StarCraft 2 Trashed by Gamers, Called Incomplete

I am loving it.

Absolutely a great game! Yes there are some things to complain about as stated above but i want be playing anything but SC2 for years!

What they also dont seem to realise is that the game was made with esports in mind from the ground up. They spent countless hours and resources on not only balancing but creating dynamic and entertaining matchups for spectators as well. Of its not like a modern rts.. Thats the point.. "Modern" rts's are watered down with emphasis on graphics over gameplay (a trend from fps) and unit control made easy. Sc2 has been designed to be more forgiving (than bw) while allowing for a high skill cap. Their whole philosophy has been "easy learn, hard to master", not "lets bombard users with flashy features". As for graphics, its in-line with starcraft, how it should be. Expecting sc2 to look like wic or cnc or whatever, is like saying street fighter 4 should look like soul caliber 4.. It just doesn't work. One last point, its made as a game for veteran and would-be veteran gamers.. Not your everyday bling-seeking adhd casual gamers.

What they also dont seem to realise is that the game was made with esports in mind from the ground up. They spent countless hours and resources on not only balancing but creating dynamic and entertaining matchups for spectators as well. Of its not like a modern rts.. Thats the point.. "Modern" rts's are watered down with emphasis on graphics over gameplay (a trend from fps) and unit control made easy. Sc2 has been designed to be more forgiving (than bw) while allowing for a high skill cap. Their whole philosophy has been "easy learn, hard to master", not "lets bombard users with flashy features". As for graphics, its in-line with starcraft, how it should be. Expecting sc2 to look like wic or cnc or whatever, is like saying street fighter 4 should look like soul caliber 4.. It just doesn't work. One last point, its made as a game for veteran and would-be veteran gamers.. Not your everyday bling-seeking adhd casual gamers.

It's nowhere near as good as I was hoping or expecting.

The single player missions are fun, but you only play through those once, and frankly, that's not this game's appeal.

Apart from prettier graphics and a few more units, you could easily be playing Starcraft 1.

-10 for effort and innovation Blizz - lets hops you do better with Diablo III and WoW:Cat, or even your fanbois will start to complain.

"Currently Blizzard has a review embargo in place for those of us in the press."

The game has been released - how can they stop you reporting on it?

Get some balls people, sheesh!

It is still a good game! The best RTS this year!

Here's some valid points:

-The graphic engine is outstanding it gives better graphics while maintaining the familiar feel (I wanna play Starcraft not some other game, so it HAS to look a lot like SC1 got it? Turn it to ultra on a 4v4 and you will soon notice your machine will DIE and your GPU will probably go back to warranty!)

-Not the Full Game? 29 missions + awesome intermission content. Would you have liked all 3 races and 10 missions each? Do you call that complete? (I'd rather have 3 very large installments then 1 with very short missions). You are not a play all missions on your first run and the game's re-playability is outstanding everytime you chose a new mission order you are presented with different units to complete the task. You need at least 2 runs to complete all missions. And then there is achievements try finishing those.

-Activation requires internet and that's just to enter the key into your battle.net account that holds all your games so you can digitally download it from anywhere. The game can be played in Offline mode thereafter, what are you talking about.

-No LAN support, blizzard said they will patch it for special events like tournaments,u have a poor internet? If you can afford 60 buck's for Starcraft II you should afford better internet too. You at the end of the world? Blizzard is not responsible for every country's infrastructure. You in Afganistan? Maybe you should focus on not killing innocent people(Wikileak's Collateral Murder Video!!) then playing Stacraft 2, mind you your at freakin war not in a internet cafe. We'll soon hear "Astronauts complain they can't play Starcraft 2 on the moon due to poor internet connection" - Aren't you suppose to be doing something there?

I've been running 4v4 on ultra in an old 8800GT SLI setup without any issues, doesn't drop below 60fps.

As for game-play, SP is fine but MP is to limited because they remove most of the units. You end up with army's of only one unit due to it being the only 'Big' unit you can build.

Don't worry with time you will learn how to use more units.

U got 2 cards! See what i mean?

First of all: I like the campaign and it is fun on multiplayer.

Said that the graphics are a bit disappointing. On one side is is playable on normal laptops on the other hand my desktop gets bored. I understand that Blizzard wants it to run on as many machines as possible, but it should be more scalable (WC3 looking on low spec, amazing on high spec).

Constant internet connection might be not a problem for me, but the absence of LAN support is really bad. I guess Diablo 3 will miss this feature as well (boo!).

I can't believe there is no Protoss or Zerg campaign included. I mean I would pay 10 pounds for each as downloadable content, but I guess Bli$$ard wants more.

Just a question from a non-pro player: are the achievements realistic (possible to achieve in a lifetime? 1000 won games in MP?

You are being matched with players equal to your level for a pro player that has a lot of time it might take 1-2 months to get most achievements and 3-4 to get all. A casual will take a while but they are all achievable in time its not supposed to be done instantly. The matching will place you so you get as close to 50-50 win ratio as possible. So you should be playing 2000 matches to have the 1000 wins.
No LAN is a bit of a downer but i can see this change after some time. Or NOT considering how Activision is greedy for money.

Blizzard have always focused on gameplay over graphics. The game still looks damn good but they have proved with World of warcraft that gameplay > *. Theres games with far better graphics out there than WoW yet it continues to trump every MMoRPG on the market without breaking a sweat. I'm willing to bet a large part of those complaining about the graphics are those who miss old school games because of their playability even with crap (by modern standards graphics). Blizzard also designed the game so it can be easily run on older equipment not forcing people to upgrade (unlike other RTS franchises we can mention).

As for an incomplete game..... what would you rather a larger game that came out a year or two later, or the ability to play the core game now and bring in addons later. You also forget that if you had the additional content in one set it would cost more than the price your already griping at.

As for the campaign willing to bet those saying it isn't big enough haven't completed it, got the achievements and done all the missions on a high difficulty. The replay value of this game makes other RTS's look positively short.

And dingmatt I suggest you watch some of the gameplay casts from day(9) and watch how the pro's play. You have much to learn about MP

The game is an addon to World of Warcraft (in a good way).
Spend a couple of days enjoying the single player campaign, exploring all the maps and features. Then play a few online matches before heading back over to WoW to continue your high level progression.

Whilst your waiting for a raid to start or just want a break from WoW you can jump back over to starcraft for a match or two.

To me, this game represents something I can go back to once or twice a day.

I played the original but I will wait for the price to go down on this and maybe after at least one of the expansion packs get released.

Bottom line: I liked it.

A few quirks to be noted, for those that not played it:

Even the naming convention on Bnet suggest there will be Episodes Two, Three...
As for the Campaign system between battles, they copied Steam and Valve principles all the way. Now you carry something from each battle, you get achievements, either plain money or some research on each species. It has Valve written all over it! Valve almost deserves royalties for these features. I liked it, nonetheless.

I expected the engine to be the same of Warcraft III.
Even the mercenaries system is so similar. That isn´t always a bad thing, Valve twisted, cut, pasted, stretched and torched away Half Life 2 engine to make Left4Dead, and Left4Dead 2, which turned out to be great games on their own. Again, Blizzard followed.
Some hardcore fans were building a rogue SC2 by twisting Warcraft III mapmaker and modding it, even without a suitable SDK (a while ago). It looks like Blizzard just beat them to it.

As for the obscene lack of LAN support, they wanted to release a game with a low price tag, and fast, so they could sell more. Here (Brasil) it costs some US$25 dollars-equivalent currency (50R$ BRL), not US$60. Gamers on a tight budget, with 5 year old machines could afford it from the get-go.
The original Starcraft was released for R$89, nearly twice as much. Only after it sold thousands, they droped the price tag to $30 (which means 15 dollars).

I had to go through leaps and bounds in order to get the original English version of the game. Here I would have bought from a store, with all the translated content. Given SC1 had a very poor job in translation effort, I was not taking any chances. Along all purchasing process, there were warnings about connectivity (and lag) if I intended to buy the EU version of it. Caveat emptor, indeed. If you are connecting from irakistan, you are bound to suffer net problems.

Now, they should release the sequel as FREE Episodes. But, as before, the sequels will be paid as well, I bet.

Very true, I wouldn't stand a chance. Though it still doesn't have the unit variety of say supreme commander.

Honestly it feels like MP has only been designed for pro league play and not for the casual gamer.

BTW in the UK its selling for $76 in most stores and $124 for the collectors edition.

What the hell is a "review embargo"?? In western democracies the right to professional critique of any product is enshrined in law!

