Genre: Real Time Strategy
Year: 2010
Developed by: Blizzard Entertainment
Published by: Blizzard Entertainment
Platforms: PC, macOS
#6
Feeling Like: Hell…it’s about damn time!
Another entry where I’m sort of cheating. StarCraft 2 is a culmination of three separate releases: Wings of Liberty for the Terrans, Heart of the Swarm featuring the Zerg, and Legacy of the Void starring the Protoss. I don’t know if they count as different games, but since I’m Dictator-for-Life on the 500, I make all the decisions around here. Therefore, I am merging all three into one game: StarCraft 2. Hey, it’s not as if you have to load a different program to access all the content – it’s all here, in one of the most bang-for-your-buck packages in gaming history. The amount of things to do, the drastic improvements over the original (which was already legendary) and the trademark flair that comes with Blizzard cut-scenes make StarCraft 2 an easy candidate for the best game I’ve ever played. It just barely misses the Top 5, but I’m not really sure why.
Twelve years is a long time, for anything. The gap between the Brood War expansion for StarCraft and the release of Wings of Liberty was so long that I think StarCraft had exited the zeitgeist as the go-to, coolest franchise on the market. The announcement of a sequel was dropped unexpectedly, much to the gaming public’s surprise. Something this big simply does not go under the radar for this long, but Blizzard somehow managed to keep mum. Much to our benefit, I hate when companies announce release dates years in advance. Other than to placate shareholders, what’s the point? A certain amount of excitement and hype is fine, but there’s so much that goes into game development that letting the consumer hop in the car for the entire ride is always a mistake.
The fundamentals are the same as before, and they’re easy to enough to grasp that even somebody brand new to the genre will understand the basics almost immediately. Camera is up high, you’re an omnipotent strategist that can gather resources, construct buildings, build units and order them accordingly. At its core, that’s all the game is. But the intricate design ensures there’s much more to it than that.
It felt like putting on a warm sweater, one that made me instantly cozy. There aren’t too many games I feel this at ease with, but StarCraft 2 is one of them. Sure, I know how to build SCVs, the worker bees of the Terrans. There might be a new unit here or there, but I know the requirements of expanding my supply depots alongside my growing army, which soldiers to mass, which vehicles to covet. Get to the high ground, bunker down, have medics on hand to heal my cannon fodder. Click on a marine a bunch of times until he’s fed up with me and says something funny. This sort of gameplay loop harkens back to the Warcraft 2 days, but it’s so much more that it might as well be a different category of game entirely.
I think it’s the variety of missions that get me the most. No single map feels, or looks the same. Blizzard throws everything at you, including the kitchen sink. Each campaign has about 25-30 missions each. Each mission has four difficulty levels. Each mission has achievements associated with it. Sometimes nabbing a secret item in one area will open up a new level entirely, or unlock a potential upgrade path. It’s not just build up your base and throw your entire army at the opposite end of the screen, far from it. To say Blizzard kept me on my toes is an understatement. It’s the single most robust single-player experience I can think of. I’ve mentioned previously that if I had to pick a single game to play the rest of my life, it would be World of Warcraft. While the content available in that MMO surely would keep me satiated for years to come, StarCraft 2 beats it out – as long as they kept updating the Co-op Missions and Eric was readily available.
Either the plot was more junvenile, or gaming had evolved in terms of narrative brilliance, but the storyline and cutscenes in StarCraft 2 were generally considered nowhere near as compelling as the original. Gone was the gritty techno-realism, the barely animated zoom call representation of a unit that looked like it was being transmitted over VHS. Nothing as demented or charming as some of the original’s cutscenes.
It’s a Zerglin’, Lester! Smalla typa Zerg. They wouldn’t been out this far unless..OH SHIT.
We went from RoboCop, Predator and Escape from New York to a Michael Bay production. Characters were seen fully in view, often. Full Motion Video was no longer discussed since by 2010 it was an antiquated term. There wasn’t as much left to the imagination. Raynor kind of looked different, Kerrigan had a new voice actor.
I still loved it. Every minute.
Either I’m easier on stories and characters than most, or I just see it all as part of the ride, I was thrilled to interact with my colorful band of misfits on my ship. Swann’s New York accent was anything but subtle, but what did I care? This wasn’t a period piece drama about an understated love, this was an intergalactic war against bugs, aliens and fellow Terrans. I say the story fits entirely within the universe they created and does its best to match up to the gampleay. Sure, it’s not as mind blowing as the original, but some of the beats still have some teeth. And I still wanted to find out what the endgame was regarding Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. What can I say? 14 year old Henry and 26 year old Henry aren’t very different in that regard.
And don’t tell me Blizzard still can’t produce some incredible cinematics. This Legacy of the Void intro is one of the best in the business, a perfect example of exactly what StarCraft 2 is about. I watch it about once a month. The direction, the animation, the graphics, the narration, the timing, the show-don’t-tell storytelling is brilliant, there’s no other word for it. Even the delay between when the probe starts to build a pylon to the time it finishes is 90 seconds – the exact amount of time it takes to build in-game. This level of detail is incredible: the scales on the Zerglings, the maw of the Hydralisks, the imposing stature of the Ultralisk. The way the High Templar support each other before merging into the Archon. How they aren’t entirely in sync for the procedure, because one is injured. The “POWER OVERWHELMING” line made me pause the video, I was giggling so much. I was worried I’d miss something. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen on the internet. If this video doesn’t get you hyped even a little, I can’t help you. Heart of the Swarm’s is just as professionally done. I can’t, you guys, I just can’t.
