I was pretty psyched to get a chance to look at SC2. I mean, I just got an invite Sunday! So, I got everything installed on Sunday night. Left it running to do updates when I went to bed. And I planned on playing it all last night. Except, of course, the beta ended at sometime yesterday afternoon while I was at work. What a cock tease.
So anyway, I was now in the Starcraft mood. So I went ahead and installed the SC Anthology instead and began playing through the series. It's been a long time since I played SC and Broodwar. So starting from the beginning to catch me up on the plot and story of the game seemed like a good idea. And I'm seriously needing to spend some time outside of WOW anyway. I didn't get to play it very long, but I did make it through roughly 5 missions.
Not surprisingly, my memories of the game aren't quite matching up to the reality of it. Now, Star Craft is one of the best and most distinctive of all RTS games. It's pure sci-fi setting is only part of what makes this game unique. More importantly, the game system itself, and the three main factions and their distinctive play styles which set Star Craft apart. All three races, Terran, Zerg, and Protoss play in fundamentally different ways, yet tend to be very balanced against one another (when played well). The mechanics for the races seem to take inspiration from fighting games...sure it's still a fighting game, and your still pushing buttons, but a good fighting game makes each fighter distinct. Not just variations of one another. Other games have attempted this, to some degree of success but SC managed it and did so while still maintaining balance. It's pretty impressive actually. Even today and hundreds of games later.
The first mission is pretty simple. Probably too simple for this sort of game. Especially considering that the game includes a set of tutorial missions. This is a problem that I've noticed with lots of similar RTS games...the first campaign gets shafted by having to include all of the 'ease the player into the game' mentality. Don't get me wrong. Stuff like this is important. But it also tends to leave the first campaign feeling shallow, and short. As I recall, the missions from the Zerg and Protoss campaigns start more complex, and end up being much grander in scope than anything in the Terran campaign.
There was something else I noticed, though. I seem to recall there being much more mysterious surrounding the aliens at the start of the human campaign. But, that is not the case. The protoss, and the zerg, are mentioned very early in the campaign and there is very little mystery involved. There is much more mystery later in why the factions are fighting; but no 'first contact' scenarios here. Which, I feel, actually detracts a bit from the campaign in general.
The second mission is a bit more dynamic. You have an old base to expand, and you actually take on a Zerg infestation head on. Most units aren't available, of course, but unlike the first mission this one is at least an RTS mission. This probably should have been the first mission from the start.
Now, the third mission is a bit infamous to me. I seem to recall having a bear of a time with the third mission. The third mission is simple. After the events of Mission 2, the Zerg are on the offensive and everyone is about to die. You have made an alliance with Acturus Mensk to get your people to safety, though you'll certainly get branded a traitor in the process. The goal of the mission is to 'survive 30 minutes. Now, when I originally played this mission I kept dying. A lot. To the point that I gave up on the game and put it away. Now, about a month later I came back to it and finally beat the mission. But I still remember feeling frustrated about it.
A similar thing happened with me and the original Command and Conquer. And today I've come to the inescapable conclusion that...back then I sucked at the games. Hard. Today the hardest part of 'surviving' 30 minutes is staying awake through the whole thing. Now, back then I think the difference was...I foolishly believed that buying extra SCVs was a waste of money. And while this does allow you to build a bit more in the beginning...during the middle you just start falling behind in resources and have no chance to keep up. It's the kind of tactic that is a staple in RTS games, but to newcomers it takes a while to learn. Much like building lots of extra sunflowers in plants vs. zombies. Rule Number 1. Make sure to spend resources on resource gathering.
Now the fourth mission is a puzzle/dungeon crawl through a Confederate base. Looking for data disks. Now I'm not sure if SC was the game that introduced these sorts of levels into RTS games (it might have been Red Alert, but honestly I don't remember and since no one reads this blog anyway I can't be bothered to find out). These things are pretty annoying and bland in SC. The trick with them is almost always to try to find the correct path which gets your your objective before you run out of units. These sorts of missions were implemented in much better ways in WC3, but here they are a bit out of place and rather bland.
After that, the game introduces Kerrigan in the first mission. She is not as hot as I remember her being, but she's still a pretty cool character overall (and probably the most ironic character from the whole series...and her parallel's with the Lich King in Warcraft are inescapable). Ghosts are some of the coolest units of any faction in this game, and Kerrigan is a very cool unit to play with. Not as overpowered as, say, a Commando in Command and Conquer, but that just makes her more awesome because you actually have to think using her. In the fifth mission, you use Kerrigan to kill an enemy officer and take over a base (helping the locals rebel). It's on a new planet, with a quick transition. And once you take the base, you have to then use it to take out the Confederate base. Fifth mission in, and only 2 have had any major Zerg involvement and no Protoss (except oblique references).
See what I mean about the first campaign in these games? All of the cool stuff comes later. Half way through and very little has actually happened. And it's too simple to really be 'fun' yet. But that's OK, because I know it gets better later on.
No comments:
Post a Comment