Friday, May 6, 2016

STARCRAFT 2 – WINGS OF LIBERTY (PC)


After many months I finally found the time to finish Starcraft 2. As suspected, nothing revolutionary from the extremely successful original game, but quality content nonetheless. The gameplay remains the same – classic RTS with a superb balance – but they’ve added some new features:

  • A hub, mostly UI work, where you can interact with your crew and unlock new units / technology with the credits you obtain completing missions
  • Choices: At 3 times during the campaign you’re given the opportunity to choose among 2 possible strategies during the next main mission. At least the last one actually changes the gameplay during the final encounter

There are some other goodies – Play an arcade game, watch the TV news, check your new equipment’s specs – but they’re cosmetic. The core of the game is still the combat between the 3 races - with the addition of some new units - and it still works smoothly. I can only imagine the countless hours of playtesting and balancing they went through. Also each mission tries to offer a twist over the basic "destroy their base" approach, using plenty of level design tricks. You can genuinely say no mission is similar to another. which is very well appreciated

I also played some MP games but it’s just shameful, people there are super pros and the encounters are resolved within seconds in some cases. If you don’t have the basic skills to start up the ladder you’re going to have a hard time until you start being competitive / have fun

All in all, nothing you haven’t seen before, but great content if you like the IP or genre. It certainly works and the Korean professional players will be super-happy but I still kinda suspect the RTS genre is not showing much evolution. Who knows, maybe the expansions will offer something brand new?

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