FiringSquad: Home of the Hardcore Gamer - Games, Hardware, Reviews and NewsSubmit your own or view users' CPU overclocking results!

  
 Home   News   THE MATRIX   Deals   Hardware   Games   Features   Media   Products   Forums   FS China 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Home : Games : Strategy : StarCraft II Preview: No Bullshit
» Join the Greatest Gaming Community NOW! (It's free)

Already a member? Login
 


Random Gallery >> 
Click to view high-res Image!
The Burning Crusade: Review Screenshots [45] (3)


Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare SP Review (prelim 2) (7) by jacobvandy
Warhammer: Soulstorm (0) by brajko2
Defense of the Ancients Review (Warcraft III Map/Mod) [Preliminary #2] (6) by Discobiscuits
HA! (1) by stalker_loner
Don't Shoot! (0) by L10nhardt
Finalists and Final Rules (6) by FS-Lyle
C&C:Renegade Review, wrist-slittingly good! (8) by McStu
Half-Life 2 - Still Looks good (0) by MindCrime
Civilization IV Review for contest (9) by Joluha
AMERICA'S ARMY: SPECIAL FORCES (OVERMATCH) V2.8.3.1... (0) by Henri

More Blogs >>




StarCraft II Preview: No Bullshit
June 04, 2007   Jakub Wojnarowicz > [View My Other Articles]
Product Info | +User Review | Article Images | Image Gallery | Comments | Forum Thread
The way it will be

The advantage of both games is that each separated skill levels very clearly. It was transparent who the better of any two players would be, and very rarely were there “equal matches”. That is the game's appeal – it will identify the best players in a competitive culture, while at the same time providing entertainment and a sense of accomplishment for those average players who are learning to get better.

This is precisely why attention becomes a resource. Anyone expecting the AI to assist them, to play for them, to handle the micromanagement and create efficient formations of units to deal damage with is promptly going to get his ass handed to him. At best, you can expect your marines to continue to run single-file to the enemy base and if you're lucky, the AI will send them all in if they spot an enemy unit. They won't focus fire, take cover, or use abilities.

Thus the game creates pressure – do you intervene in that battle with all your attention, do you queue up some more buildings or units, do you send your reserve force into the enemy base, do you go scouting for his expansions or build one of your own? With a small screen and limited battle AI assistance, your attention is of the utmost importance and that's what the game rewards – how you divide your attention and how efficient you are in dealing with whatever you've decided to focus on.

The units are relatively large and relatively few in number, which means that they are important. Also, it's likely that there will be a fair number of spells/abilities (hopefully not as many as in WC3). This will heighten the importance of paying attention to battles and thus make it risky to focus mostly on production, like you might in C&C or Age of Empires. Proper use of Psi Storms and Yamato Guns in StarCraft made the difference between winning and losing. In WarCraft 3, there were more spells but they generally weren't as powerful, which caused the game to lose some of that balance between micro- and macro-management.

Game balance will continue to be the different-but-equal (not equivalent) style we saw from StarCraft. Blizzard has declined the option of designing a fourth race and chosen to continue with the Zerg, Terrans, and Protoss. They all have vastly different philosophies and styles, with no two units performing in even remotely the same fashion, yet each race has similar capabilities in the end.

There are going to be some re-tread old units (marines, zealots, mutalisks, and zerglings at the least), but generally we expect there to be at least as many new units as old. Certainly the videos show primarily new designs. From the videos we can also confirm what we expected – that balance among units will follow the familiar rock/paper/scissors motif.

This is actually somewhat of a concern at the moment, actually. In vanilla StarCraft, the rock/paper/scissors style was really not that extreme. In some cases it was clear as day: that the Reaver or Siege tank would plow through Zerglings and Marines at a butcher's pace, or that scourges were the best units to take down a Battlecruiser efficiently, but there was a lot of gray area for the most part. Take hydralisks vs marines. It wasn't quite rock vs scissor or rock vs paper, nor was it rock vs rock. It depended on the upgrades available to each and the numbers of each before it was clear in what situations one would counter another. Hydralisks generally had the advantage, but it wasn't overwhelming as with Lurker vs Marine. However, with the Brood War expansion, we saw far more in the way of clear counters. Lurkers were clearly meant to defeat M&Ms (marines and medics). Also, the new air units in Brood War (Valkyrie, Corsair, Devourer) were “air support” units, designed to clearly defeat the old light air units of the enemy but be weak to their stronger air units.

Back! Page 1     Clear counters Next!
Blog + Share: Digg Del.icio.us Reddit SU furl • More: AddThis Social Bookmark Button
Send This Article to a Friend!  
Table of Contents
  Print Entire Article  

MATRIX CONTENT » RANDOM MEDIA BLOG More Blogs >>
No ratings yet
» Please rate this
I am an AMD AgentRead this Media-Blog entry!» The Witcher Review, The Polish RPG that could. (6)
by McStu (113) Talk with this user on their Shout Box (My other blogs) Posted 8 months ago

Sponsored Links
:
[GO]


 Latest Headlines
Crossfire Contest Update: More Prizes from Sapphire! (1)
Game devs surprised by Wii MotionPlus (2)
Dell bundles Xbox 360 Elite with flagship XPS PCs (2)
Nintendo CEO apologizes for lackluster showing at E3, acknowledges Wii supplies could be tight this xmas (10)
GeForce 9800 GTX+ hits retail (4)
Today's News >>
Today's Siteseeing >>


 Table of Contents


Peak Oil  Debt Consolidation  Compare Credit Cards  Share Dealing  Mortgages
FiringSquad is powered by... Back to Top Site MapContact UsAdvertise With Us Privacy StatementAbout Us  
News RSSSiteseeing RSSArticle RSS   © 1998-2008 FS Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved