Starcraft II Demo

[Knavery]

Achievements aside, SCII is one of the most balanced RTSs around. If you're into a specific period like WWII, I'd definitely go with Company of Heroes. But if you're into the SC universe, you really can't go wrong here. Like I said before, I'd cancelled my pre-order and asked for my money back. Then I later bought the game, which was a lot of fun. I really suck at RTS games, but for some reason, it works. It's not all about pumping out the most tanks like C&C Red Alert years ago. You have to understand what units counteract other units. You also have to understand certain strategies such as where to place your buildings. It's not a brainless game. However, in MP, it can boil down to how fast you click the mouse, but you are placed in a league close to your level. You can even play a number of games where you'll be placed in the appropriate category.

Don't focus too much on achievements. Those are for self gratification or bragging rights for others, but they are still fun to try and achieve. If you like the game, you'll try to shoot for them. If you want to rush through the campaign and never play the game again, then you should pass on this title.

[GaryChildress]

It's taken me 2 days to DL this ridiculously huge game!! Then it took 20 minutes just to install. Now it's mandatory patching, another 20 minutes. This is ridiculous!! God I'm pissed right now. They could at least patch their DL to the latest patch if it's going to take this long! [:@]

EDIT: Now of course the DL is stuck on 4.1 MBs to go and has stopped DLing completely! [:@]

I guess since they have my money now, to hell with service. [:@]

[Lützow]

Took me two hours to get bored to tears.

[GaryChildress]

The same thing happened with Company of Heroes. I go to play the game and the very first thing it does is DL patches for over an hour while I wait staring at the screen. God that pisses me off! If I want to patch the stupid thing I will at my own leisure. Let me at least play the game a little while I wait for the stupid crap to DL. [:@]

[DuckofTindalos]

Speaking of StarCraft II, I got a suspicious-looking e-mail today, supposedly from Blizzard. It thanked me for "being an early supporter of SC II" and informed me that because of this "support", my battlenet account had been "upgraded" to download a free 30-day version of World of Warcraft.

All I had to do was click on a link in the e-mail.

Yeah. Sure. I'll go right ahead and do that.

Even if I WANTED to play World of Warcrap, which I don't, there's not enough free playing time in the world to make me click on a link in an e-mail.

[GaryChildress]

OK. It's been a long agonizing day at work. I came home hoping to blow off some steam and play a new game. Doesn't look like it's going to happen. It's been over 20 minutes installing the game and over 1 hour DLing stupid updates one after the other! Just when I think it's done with the updates it starts on a new one! No kidding, I've been through at least 6 DL files now! I'm just about on my last nerve and ready to start sending hate mail to Blizzard.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Are they deliberately trying to piss me off????? Why would any idiot company do things this way? I just want to play a stupid game. I don't want to spend 2 hours staring at a DL screen! I can DL an update while I play or something. [:@]

EDIT: AND!!! To cap things off... I tried to go to the Blizzard website to post a complaint and it says I can't post without a game avatar or something and I have to play the game in order to get this stupid avatar. I can't get a stupid avatar until the stupid game finishes updating.

I think I'm just going to go back to work tonight where it's more relaxing!

[Obsolete]

Even if I WANTED to play World of Warcrap, which I don't, there's not enough free playing time in the world to make me click on a link in an e-mail.

Ohh come now.... those e-mails from Nigeria have always turned out to be 100% legit. Stop being paranoid just because something is on the internet!

[Lützow]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

OK. It's been a long agonizing day at work. I came home hoping to blow off some steam and play a new game. Doesn't look like it's going to happen. It's been over 20 minutes installing the game and over 1 hour DLing stupid updates one after the other! Just when I think it's done with the updates it starts on a new one! No kidding, I've been through at least 6 DL files now! I'm just about on my last nerve and ready to start sending hate mail to Blizzard.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Are they deliberately trying to piss me off????? Why would any idiot company do things this way? I just want to play a stupid game. I don't want to spend 2 hours staring at a DL screen! I can DL an update while I play or something. [:@]

EDIT: AND!!! To cap things off... I tried to go to the Blizzard website to post a complaint and it says I can't post without a game avatar or something and I have to play the game in order to get this stupid avatar. I can't get a stupid avatar until the stupid game finishes updating.

