StarCraft II Battle Report 2

If you have the slightest interest rts's then you owe it to yourself to get this game: Blizz are amazing at making games. No matter what it's a fact you cannot denie

I love these videos, not because theres necesarily something new, ive been following everything so theres nothing new here but some ppl never would have realized how complex staracft is and would have went on with there "its old age" crap

that's amazing! 

I didn't know there were quite a few new units. Do want.

People aren't realizing that these people playing aren't your average joe starcraft players.  These people clearly know how to micro extremely well considering that they're the guys developing the game.   I'm sure those guys could beat 99% of the people who buy Starcraft 2.  As someone who played a lot of Warcraft 3 ladder games back in the day however, I know there's a lot of fun to be had playing online.  When I play SC2, I know I'm not going to be able to beat the elite, but I'll be able to do well and have fun.

Besides, even if you are absolutely horrible at RTS, the single player campaign is going to be pure gold.  I'd buy SC2 even if it didn't have multiplayer.

Having never played an RTS that i enjoyed, this intrigues me.

@Legendary1

Just becuase you have more units doesn;t mean less stradegy,and RTS games arent about making the most outr of what u have,well partly ya but Starcraft takes it too far.

Rantmode.. Sorry in advance..

I think something that made SC playable when it came out, was that massing units was an acceptable tradeoff for what was occationally utterly abysmal pathing and a sense of momentum that was really heavily tied into army size. To me, a tank being blocked from progress by a single infantry unit is hilarity itself, but this tile based abstraction is what apparently stands at the foundation of SC as a competitive sport, much like hitboxes and area control abstractions are par for Street Fighter 2 tourney play.

Back then, that was okay, but i stopped thinking of the units on the map as CHARACTERS very quickly once i joined a clan and played a lot of online. I just thought the game turned into numbercrunching. I remember a friend with a unit damage/hp/cost spreadsheet on his bedroom wall, and it was freaking me the fuck out. Some people just really get into that kind of game, but to me it removes the personality and turns it into squares bumping into one another on top of a bunch of other squares as numbers tick up and down. It's just so depressing to me as a player.

WC3s big innovation of SC for me was lower unit cap and more "intimate" micro. Micro in SC felt like i needed to work out beforehand. WC3 let me concentrate on less. CoH does this as well, less units, more abilities, and while i think CoH is boring as hell, it really helps the game experience to have to actually care about each unit as a long term investment rather than just fodder. DoW2 takes this to an extreme, and i'm totally in love with that model of intense micro with fewer units. It simply allows for split second tactical plays that don't feel artificial or contrived. SC2 looks like it is aiming to please SC players first and foremost, and i kind of worry about those dudes, because they're hella weird in terms of what they want from the game experience.

I won't buy it. But i'll happily look at it from the distance and admire the game. It just won't be that fun for me to play.

I don't understand why so many people suggest this game will be 'stuck in the past' or 'outdated' when it comes out. The RTS genre is nowhere near as innovative and fun as it used to be. I still play older games, because I appreciate the idea of managing more than just a couple of soldiers on the front lines. The ability to have an actual base and the ability to expand is one of the greatest strengths of the RTS genre as far as I'm concerned, because it means you are doing more than killing enemy soldiers.

So, if Starcraft leans back to the older games as opposed to the newer ones, more power to it. It will be one of the first pure RTS games I've purchased in years.

Great match and professional commentary, but despite improved graphics, a few gameplay tweaks here and there and some additional units there isn't much here that couldn't already be experienced in the original StarCraft (and still is experienced, all over South Korea ;). Let's hope the campaigns have a great plot comparable to the veritable epic that was SC1's single-player mode...

This game will be massively overrated.

Bleh..for the amount of time I spent in 1998 playing Starcraft this game doesn't have me excited in any way now that I'm so used to playing DoW2. The amount of brutal action pales in comparison and base management..ehhhhhh just looks way too boring :|   Not to mention these battle reports seem 100% scripted, from the actions the units do to 'showcase' the terrain highlights and unit functions, to how each commentator seems to be reading off his own script; but it's still SC2 gameplay so it's all good I guess.

I have to admit I was rooting for the humans cuz...  well, I'm human.

That was surprisingly entertaining and exciting to watch.

Wow, I never thought watching a game of Starcraft could be so interesting. Thanks, announcers. So basically... RTS strategy is completely beyond me, and I can't deal with it at all, but..... I would totally watch more commentated Starcraft II matches.

Awesome, cool back and forth between the players, exciting stuff!

those announcers were way to into that

@Mordeaniischaos

In starcraft 1 there was no cooldown, it just was a decently expensive ability to research and took quite a bit of time. OTOH, Zerg regeneration was like 10-100x slower in SC1 (took a few seconds just to regenerate a single HP, an entire game to recover from a near death). In SC1 it was actually fairly limited, maybe a single ambush with hydras or something mid game, but mostly used to burrow workers when your mineral line is being raided and to burrow cheap zerglings around the map as scouts.

Blizzard hasn't let anything get in the way of their balance process though, tons of units and abilities have been tried, tweaked, and then modified or thrown out so far.

Does anyone else think this is way behind the RTS game?  I think Starcraft fans are gonna have a great time with this, but RTS fans, who've been enjoying the innovations to the genre for the past 10 years, are gonna pop this in and be disappointed.  It just seems to simple, like it's stuck in the past.  Games like Comapny of Heroes have taken this thing to a whole new level of complexity and innovation.  Playing 50 unit baserape with resource gathering doesn't sound like much fun to me.

