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Hit or miss? I noticed a lot of people were griping over at Voodoo Extreme and Blue’s News. So, contrary to policy, I installed that pile of crap called Steam just to be able to download and run the demo.
Setting aside the fact that some aspects of the game felt somewhat shifty and that you only get to experience a fraction of the single-player campaign I still came away liking it. Sort of. Even though it’s a different game altogether from SC1 and SC1:FA.
A great many things seem to have been simplified. There is now a tech research tree instead of factory upgrades. And there doesn’t seem to be a bonus to constructing certain buildings next to each other, like energy generators next to factories. SC1 had complex base building theories originating from this little feature. I like how factories only come in one flavor, and can build all units that have been researched. But I do miss having three different generators, three different mass extractors etc.
Also I am unsure how resource management really works. Seems you just pay once for structures now, and that you no longer have to manage power consumption of shields, defensive guns etc over time as they come online and you lose generators in combat. Also I am unsure of whether you actually use energy and mass storage facilities anymore. Plus, at least the one experimental unit I did build constructed a lot faster than I remembered. And it doesn’t seem to be possible to use multiple engineer units to speed up construction of buildings and experimentals. Assigning an engineer to speed up construction at a factory still worked though.
Bottom line is that a lot of the focus has been shifted from base management to action and combat. But SC2 still holds a lot of promise … and besides, when was the last time we saw a good or even passable RTS? Most people seem to be waiting for Starcraft 2. I couldn’t care less as I never liked the first game. And especially since Supreme Commander 2 runs beautifully and scales on any hardware and Starcraft 2 is reported to run like ass even on the fastest system.
I really want to like this game. But I don’t know. Will it work out or will SC2 be yet another example of consoles (in this case the XBOX 360) ruining and "dumbing down" PC gaming? I guess we’ll find out in a few days. Also looking forward to a version with no Steam and less unskippable intro videos.
Edit: Got the final game and I’m sorry to say that I was underwhelmed. It’s an Ok game but nothing more. The more I play, the more annoying I find the game’s signature unit spam. And as far as the AI is concerned it’s either stupid and easy or stupid and hopelessly difficult. There is no middle ground. Even though I don’t play RTS multiplayer and never will, I can imagine that MP sessions will be short unless you pay attention. Just build a handful of fighter/bombers and sic them on the enemy ACU and you’re done. No one can withstand a nuclear explosion in the middle of their base early on after all. I reckon the problem is that units are simply too fast and easy to build in SC2 and that games resolve far too fast because of it. Which also means that you’re unlikely to ever have time to advance within the tech tree. Just upgrade your air units with more health and shields if possible and keep spamming. Air units after all don’t depend on fuel anymore as they did in SC1 so you can use them liberally. I’d go so far as to suggest playing MP games without air units.
