The game that many gamers have been awaiting for a long time now has finally entered closed beta. I know that I personally have been waiting for this event in time to happen for close to a year now. You see back in the year 2008 a friend and I went to Blizzcon and received our gift cards with a polar bear mount and a beta key. Well as was announced the Beta Key was for StarCraft 2, which had both me and my friend excited as we spent many an hours playing StarCraft and Brood Wars back in the day. We entered our keys as soon as we could (March 2009) and then waited. Waited for almost a year, till the 17th of February rolled around and in our email inbox were our keys.
We’ve both played SC2 already, at Blizzcon 2007 and 2008 but only in small tastes so we were looking for a bigger bite and more in-depth game play than the short play sessions we got at Blizzcon. Unfortunately, I a lot has changed since I have gone to Blizzcon and have actually been able to play the SC2 beta which has limited my play time. So what you will be reading below is based off of a limited amount of game play and should be considered as such.
To begin with the game play in SC2 is very similar to that of the original, which is simple. There is a very finite number of different building choices to make, and a limited number of buildings that can be made. With that said a good number of buildings and units have remained the same, while the rest have been replaced with new units.
While I’ve met a few people who say this feels just like the original re-skinned and while I see where they are coming from I disagree. First of all, the only thing anyone has access to currently is multi-player, so we have no idea how the story line will progress from where it was left off in the original. Secondly, sequels can not go far off of the original because if they do, then they are really no longer a sequel if they share nothing in common with the original. Now most of all Blizzard has made a lot of enhancements under the hood besides just making everything look prettier.
A few things that stand out to me is obviously the ability to zoom into the battle field. You are defaulted to the same old eagle eye view but now you have the ability to zoom in and get down and dirty up close and personal with the units. Another thing that has been noticed that you can select more units now. I’m not sure what the cap is on the number of Units you can have selected at once, not sure I care if I can’t reach it. No more are the old days of creating multiple groups because you couldn’t put all the units into one.
Finally the bread and butter of SC2 is Battle.Net. The match making system is incredible and does a good job at putting you up against opponents that will present a good game for you and them. Unfortunately, in beta it seems that you have the possibility of going up against the same opponents multiple times in a row, which can suck if they just curb stomp you. The reply option is useful for anyone who cares enough to go back through their games that they lost and see what they did wrong, or just wants to go back through games they won and see their pwnage. Both me and my friend have learned a lot off of watching opponents in replay mode, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the game.
That’s it for now, I will be writing up more posts on tips and tricks at Noobian Institute in the near future, I will reserve this space for personal thoughts and opinions.
It is already rolling
. Good game, mostly for its community.