I think I'm just going to go back to work tonight where it's more relaxing!

See it from the bright side. I wasted 50 bucks for this crap as there was no demo available at release. Should have known better, but I enjoyed the original Starcraft back then.

There are mandatory patches because SC II is primarily considered as an e-sport game. Blizzard wants to make sure that everybody plays the same version.

[diablo1]

I'd say do yourself a favor OP and get Mad Minutes 2nd Manassas or Norbsoft's Gettysburg:Scourge of War and have game(s) that you'll want to play years after. These rts clickfests never last. You play them through once and they are not much fun to play again an again. Just a thought. I wouldn't waste a penny on a mainstream rts game anymore except the Total War series.

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: diablo1

I'd say do yourself a favor OP and get Mad Minutes 2nd Manassas or Norbsoft's Gettysburg:Scourge of War and have game(s) that you'll want to play years after. These rts clickfests never last. You play them through once and they are not much fun to play again an again. Just a thought. I wouldn't waste a penny on a mainstream rts game anymore except the Total War series.

I don't know about that. I've been playing Warcraft 2 for over 15 years now and I still love that game. WC 3 did not hold my interest though.

[GaryChildress]

Well I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the campaign so far. Basically almost every mission I've come across so far has been timed in one way or another. Basically the key is to think fast and click fast. Not much time for laying out intricate strategies of any kind. Not enough time to lay traps or stage defenses. There also seems to be a lot of scripting in some of the missions to make you follow the chosen sequence of events. Basically a figure pops on the screen and says, blow this thing up. So you blow it up. Then you come to the next stage and it says blow this up and you just follow what the onscreen directions say half the time. To me there isn't a lot of strategy in that. Oddly enough there don't appear to be a lot of base building missions where you build your base and try to destroy the AI's base. I guess it's nice to depart from that once in a while but it seems to have taken a radical departure in SC2.

[Obsolete]

Not much time for laying out intricate strategies of any kind.

One big reason I don't really do RTS, and why turn-based games will never die.

[Knavery]

Hey Gary,
I'm sorry you dislike it. It's one of my favorite RTS gmaes out there. I gotta say though that the older I get, the slower I am with the mouse. Like Obsolete said, turn-based games will never die. But if you're looking for base-building missions, try a skirmish against the computer. The nice thing with that is you can play as any race.

[GaryChildress]

Great, just launched the game and yet another patch is in progress. And these are some of the invaluable changes they've made to this patch. I still don't understand why I am being forced to update my game when I really don't care if stimpack research time is increased from 140 to 170 seconds.

Units ordered to load into a transport now follow the transport if the transport fills up and they have no other orders.
TERRAN
Battlecruiser
Movement speed increased from 1.406 to 1.875.
Bunker
Build time increased from 35 to 40 seconds.
Ghost
EMP now drains up to 100 energy instead of all available energy. The effect on Protoss shields remains unchanged.
Tech Lab
Stimpack upgrade research time increased from 140 to 170 seconds.

Apparently these changes are mandatory because your game won't launch without incorporating them. So I guess the build time for my bunkers is going to be lengthened whether I like it or not. And of course I've always wanted to have units ordered into an overloaded transport follow the transport on the ground. Gee thanks Blizzard. [8|]

[Obsolete]

I still don't understand why I am being forced to update my game when I really don't care if stimpack research time is increased from 140 to 170 seconds.

Usually because some self-proclaimed expert always leaves his base open to a rush by someone using that strategy, and instead of countering it, it makes him feel better to tout his horn at blizzard with a petition on why 140s breaks the game and how useless it is to play it anymore until it is fixed.