StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Blizzard has been known to take a while to release a title. They prefer polish to promptness with their titles. It has been 12 years since the original StarCraft was released. I think it was worth the wait.

The Good:

The single player is great. The new Wing Commanderish campaign 'rooms' are a nice touch. The CG is top notch, as always. Multiplayer is well balanced and the matchmaking works well. The included editor is extremely feature rich and user created content should add heaps of replay value.

The Bad:

No direct LAN play. Always connecting to Battle.net can be tedious (particularly if you have a mobile authenticator tied to the account). While the single player is more detailed than most RTS story modes it is limited to the Terran campaign which may irk some Zerg and Protoss fans.

Reviewer's Tilt:

A great game that was well worth the wait. Even at $60 this is one of the best gaming buys of the year.

Reviewer's System:

Intel Core i7-930 2.8GHz, 6GB DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ SSC 512MB (Windows version). 17" MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 2.6GHz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, Nvidia 8600M GT 256MB (OS X version).

This is one of those games I have been waiting for. Like really waiting for. Others were Team Fortress 2 and I certainly waited a long time for Tiberian Sun. Often a lengthly wait can lead to the hype machine kicking in. Wishful thinking and visions of gaming bliss to be override logic and reasonable expectations. You feel let down when you finally play the game you lusted after for so long. If you were also not-so-patiently waiting for SC2, fear not! Blizzard has crafted a worthy successor to its 1998 RTS hit.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty takes place four years after the events of Brood War. You one again take up the role of Jim Raynor. Your former partner in rebellion, Arcturus Mengsk, has now taken control and now rules the Terran Dominion. Mengsk rules the Dominion with an iron fist and has used his considerable media influence to portray Raynor as a terrorist. The game starts with Raynor preparing his Raynor's Raiders to overthrow Arcturus. Without giving anything away, the story is given more depth this time around. You still have the CG movies, the mission briefing style story bits, and the in-mission ‘talking heads’ in Wings of Liberty. The story isn’t limited to those however. You are presented with point and click ‘rooms’ where you can talk to other characters, watch news casts and inspect items. These vary from parts of Raynor’s battlecruser Hyperion to camps in Zerg territory. It is a nice touch and reminds me of the Wing Commander games and (to a lesser degree) European Air War’s game rooms.

In addition to the excellent CG shorts that Blizzard is famous for, the game uses some game generated storytelling for conversations and some scenes. While it won’t be mistaken for the CG work it still top notch stuff and adds to the overall immersion.

Score:

97%

Reviewer:

MattyC