HALLELUJA!
Hell, it's about time!
Last night at about 2:00 AM EST, Blizzard finally announced the long-anticipated Starcraft 2, marking a return to the franchise after a 9-year hiatus. The game itself is set to launch in 2008, a full 10 years after the original changed the face of both Video Gaming, and the RTS genre itself.
Oft-imitated, but never ever equaled, Starcraft's popular appeal has amazingly remained persistant for it's full 9-years of life to date, even in the face of newer, shinier, and more 3-D titles, people are STILL playing Starcraft. The most extreme example of this is, of course, South Korea, where the Champions of the National, professional Starcraft league enjoy a level of fame and accompanying lifestyle of the Rockstar variety. And, at the lowest, pedestrian level, my University friends and I still try to meet weekly for "Starcraft Night", which has been everything from a dinner and chat night, to a full fledged, RTS tourney.
In 1992, I was introduced to Dune 2: The Building of a Dynasty, largely accepted as the first modern Real-Time strategy game, and quickly became addicted. I must confess to still getting chills up my spine at the thought of the soft, feminine voice of the House Atredies voice actor telling me my units were being slaughtered by the hundred... However, 1994 saw me keyed more into titles such as Wing Commander - Privateer and Ultima VII pt 2 - Serpent Isle. So much so that I completely missed out on a little title put forth by a tiny Studio called Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. It was my friend Shai who introduced me to Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness, and while I played it a little, I could never really master it, and I shifted my focus back to console gaming for a time.
Finally, I bought my own computer system in 1998, and the first game I purchased was Starcraft and I was hooked Instantly. I leant it to my friends in University, who also became hooked, and thus began the first "Starcraft Nights", a proud tradition which continues to this day.
Starcraft has the distinction of having aged VERY well. Blizz still continues to patch and tweak it, adding features discovered useful in their next RTS Effort, Warcraft 3, such as Map Previews and Minimap beacons -- an uheard-of level of support for an 8-year-old game.
Still, the faithful continued to hold out for a sequel, even after the release of the life-usurping World of Warcraft and it's expansion, as well as the disappointing rise and fall of the First-Person Starcraft: Ghost. Well, finally our prayers have been answered. And best of all, it looks like the sequel is going to be as we had hoped and not as we had feared - faithful to the Original Starcraft and not to Warcraft 3.
Warcraft 3 switched the focus of the game from the Army to the Hero leading it, instead of building up a force of fighters, the goal was to level the Hero as fast as possible, thereby creating a force no foe could possibly stand against. Although it has been revealed that there will be Unique units within Starcraft 2, these units seem firmly planted at the Endgame, and not the first thing you pump out, as was the Hero. In addition, the resource limit was capped at a disappointing 90, as opposed to the 200 points of control available in Starcraft, forcing the player to rely on small-unit tactics -- often limited to a single Battalion of units supporting the Hero. Finally, the game suffered somewhat from Racial overload. With Four factions to deveop and balance, Blizz seems to have extended itself a little far, and the tech trees of each faction seemed much less robust than previously seen in Starcraft. The Gameplay of each faction seemed a little more piecemeal as well, gameplay distinctions borrowed from our Favourite game, a little Zerg here, a little Protoss there... Perhaps that was only the result of being the first Blizz produced RTS since they had produced the now Legendary Starcraft.
SC2 seems much more beholden to it's predcessor, though, as there are no heroes, they're actually INCREASING the supply cap, and they've resisted the temptation to add another Race, instead focusing on increasing the distinction between the Terran, Zerg and Protoss races. It looks as if they've taken a solid, sober look at what made the Original Starcraft great and decided "Yeah, we'll have some more of that, thanks."
And I too, would like to extend my thanks.
Now all that's left is to try and contain myself until the damn thing goes gold.
Last night at about 2:00 AM EST, Blizzard finally announced the long-anticipated Starcraft 2, marking a return to the franchise after a 9-year hiatus. The game itself is set to launch in 2008, a full 10 years after the original changed the face of both Video Gaming, and the RTS genre itself.
Oft-imitated, but never ever equaled, Starcraft's popular appeal has amazingly remained persistant for it's full 9-years of life to date, even in the face of newer, shinier, and more 3-D titles, people are STILL playing Starcraft. The most extreme example of this is, of course, South Korea, where the Champions of the National, professional Starcraft league enjoy a level of fame and accompanying lifestyle of the Rockstar variety. And, at the lowest, pedestrian level, my University friends and I still try to meet weekly for "Starcraft Night", which has been everything from a dinner and chat night, to a full fledged, RTS tourney.
In 1992, I was introduced to Dune 2: The Building of a Dynasty, largely accepted as the first modern Real-Time strategy game, and quickly became addicted. I must confess to still getting chills up my spine at the thought of the soft, feminine voice of the House Atredies voice actor telling me my units were being slaughtered by the hundred... However, 1994 saw me keyed more into titles such as Wing Commander - Privateer and Ultima VII pt 2 - Serpent Isle. So much so that I completely missed out on a little title put forth by a tiny Studio called Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. It was my friend Shai who introduced me to Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness, and while I played it a little, I could never really master it, and I shifted my focus back to console gaming for a time.
Finally, I bought my own computer system in 1998, and the first game I purchased was Starcraft and I was hooked Instantly. I leant it to my friends in University, who also became hooked, and thus began the first "Starcraft Nights", a proud tradition which continues to this day.
Starcraft has the distinction of having aged VERY well. Blizz still continues to patch and tweak it, adding features discovered useful in their next RTS Effort, Warcraft 3, such as Map Previews and Minimap beacons -- an uheard-of level of support for an 8-year-old game.
Still, the faithful continued to hold out for a sequel, even after the release of the life-usurping World of Warcraft and it's expansion, as well as the disappointing rise and fall of the First-Person Starcraft: Ghost. Well, finally our prayers have been answered. And best of all, it looks like the sequel is going to be as we had hoped and not as we had feared - faithful to the Original Starcraft and not to Warcraft 3.
Warcraft 3 switched the focus of the game from the Army to the Hero leading it, instead of building up a force of fighters, the goal was to level the Hero as fast as possible, thereby creating a force no foe could possibly stand against. Although it has been revealed that there will be Unique units within Starcraft 2, these units seem firmly planted at the Endgame, and not the first thing you pump out, as was the Hero. In addition, the resource limit was capped at a disappointing 90, as opposed to the 200 points of control available in Starcraft, forcing the player to rely on small-unit tactics -- often limited to a single Battalion of units supporting the Hero. Finally, the game suffered somewhat from Racial overload. With Four factions to deveop and balance, Blizz seems to have extended itself a little far, and the tech trees of each faction seemed much less robust than previously seen in Starcraft. The Gameplay of each faction seemed a little more piecemeal as well, gameplay distinctions borrowed from our Favourite game, a little Zerg here, a little Protoss there... Perhaps that was only the result of being the first Blizz produced RTS since they had produced the now Legendary Starcraft.
SC2 seems much more beholden to it's predcessor, though, as there are no heroes, they're actually INCREASING the supply cap, and they've resisted the temptation to add another Race, instead focusing on increasing the distinction between the Terran, Zerg and Protoss races. It looks as if they've taken a solid, sober look at what made the Original Starcraft great and decided "Yeah, we'll have some more of that, thanks."
And I too, would like to extend my thanks.
Now all that's left is to try and contain myself until the damn thing goes gold.