So last week I wrote this about my thoughts on the new Starcraft II game.

So anyways, I was at the Pacific Place mall in Downtown Seattle on Saturday and as I walked by the Gamestop in the bottom of the mall I was overtaken by an urge. Before I knew it I was 59.99 + tax poorer and a new owner of a copy of Starcraft II:Wings of Liberty.

I know, I know all the crap I said in that last entry was so anti-Starcraft II but I saw the sign and it had me feeling all nostalgic and I just couldn’t resist. and OMFG the game is AMAZING. This is one impulse buy that I am totally not regretting. I am, however, regretting the lack of sleep trying to get everything done while spending 8 hours a day playing Starcraft while working on this website and doing schoolwork.

Back to the game, Starcraft II heavily emphasizes the story and it is very in depth. 22 missions with full videos after every mission plus deep back stories for most of the characters. I can really see why the game is so expensive and it is worth the money. I will definitely be getting the other two games, or are they expansion packs, when they come out.

As you would have read in that previous entry I am all about the stories! this game was like watching a 20 hour movie it was GREAT!! if I had to rate it I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5. The other day the my comcast internet went out and since Starcraft II requires an internet connection I was screwed. It’s also really annoying when the game constantly pops up with this warning in the lower left corner about connecting to battlenet and turning achievements back on. The worst is when it temporarily loses connection while you are playing. This huge window pops up in the middle of the screen and the game doesn’t stop! Eh, there’s always something…

Oh I almost forgot! Lost Viking is one of the “secrets” of the game I guess. It is pretty easy to find in the corner of the Cantina. It is one of the best top down shooters I have ever played. I wish they had made more levels for it. Basically you play the game, it has three levels, every time you play the game you get the option of starting over at a harder difficulty.  I have only been able to beat the game once. The second time I got b****ed on the third level. No worries if you beat the game and then leave the arcade machine and start over, it repeats at the original difficulty. In my humble opinion the addition of Lost viking is worth an additional 20 dollars at least. In fact, if Blizzard decided to sell this separately with a few more levels added in I wouldn’t think twice about buying it. It is a surprisingly finished product for a secret game within a game.

But anyways, definitely get the game, ignore that other blog entry of mine. Peace out ya’ll.

EDIT:

It seems that I neglected to mention my favorite and least favorite part of the game in this entry. I really LOVE the Lost Viking easter egg in Starcraft 2 I spent hours playing it haha. I even got a bronze achievement for it, yes I know hours to get bronze, I suck. But really it is a treat.

But the most annoying thing is that once you beat the campaign you are instantly punished because you can no longer go back and play lost viking, it’s like after you complete the campaign the Hyperion is gone for good along with the wonderful Lost Viking Arcade machine. So so sad…. luckily I have a save game right before media blitz! haha.

Oh for those of you none Starcraft 2 owners, Media Blitz is the level right before the last 4 missions on Char. No more opportunities to get back to the ship once you land on Char my friends.

so as my all caps title says, Starcraft II is out today. I have such fond memories back in 1998 playing Starcraft when it first came out. in fact sometimes I will just randomly say “This is Jimmy” like Jim Raynor used to say whenever I clicked on him. I wonder if there will be 15 year olds spending hours clicking on units over and over again to hear all the different responses that Blizzard has programmed in. Who knows maybe they don’t even have that feature anymore.

But of course my favorite thing about starcraft was “power overwhelming”, yes the invincibility cheat code haha. I am horrible at strategy games so on every single level I would jump in and type “power overwhelming”, “black sheep wall”, “show me the money” (this one I would type multiple times over every level), and “operation cwal”. These cheat codes gave me invincibility, the ability to see the entire map, 10,000 gas and minerals, and super fast building speed respectively. For some reason I could just never master quick resource gathering and nothing annoys me more than “not enough minerals.” In my defense I am only horrible at strategy games because I don’t like to think too hard during recreation, I just play the game and enjoy the story, cheat codes allow me to do this in a stress free manner so I use them.

Ah to be young, I wish I could go back to 1998 and play Starcraft on my friends Pentium 100 Mhz computer. Yes that’s right JUST Pentium no II, or III, or 4, and yes I meant Mhz not Ghz. We would sit there using starcraft as a ghetto benchmarking tool by counting the number of times the loading text would blink while the game was starting up. Man I thought I was so bad ass when it only blinked 3 times on my Dual Pentium III 600 Mhz machine. Of course now my computer (AMD phenom II X2 550 Black Edition, with 4 gigs ram and ati HD 5770) is so fast, there isn’t even an opportunity for the loading text to blink haha. Oh my, those were the days!

