Here we have the eagerly awaited Starcraft 2 which has been in development for the last decade.. Was it worth the wait? Well let me tell you. First off, there is one thing that struck me, being in development for the past decade, which could only mean one thing, the gameplay is a decade old? So surely Starcraft 2 shouldn’t be that good? But it is good, very good, mind blowingly fantastic!! The gameplay may be a decade old but its been tuned to finely to a razor sharp point then being wrapped in an absorbing storyline and an exceptional campaign mode.
The experience starts from the very second you start installing the game. With twelve years having passed since the original was released, some younger players won’t have a clue what’s gone before in this game’s universe, so we’re treated to a plot-re-cap as the progress bar teases its way forwards. It’s needed too, as the StarCraft universe is seriously ambitious in its plot and storyline. Rebels, two alien races, emperors, billions of casualties, love, loyalty, loss and betrayal – and that’s before the game’s even installed.
Downtime is spent between four areas of the ship, conversing with the crew in a point and click style, buying upgrades for units, researching new technologies, hiring mercenaries, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd cover bands on the bar’s jukebox, watching the “fair and balanced” news or even playing on the bar’s excellent shoot-‘em-up mini game, Lost Viking. It all subtly deepens your involvement in the game world and means that StarCraft 2 rarely suffers from plot update overload or the feeling of mission to mission grind. There’s always something new to see or hear and some of the game’s best and funniest dialogue can be found on the decks of the ship or around the Cantina bar.
The upgrade pathways aboard the ship are also a nice touch, allowing you to customise and improve your units to better suit your style of play. Unit and structure upgrades can be found in the armoury and vary from adding armour or aiding healing to increasing unit speed or range. Changes made in the ship’s research lab are much more radical, allowing you to instantly deploy buildings or auto heal all your vehicles, but at the cost of permanently locking out an alternative upgrade. The supply of research materials and cash is well weighted as you advance through the game, and you’ll often have to choose and compromise over what to pimp out, and what to leave standard.
The gentle increase in research and technology mirrors StarCraft 2’s immaculate learning curve, which has been shaped to introduce new units and structures mission by mission, while not frustrating more experienced players. There’s an extensive tutorial session and tool tips throughout, but the mission structure is more than sufficient, combining early hand holding with plenty of run before you walk moments to keep things exciting.
The multiplayer experience will, as with all strategy games depend very much on your patience and whether you’ve got the will to learn all three race’s tech trees, but Blizzard has done as much as possible to ease new players in. From what we’ve seen of it so far the new and improved Battle.net is great and there are already mods and user created maps like tower defence starting to appear, surely a positive sign for the future.
So yes, StarCraft 2 is forthrightly old school, but then with its adoring international following, it was never going to be a huge leap onwards from the original. Instead Blizzard has refined this aged recipe to its pinnacle, improving it as much as possible given the limits of the core mechanics. The result is a hugely accomplished, beautifully polished and deeply absorbing game that we’ve been hard pressed to tear our selves away from long enough to write this review.
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9/10
Words by Keir Symonds
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