just dropped off my radar entirely. Weird. I wonder if other people had the same reaction?
It also didn't help that I didn't like Battle.net at all, that recovering my password was a huge pain, and that overall I was mad about it requiring online to play at all.
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| [September 6, 2010 09:28:30 PM]
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While I have yet to finish the campaign, I decided to give the online multiplayer a spin. You can play 50 "practice" matches before you can get to the ranked ones. I figured that, given my experience with the campaign and the original I could skip that. Also 50 matches seemed like A LOT of time. If you figure a match lasting 30 minutes on average, that's 25 hours of practice only. Way too much for me. Once I'd skipped the practice ones, I had to play 5 placement matches (used to determine your skill). I won the first 3, then lost the last two. Not bad, I though! Since then I've played 6 more games, or so, and lost them all. Some by a landslide (unable to survive the first rush). This has been extremely frustrating. I know I'm no Starcraft wizard (by a long shot), but playing these games online has been the opposite of fun. I though the matchmaking would be better than that! Perhaps I haven't lost enough games yet to hit rock bottom?
This actually reminds me that what I most enjoyed about the game was playing with friends (against, in teams, or co-op) and that the online (mostly anonymous) games were generally annoying. Sure, you're playing against another person, but the games are largely impersonal. There's no way (AFAIK) to make friends while playing and I get the sense that most people aren't interested in that either.
Sigh.
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| [September 3, 2010 05:19:01 PM]
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I just learned that there are different retail versions of this game. VERY different retail versions. The standard retail version of the game retails (in Chile) for roughly the equivalent of US$30. However, it only comes with a 6-month licence, so after that time is up you have to purchase more time to play or pay to upgrade to the unlimited licence version.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it sounds like a great idea since you have a cheaper price. People could play the game finish it, and be done in less than months...However, the idea that Blizzard can lock you out at any time is troublesome. I only installed Steam because you could play your games offline. This doesn't seem to be the case with Starcraft 2, and that bugs me.
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| [September 1, 2010 11:59:36 AM]
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I'm about 2/3rds through the campaign and I'm still impressed. What's surprised me the most, so far, is how rich and relevant the game's interface is outside of the game. Well, outside of the missions, but inside the campaign. The main character is Jim Raynor (from Starcraft) and everything revolves around his flagship. There are different fixed locations which serve as the menus from which you can choose the next mission you want to face, purchase upgrades for your units, research new upgrades, and so on. Generally speaking, it's quite simple, it looks good and is easily understandable. However, my experience using it highlights what I feel are its greater achievement: getting me interested in the story.
After all those hours playing Starcraft, I don't think I really understood/remembered the (major) plot points of the game until Starcraft 2's install sequence reminded me (great idea, by the way). I've been thinking about that..why can't I remember anything about the original game's story? I do remember what happened to Kerrigan, but not much else. There simply weren't that many places to pick up on the narrative. Mission briefings and so on and the (for then) gloriously pre-rendered cut-scenes. There weren't that many of them and now that I think about it they served mostly as rewards. At least that's how they felt to me...meet a certain objective or reach an important part of the story and boom!, awesome cut-scene.
This time around, not only are there many more cut-scenes (some pre-rendered and others not), but the menus themselves contain more tid-bits of information that provide more context. There are characters you can talk to (for no reason other than to hear what they have to say), things you can click on (watch TV news broadcasts) and places you can look at. Sure, there isn't THAT much detail or stuff going on, but just looking out for the changes is novel. All the short little conversations with the characters add up and provide greater depth of character, narrative context, and also some sense of incentive and reward. I genuinely wonder when I'll get some new thing to click on in the ship.
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| [August 25, 2010 09:21:04 PM]
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Wow, wow, wow! I can see why it's taken them so long to work on the sequel. There is simply SO much there! Missions, cut-scenes, options, more options, even more options! After playing a few missions I have to say that the game feels incredibly comfortable. I'm slowly remembering most of the hot keys and commands and I'm enjoying the (relatively) slow pace the game has in bringing back all the units (and there are a few new ones as well).
The annoying bits? Well, the game hasn't been out that long, but three patches already? Seriously? It took about an hour to install (from the CD) and then I had to wait even more for the patches... Also, having to online is rather annoying especially when Battle.net crapped out in the middle of a mission (you can continue to play, but something about the achievements stops working). I then couldn't log back on until, wait for it, I had just sent a message to Blizzard from their website. Sigh.
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jp's Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 25 August, 2010
GameLog closed on: Sunday 5 March, 2017 |
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