Now I am thinking about whether or not to buy Starcraft II. I am not a serious gamer in any  way shape or form but I feel like I want to go pick it up just so I can feel like it is 1998 again with my new Starcraft game. We shall see… I will decide by the end of the day.

But before I leave you, time for the gripes!!

1. dude wtf! they announced this thing like 3 years ago! I forgot about that, this makes the wait for Android Froyo (2.2) seem like a cakewalk. Blizzard needs to learn how to announce things when the release date is near. Sheez.
2. why has it taken so long since the first Starcraft!? 12 years since Starcraft and 11 years since Brood War. Jesus that is ridiculous. Blizzard has been missing out on some serious opportunities here while they were focusing on WoW. I feel as though if they made an SC2 earlier it would have been insanely profitable. The masses still play Starcraft right now and it is twelve years old! Blizzard should have found a way to capitalize on this market earlier. If they weren’t going to design a game from the ground up they should have at least shown some love to the fans with a few cheapo expansion packs or something. I would have bought them.
3. WTF, why are they splitting it up into three games? 3 god damn years since announcing it and god knows how long before the announcement wasn’t long enough to put a full game together? I think it was enough time and this is a blatant ploy to charge 59.99 x 3 instead of just once. But who knows, I may be updating this to say “wow this is like an entire Terran game” after I try it.

So anyways, it’s time for me to go. later dudes.

update [7/27/10 – 10:00pm]:

so I decided to not buy Starcraft II. First since I will be selling my PC very soon I don’t think it would be a good move to buy it and then be unable to play it. I will be moving from my Phenom II down to an Asus Eee PC 1005HA as soon as my summer school at Seattle University is over on August 14th. So if you would like to buy a powerhouse machine with an 80 gig raptor drive, a 750 gig seagate drive, a phenom II X2 550, 4 gigs ram, an ATI HD 5770, and a WEI of 5.9 let me know! So anyways there’s that reason.

Another reason is that considering how the game, or should I say, gameS are structured the price is INSANELY high. This first game is $59.99 and that is for 1/3rd of the game which really means 1/3rd storyline. You can still play as Zerg and Protoss but their campaigns are not included in this first game, Wings of Liberty. I have read on the internets that there will be two more games, one for the Zerg and one for the Protoss. I think it is safe to assume that these games will be just as pricey. This would suggest a $180 price tag for the complete game. I totally disagree with that pricing, and I can’t afford it! I have to continue paying for this non-profitable blog, I can’t be buying $180 dollar games!

The last reason is that I am now philosophically opposed to some of the “features” of the game. Since I posted earlier I have had a chance to do some more thorough research on the game and here are some new reasons why I will not be spending on it. They have taken some ridiculous safety precautions to stop piracy even though it is completely impossible to do that and some other things, here is a list of what I can remember:

1. The availability of premium units for purchase, I mean purchase with real world money not Minerals and Vespene Gas.
2. The activation over the internet requirement, which was an annoying part of Red Alert 3 as well, another part of this is that the game periodically re-activates so an internet connection is required. The main reason why I am so against this is because they spend so much resources developing these anti-piracy and if you look on piratebay or torrentreactor you can already download and play Starcraft II for free. So obviously it is not stopping the piracy and on top of that it is inconveniencing the customer. So to sum up you have an ineffectual intellectual property protection measure that is negatively affecting the customer’s experience of the game. And in my case it is even on of the things stopping me from buying the game.
3. Internet Connection is one of the system requirements
4. if you want to play offline you are forced to play the game as a guest. A guest on your own computer which is running Blizzards software which you PURCHASED. Furthermore you cannot sync your local guest account with you Battle.Net account so once you play offline you are pretty much gonna stay offline
5. As mentioned earlier the SUPER high price (this one I am not sure about, perhaps the movie content makes it worthwhile, or maybe the next two games will be cheaper?)
6. removal of LAN play
7. omission of spawn feature, but this makes sense when coupled with the removal of LAN play.

To be honest I am severely pissed off about this stuff because I am looking at the trailers for the game with the in-game movie previews and jesus it looks absolutely positively BAD ASS. But I just can’t get myself to buy it. Perhaps I will wait until there is more information on the pricing of the next two games and then re-evaluate my decision. But for now I am thinking that I will wait 5 years until the game is 19.99 for all the campaigns.

So to answer the question posed in the title. No I am not excited.

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