Pull back the sizzle, the atmosphere, the presentation, the voice acting, the characters, the music and you STILL have an incredibly deep set of strategic choices available to you. Three races, and there’s no one single way to play, or win. The presence of resources around the map dictate the pace of play, but you can’t spread yourself too thin. Do you rush upgrades and focus on a fewer, stronger beefcakes or do you pump out a ball of cheaper units to distract the enemy? There is no single unit that’s a game winner, everything has a counter. Battlecruisers and Carriers inspire terror from the above, but there are more anti-air units available than ever before, and they’re far quicker to train. Environmental dangers mean you can’t just let your army sit stagnant, you always have to keep your eyes on seven different things. Crap, gotta build a supply depot. What, what part of my base is under attack? Uh oh, stealth enemies, where are my detectors. No detectors, hmm, ok, scan with my Command Centre. Upgrade complete! Ok, save up for one more, or shore up my defenses? Time’s running out, we gotta go!
My mind is never at ease with StarCraft 2, in a good way. It’s like a stimulating workout where I don’t sweat…well, that depends on the map.
Co-op is really what puts StarCraft 2 this high on the 500 and, honestly, it could probably be a few spots higher. What started out as a strange map mod that Eric and I indulged with in StarCraft ended up being one of the most satisfying experiences for me, in any shape or form. Blizzard figured out that not everybody likes to measure their APM, or challenge themselves to get into the GrandMaster League. I’m older, slower and was never that good at memorizing build orders, or having a killer instinct. I want to win with somebody, not against them.
So, they created the Co-op missions.
This is how enjoyable they are; if StarCraft 2 was literally just the Co-op missions, it would still be one of the best games I’ve ever played, full stop. There are 18 different commanders to choose from, each having 15 different upgrades you can acquire with experience from winning missions. Then there three different prestige levels, which drastically alter your abilities and playstyle. There are four different difficulty settings (more, if you count Brutal +1, +2, etc.) On a weekly basis, Blizzard adds in a “mutation” to a map, which throws additional curveballs at you such as non-stop missiles being fired at your base, or it costs minerals to issue commands to your units. There isn’t a single type of player or taste unaccounted for here; the maps are designed perfectly, the variety is stunning, the battles are intense and it requires non-stop communication with your partner. If I didn’t have Eric playing alongside me, I may have abandoned ship ages ago but, to this day, I STILL play as Swann on Dead of Night occasionally. And it’s still an outright blast. Nothing else scratches this itch.
It was the mutation “And Drops and Rifts” on the Part and Parcel map that nearly gave us an aneurism. To say it was tough would be an understatement. Enemies frequently, and I mean FREQUENTLY, are spawned around the map. Portals will open up, sometimes right next to our base, and continuously pop out fresh baddies. This went beyond the scale of normal maps – we barely had time to get going before being swarmed by Amon’s forces. The first five times we lost, it felt like a shock.
The next fifteen times we lost, our morale dwindled so low I think we both considered un-installing.
But Eric is very good at adjusting strategy. I’m more of a tactics guy, maybe that’s why we’re a great team? We tried out different heroes. No sense in focusing on the same thing, so I tried out Tychus to give us an early game boost. Tychus operates differently than other commanders in that you can ONLY build heroes – no marines, no firebats, no wraiths. It felt very similar to DOTA 2, except I could control up to five units, all with overpowered abilities.
So, Tychus up and off I went, hunting every rift I could. This was in addition to the normal map parameters, which meant we had to destroy these weird rocky pillars every six minutes or so. There is no time to rest, I’ve never felt this detail oriented or focused in my life. A gorilla could have asked me if I wanted a cup of tea and I wouldn’t have registered it.
There was a point of no return – we had precious few minutes left to complete the map. We’d never gotten this far. There was no way around it, we had to punch through the enemy’s front door which was heavily guarded and we didn’t have time to kite a few units out.
So I launched a nuke. Good way to say hello.
Except I probably should have saved it. Our cheers of potential victory turned sour immediately when we realized we were still fighting on the low ground and losing units, fast. A timely heal from me and micro from Eric saved us and we then simultaneously shouted at which pillars to tackle first. Focus fire, always.
When we won, I almost threw up. We had lost 33 straight times before finally packing it in with a win. I’m not sure what it says about us that we’d spent 15-20 hours of our lives trying to beat a single Co-op mission that doesn’t really have any impact on the rest of the game, or on anything else for that matter, but I do know we still talk about it to this day. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Not since the Desert Town Moraggo from Dungeon Defenders had I faced defeat this many times, only to finally secure a victory.
I honestly don’t know where you go from here. The StarCraft games are so revered in gaming lore that when former developers that worked on the game get front page coverage when they start a new studio or game. “Former StarCraft 2 devs” lends a lot of weight, for myself particularly. I’m not confident they’ll be able to surpass my #6, but I’m curious enough to see.
There’s no other way to put it; the amount of time you can spend in StarCraft 2 is overwhelming. I’m legitimately envious of those that haven’t tried it. Going from humble beginnings in the Terran missions to the end fight with Amon in the Protoss campaign feels like I’ve gone through an entire legacy of science fiction novels, television shows and movies. Hearing the blunt power of Siege Tanks as they explode oncoming waves, or slicing up a drone as a Dark Templar, or warping in units into the blue glow of pylons, or healing my wounded marauders, or even choosing where to put my bunkers hits every kind of positive chemical reaction my brain is capable of producing.
I don’t think StarCraft 3 is possible, not for a long time. This is the kind of project where the developer climbs an impossible mountain and then pulls the ladder up with them.
The 500 