Starcraft II

[Ekkebus]

I liked Starcraft. As such I'm pretty fond of Starcraft II so far. Unfortunately I haven't gotten to play more than a few missions yet but I like the new between mission interface and all the upgrades and such. The actual gameplay isn't a whole lot different from Starcraft I but it really didn't need to be. I'm enjoying the new wrinkles and new advancements that have come with 10 years of hindsight.

[gobbleskat]

Warcraft II on the PSX wasn't very good.

[barnaclelapse]

The general consensus from people I know seems to be that it's entirely too much fun. I'm going to probably avoid it as I do all similar games because it's hard enough as it is to muster up the energy to write.

[Katiana]

You should add me on Real ID son!

[Ekkebus]

My account is under my gmail addy.

[Wood]

Just remembered that Battle.net can be attached linked to Facebook (as it's the new internet). I think the realID can be linked so it makes it pretty easy to add friends if they're already Facebook friends. I played a few missions from the campaign, and it's been pretty interesting so far. However, I really do feel that the single player game and multiplayer game are two completely different games. I don't mean the simple differences between Gears of War single vs multiplayer kind of differnet. I mean it really does feel like two drastically different games that use the same game resources and a similar engine.

Basically what I'm trying to say is the campaign won't even teach you to use Terran well in multiplayer at all, due to how different the gameplay is.

[It's Raining Ben!]

I'm under my X-Strike address.

[Zeiram]

I would love to play this, but as far as I can tell there is no demo version available of the game. Even with my newer PC, I want to see the level of graphics my PC can handle before I plop down the money for the game.

[Ekkebus]

Every retail copy of the game comes with a couple of demo codes to give to friends. Mine are given out but I'm sure someone still has one.

[Wood]

So this has definitely been a great purchase, if only for the fact that damn near every time I'm on, there's always someone willing to play with me...even though losing still gets me extra salty. I'm still in bronze leagues, but Mahoney and myself was wrecking some dudes in practice league, and got some great games in. Might actually place higher than bronze in 2v2 with him. 3v3 and 1v1 however, not so hot. I've also been watching the GSL (Global Starcraft League, held in Seoul, Korea) and the BlizzCon tournament to pick up some good strategies, and it's been helping. Running into issues with my macro game being off, and I don't like trying to control a ton of units...which is horribly counter-productive in this game. Now I just gotta finish the campaign as well. Also, let me know if you guys want to play me sometime.

[Ekkebus]

Any game I'm still playing regularly 3 months after purchase is a good value. I've kind of hit a wall recently in Gold league and have been on a pretty bad losing streak as of late. All the terran and protoss players seem to be mimicking the builds that NexGenius and Loner used in the Blizzcon finals and it is murdering me. I've been sorting through Zerg replays trying to find some good strategies. Something I've noticed is zerg players seem to be a lot more varied and creative with their tactics. Maybe I'm biased on the matter but it seeems 90% of terran play is just M/M/M and Protoss is Z/S/C. My overall record is still in the positive so maybe I'll bounce back. Still determined to try at least.

[Wood]

GSL season 2 is showing off some crazy builds for Terran. For long maps I've seen NaDa using blue flame hellions for damn good harass, and using that to transition to heavy mech mid game. 3M is just really good if you don't have a proper counter, or way more units. I like it for doing base drops, but I need to learn some new tricks if I want to get higher in the league.

[Wood]

Ok, and I finally beat the campaign on normal. Interesting how the story turns out, though. Still, the ending with a Xel'naga Deus ex Machina was...Yeah, I don't know what to think of that really.

[Ekkebus]

I wouldn't consider the Artifact a Deus ex Machina. Its a big part of the storyline. Mission was still tough even with it too.

Now you can start working on your PvP play right?

[Wood]

Hmm, then I seem to have not grasped the concept of "Deus ex Machina". Then it's a plot device that appears late in the story only to solve the plot?

Yeah, that mission was tough. I do like how, depending on which mission you picked, determines what you'll face in the last mission. Because I took care of the air units, I had to deal with Nydus worms. I had to restart that mission about 3 times before I figured out which units would be best for that mission. It turned out that mass banshees were best.

I've been putting some practice into the multplayer. I've been getting some decent wins in, but the guys I was facing would be doing stupid things, like a protoss trying to wall in with photon cannons late game. Not nearly as epic as a guy trying to rush with his initial gatherers. Still bronze in 1v1, and been playing a lot of 3v3, which is a whole different animal.