The idea that there can be a review embargo on a game that is actively on retail sale is ludicrous (and should be a major warning to all potential purchasers) I remember there used to be a similar situation a decade ago in Japan that unless the magazine was giving a positive review they were not allowed to print it.

As for it being an incomplete game SADLY that seems to be coming the norm for games these days especially with publishers like Activision (though not solely down to them)the premise of selling you a game at full retail price then charging you later extra money to have content unlocked or added to make the purchase worthwile has greedy execs running to the bathroom to grab some tissue to wipe themselves.

Blizzard are notorious for squeezing every possible penny they can out of a release, you only have to look at the way WoW is run to see that, changing your characters alignment for a few bucks here and there (Sorry I thought people paid to play the game how they wanted, but hey if you can charge for it and people are stupid enough to pay for what they should be entitled to any way why not)and so it is no surprise it is "incomplete" if it was complete then it would be difficult to screw you over for more money

But hey people carry on justifying a company giving you less and less and charging you more and more, carry on soon you will be able to sign you house over to them to ensure your first inline for their next paltry installment. I loved the CoD franchise, they were a great blast and a good way to let of steam, I loved the MP environment and the clan we built around the game, the friendships etc. Once Activision changed the format so they could control what we do, so they can screw us over for a few insignificant maps I stopped buying the series, I refused to buy MW2 (and still do) even though I know I would probably still love the single player side of it (they really messed up MP)I wont pirate it either. But that's just me I wont be bullied or dictated to or told how to live my life, play my games etc etc

You people really need to look at the fact that to Activision (Blizzard)you are NOT a loyal customer, you ARE a cash cow that needs to be milked as much a possible, while you live in fanboism world they will just keep laughing at you

I'm buying it because the dawn of war games are the only RTS I bought since command and conquer 1... I have avoided all other games with tortuous install/sign up routines or limited activations and continue to do so.

I've bought a heck of a lot of games since 1983 and the hoops that companies are making me jump through to play my own legit purchases are really putting me off the whole industry. The DOW2 install debacle was beyond belief, it was nearly two days before I could get all the account signups and activations to go through.

Really I can only take so much of this before I will just quit buying and replay my catalog. System Shock 2 with some user created mods still beats the pants off 95% of games released today imo.

Sorry I call that statement nonsense. RTS is NOT about click per second and reflex action. ironically, that belongs to the FPS genre that you so freely dish. Modern strategy, however, offer much more diversity in unit design and its design philosophy (and not allows on the so called sissor paper stone basis), its easing of the redundant and unnecessary element of the game play, inclusion of important features such as zooming, realistic portrayal of unit sizes, moving and attacking, building queue, cover system, deformable terrain, unit experience and veterancy and so much more that adds to the depth and strategic decision possible in the game. In SC2, although something has been improve, it is still predominantly about the best build queue for each race and how quick you can produce and mass a unit and send them to either a suicide mission or to successfully crush the enemy. Deep strategy? Perhaps for you, but not for me.

Just two things :

Lucky you! over here in asia, it sells for US$80! US140 for the collector version. So much for wanting to make a game with low price tag ... haha. Please look at this link.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/35299/Ko [...] en-further

In case you are not aware, that is the CEO of the Activision/Blizzard speaking.

Secondly, just wants to state that lack of LAN is NOT because of wanting to have a low cost game (although saying low cost again nearly make me crackle).

Check this out http://www.gossipgamers.com/starcr [...] y-footage/
http://asia.gamespot.com/news/6212765.html

Mainly it is the so called monetizing of the Battle Net and to get all traffic through their portal so that ... they can cultivate better community spirit . Basically no LAN so that they can force you to use Battle Net. For what purpose .... make your own decision.

[citation][nom]GoneMad[/nom]B As for the obscene lack of LAN support, they wanted to release a game with a low price tag, and fast, so they could sell more. Here (Brasil) it costs some US$25 dollars-equivalent currency (50R$ BRL), not US$60. Gamers on a tight budget, with 5 year old machines could afford it from the get-go.The original Starcraft was released for R$89, nearly twice as much. Only after it sold thousands, they droped the price tag to $30 (which means 15 dollars).I had to go through leaps and bounds in order to get the original English version of the game. Here I would have bought from a store, with all the translated content. Given SC1 had a very poor job in translation effort, I was not taking any chances.