Sorry about the delay in posting, my non existent readers. But I do return with an issue that I'd like to discuss. Starcraft II is a phenomenally fun game, Blizzard once again outdid themselves in terms of gameplay and storyline, but I have one small grievance with them in terms of the first episode of the three part series that is Starcraft II.
What the fuck did you do to the graphics?
Blizzard has been bragging on about their new, improved graphics since the sequel was announced, but it wasn't until I actually saw the game that I realized what they had done. What they had done, was in fact the main thing that they were told not to do by fans who were beta testing the original game. They originally intended to use a graphics style similar to the Warcraft series, which had more detailed, yet somewhat cartoony visuals.
After the numerous complaints that this type of graphic style didn't fit the darker style of Starcraft, Blizzard shrank down the graphics to smaller, less detailed versions, as well as changed the color pallets to include more dark and neutral tones. Now, we see that in order to "utilize more of the high end capabilities of modern PCs", they have reverted to their original art style. What we are left with is a bunch of cartoon Spartans from Halo taking the place of our Marines, and Zerg that are far too brightly colored for my personal taste.
I understand that things are different this time around. The Zerg have mysteriously vanished, and the Terrans are starting to rebuild their shattered colonies. Naturally we will see some different colored environments this time around, but I loved the small scale of the characters and vehicles. To make them bigger changes one of the biggest aspects of this game that separate it from it's Warcraft brethren.
Warcraft introduced the Hero class to modern RTS games, their ability to level up and learn whatever skills you wish them to. Such a degree of selective upgrading was unheard of at the time. That combined with their regenerative healing abilities made the Heroes largely unbalanced. To be able to complete a map with nothing but a Hero really speaks to the unbalanced nature of the idea.
This was also fixed in Starcraft. It's a cold hard world in the depths of space, and the fact that Hero characters didn't have an amazing assortment of abilities in addition to the fact that they weren't magically restored to full health over time made you admire the sparse bonuses in strength that you got. It really made the Heroes feel heroic, rather than godly.
This relates to my original point. Starcraft was, on the whole, much more challenging then Warcraft. So the smaller troop size and larger view of the map really made devising attack plans and tactically moving towards your enemy made flanking and sneak attacks much easier to coordinate. You could send a squad of Marines in to draw enemies away from a base, sneak in with a Ghost to nuke the area between an enemy's main building and where it's gatherers mined minerals, and pick off any stragglers without moving your focus from their base. I personally have used this divert, nuke, rush strategy numerous times in both campaigns and online and it works more often than not.
Now, I can barely fit two full squads of units on the screen, even at high-end resolutions. And while it certainly looks prettier than it's predecessor, It lacks the dark origins of the series' style in both art and gameplay. So while it is still a fantastic game and well worth spending the money to buy, it is in my opinion lacking some of the key stylings of the original.
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