"I like how the loser quits before the winner announced "

Thats cause in StarCraft, there is a point when you realize its over. he had no choice. That was an amazing comeback, for the Terran, but the thing you ave to understand is the the Zergs are a much more agressive race, and they are kind of like an electric car. A HELL f a lot of torque, but peak power is a lot lower. Terran take a while, but they get up there after some time and effecient defense. Its easy for the Zerg player to get over confident when their doing really well early on, because the Terran are more then capable of coming up with a hell of a punch late game.

Seems to me that hunter seeker missile (which is kick ass, I really like it) would be great for covering your retreat, those banelings were really packing a punch, and there were a few retreats that would have worked off better with those missiles going back and hiting the Banelings as they chased down the Terran units.

@legendary1

Thanks for the info. I've actually struggled more with Starcraft than most other RTS's I've played, so I appreciate the advice =)

Does Burrow have a decent cooldown? It has to hvae a disadvantage besides not being able to do anyhing, what with healing and hidden. It seems a bit much. But then, maybe I'm wrng, I don't quite grasp the ability.

But I love watching these things. Fuckin insane, and this game is going to be amazing. For sure my favorite game to watch.

It  just looks like any other RTS sadly ... its SC1.3 ... only

Looks incredible! I don't play rts games, but I want to play this one.

Can't wait. Starcraft was my bread and butter growing up.

@Renegade

Well, getting powerful units quickly is important, but in Starcraft (and most RTS's) literally EVERYONE knows how to do that. The order of building stuff and researching has been tested and refined through a million games. You can do a google search for starcraft build orders and in 5 minutes get the same basic development plans the pro's are using.

The two important parts to good play in Starcraft is planning and execution. Planning is deciding when to scout, when to expand, when to pressure an enemy, and guessing your enemies plans. This is the 'Strategy' part of the game. The other part is execution, where the insane 300+ APM (Actions per Minute) and crazy unit micro comes into play. Top level starcraft play is actually physically draining in how much you are doing at once. This is the "Real time" part of RTS, where the player is forces to be quick, able to act on reflex and to make important decisions on a moments notice.

@Fire_Marshall_Bill
The zerg advantage is that they generally are able to take much more bases. When a zerg player loses map control they are dangerously close to being fucked. In starcraft 1 Zerg generally want to have at least 1 more mining base then their opponent at all times or they fall way behind, its part of their game style. Terran are pretty much predisposed to a good defence with some turtling, if they manage to break the zerg containment and raid the zerg bases it goes downhill quickly for the zerg. Of course, this is from my experience with Starcraft 1, though it seems to be very similar in Starcraft 2.

Those Banelings do look crazy good, combined with that new brush stuff that disrupts the Line of sight and mid game burrow. Of course, game is still said to be in Alpha. Shows how much Blizzard cares about quality, they have the game perfectly playable yet its still going to go through a lot of playtesting and balancing before release.

wow i was gonna say the zerg seem overpowered, but damn if you hesitate in the slightest the game turns on you

@Renegade, the Koreans are doing it fine.

@legendary1

I agree with your statement. I'm not really an RTS gamer per say, but I do own a few, and this is actually an angle I've admittedly never looked at them from before. It probably is a lot more exciting doing the most with what little you have than to just mass up the most powerful units and unleash them, and takes a lot more thought. I just always assumed that the better players just managed to get the more powerful units sooner, and that was the key to victory. Learn something new every day ;)

Good post.

DO WANT, now Blizzard, be nice and tell us a release date... mkay? *grinds teeth*

@TomA:
The entire country of Korea disagrees with you.

PS: The "S" In RTS is for strategy. There is no strategy in just making a big army and telling them to fight another big army. Strategy is about making the most of what little you have.

i can't wait!

How does this make anyone wanna play StarCraft 2? It's a bunch of people doing a play by play of a game and taking it way too seriously.And more importantly,Starcraft isn't even that good,in fact I hate it.Building single units and spending practically the whole game with just the basic few units isn't good game design, it just turns the game into a math problem where if you screw up one little part it messes you up the rest of the game. The point of a RTS is to feel like your a commander leading armies and get cool units that do different things,not to micro everything and feel as if your taking a univeristy level Calculus class and then as soon as you start duying run away your units to your base like cowards.I state once more,that that is not good game design,in fact, I think it is a major flaw.

Either the Terran player was good or the Nighthawks were abit of overpowered. 

I can not wait!

@fragstoff

As much as I agree with you, opinions aren't wrong. Though I will say that Hitler would have also enjoyed CoH, based on historical evidence.

whoa that was a good match

Starcraft is alot more exciting to watch players who know what they are doing rather than playing it myself

"MINE MORE LESBIAN GAS"

I will buy this even though it may break my heart.

Company of Heroes is better.

@Taler

Absolutely, in fact, since its all so 'obvious' to you, why don't you go do it? See how well you can see the entire battlefield while having to analyze everything and think about what you're going to say all at once.

god i need this. see you online guys :P

I thought it was very interesting. They talk like sports commentators because it is a sport. Starcraft is probably the biggest e-sport game there is.

bla...blaaaa.....BLAAAAAAAAA

I don't like splitting up the factions and it doesn't really matter if I can play the other factions in multiplayer, because one of the main reasons for stratagy game singleplayer is to figure out slowly, how to exactly play with that faction. Jumping into zerg not knowing what the new stuff is will be pretty frustrating.

Loved it. But I can't help but feel like I'll probably wait until all three parts come out. But then everyone else will be awesome at the game and I'll feel helpless in online games.

What's up with this play-by-play commentary crap. We're not stupid, we can see whats going on. Oh, that's right, your trying to distract us from the fact that this is exactly the same game as the original Starcraft, except for the graphics.

I'm all for some StarCraft but that was incredibly lame. The guys are talking like sports commentators and it just sounds so stupid. "What a great move!" No...just no.

Thanks for reuploading