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Yeah, it is especially tough with Sci/Fi and Fanatasy settings, where so much as been borrowed and re-borrowed over the years. Still, I too giggled a bit when I saw that in SC II, Terrans make use of Drop Pods . I actually like the inclusion honestly, as they are used differently enough from 40k to be interesting.

... hate to say it, but I'm a SC 2 hater.

I hate that Blizz didn't DO anything with it other then update the graphics engine, and steal a few more units from 40k. This is NOT ten years worth of development and x million dollars.

It's no where near their hype for it (which, admittedly, makes it sound like playing it cures both AIDS and cancer, as well as make you more attractive and badassed.)

I played through the single player campaign, as was irritated by the number of timer missions. This was something that irritated the crap out of me in the first game, and was done better in it. 'Hold for X mins against impossible hoard' and 'kill x enemies'. The one that got my goat the most was the Zeratul 'Kobayashi Maru' mission. The better you are, the longer it takes. (It took me four hours and 20k enemies on 'normal' on my first play-through to come to that conclusion. I actually had to stop trying in order to win. Kind of counter intuitive.)

I also hate the loss of LAN/Spawn/more then one race. It's like someone gave me 1/3rd of SC 1 with a graphics upgrade and charged me $60.

There are more races coming Baron. But the kicker is that it's going to be XPack content. Blizzard's 'official' reason: "We can focus more on building the storyline if we space it out"

Translation: "F**k your customer loyalty and patience for the last 12 years. You want a 100% complete game, you'll have to pay more than a meagre $70 for it!"

But being that they merged with Activision, that should hardly come as a suprise.

Like I said, it's a good beer and pretzels RTS for the casual player. Or it's great if you're a fan of the old titles. But as far as a modern RTS goes, it's as if it's format is behind by a deca-right...

X.x WOW...have you not seen ANYTHING that the SCII Game engine can do!?? its not just a video imrpovement, but SCII has potential to be ANYTHING. a 3rd person shooter, a Dungeon raiding RPG, even the game with the little ship that tries to dodge alien bullets and shoot the space ships! And that is only the tip of the iceberg! i mean cmon! if that is not a hell of a game engine, name me 1 game that can do HALF of that! none? WIN!

Currently there isn't a game engine that can keep up with SCII's. it is literally that complex! yea, i can see why 10 years of developements went into that game. because once again, for the next 10 years, it will be used for the developement of every OTHER game! just like the first one was used.

Anywho, it wasn't SC that stole from 40k, it was 40k that stole from SC

CUZ I SAID SO! xD

Sorry Kyric, but the Source Engine is just one of many engines that have Starcraft II beat IMO. That's not to say that the SCII Editor isn't a wonderful piece of technology, but it's certainly not the cream-of-the-crop. Hell, I've even seen a mod for FO3, which is Bethesda drivel, that turns the game into an RTS/RPG hybrid. Blizzard's editor isn't -really- isn't anything special. Developers have been putting out editors capable of cross-genre builds for years.

And this:

Anywho, it wasn't SC that stole from 40k, it was 40k that stole from SC

CUZ I SAID SO! xD

Ya' silly little munchkin! Get back in that chocolate factory and sing me a song about Oompa Loompas and sweets!

Kyric wrote:X.x WOW...have you not seen ANYTHING that the SCII Game engine can do!?? its not just a video imrpovement, but SCII has potential to be ANYTHING. a 3rd person shooter, a Dungeon raiding RPG, even the game with the little ship that tries to dodge alien bullets and shoot the space ships! And that is only the tip of the iceberg! i mean cmon! if that is not a hell of a game engine, name me 1 game that can do HALF of that!

Havok Engine. Been around forever. Has way less bugs then SC II.

Kyric wrote:
Currently there isn't a game engine that can keep up with SCII's. it is literally that complex! yea, i can see why 10 years of developements went into that game. because once again, for the next 10 years, it will be used for the developement of every OTHER game! just like the first one was used.

Um, SC 1 used a modified WCII engine.

Kyric wrote:

Anywho, it wasn't SC that stole from 40k, it was 40k that stole from SC

CUZ I SAID SO! xD

That statement is so silly I almost ignored it. But frankly, if I was GW, I'd be sending Blizz C&Ds instead of sending them to fan sites.

Heart of the Swarm speculations:
In the first "expansion" of StarCraft II, which will focus on Zerg, we will propably gonna follow Samir Duran + some sidekick infester terrans/cerabretes and Hybrid boss who follows the command of the Xel'Naga "The Fallen One".
>(sidenote, isn't it hillarious that both WoW and Starcraft now have the big bad guy to be a "fallen" one?).
We'll see the yet again expansion of the Zerg threat as Raynor&Protoss pals, Dominion and UED (and possibly some renagade cerabrets) comes to stand in their way, just to miserably fail over and over. And even more revealing of the background story.
And after all this with the Protoss part >(what's it's name again?).
We will help Protoss&Raynor pewpew the Zerg and propably kill the Fallen one.

Happy Ending and Kerrigan&Raynor marries, and they lived happly everafter.

How does this sound?

Thorheim wrote:Heart of the Swarm speculations:
In the first "expansion" of StarCraft II, which will focus on Zerg, we will propably gonna follow Samir Duran + some sidekick infester terrans/cerabretes and Hybrid boss who follows the command of the Xel'Naga "The Fallen One".
>(sidenote, isn't it hillarious that both WoW and Starcraft now have the big bad guy to be a "fallen" one?).
We'll see the yet again expansion of the Zerg threat as Raynor&Protoss pals, Dominion and UED (and possibly some renagade cerabrets) comes to stand in their way, just to miserably fail over and over. And even more revealing of the background story.
And after all this with the Protoss part >(what's it's name again?).
We will help Protoss&Raynor pewpew the Zerg and propably kill the Fallen one.

Happy Ending and Kerrigan&Raynor marries, and they lived happly everafter.

How does this sound?

Few flaws with this:

HoTS is being called "First in a series of expanions", meaning that the story of SCII will be told through several expansions
HoTS will, as per Blizzard, focus on Kerrigan during the events of the original SCII, leading up to and going a little ways past Jim finding her after the Artifact's blast.
The second expansion after HoTS is supposedly going to cover the Protoss in a lot of depth, so it's unlikely HoTS will contain any Protoss missions.
No word on the UED returning. I'm guessing that won't happen for a while (if at all).

... hate to say it, but I'm a SC 2 hater.

I hate that Blizz didn't DO anything with it other then update the graphics engine, and steal a few more units from 40k. This is NOT ten years worth of development and x million dollars.

Blizzard did quite a lot, the online space of battlenet is quite revolutionary in the genre and there have been several non cosmetic changes to the gameplay. The campaign is lengthy and sizeable with great online integration and a significant number of units and possible strategies and there is a single player challenge mode which presents even more play value for the dollar. The game has not been in development for yen years straight and it's one of the most densely content packed RTS titles to ever have been released. It puts the gak EA has been throwing out for command and conquer to shame and it's offerings are every bit as competitive as what relic has been doing (while providing a much more complete online game out of the box).

You're a hater without a cause.

I played through the single player campaign, as was irritated by the number of timer missions. This was something that irritated the crap out of me in the first game, and was done better in it. 'Hold for X mins against impossible hoard' and 'kill x enemies'. The one that got my goat the most was the Zeratul 'Kobayashi Maru' mission. The better you are, the longer it takes. (It took me four hours and 20k enemies on 'normal' on my first play-through to come to that conclusion. I actually had to stop trying in order to win. Kind of counter intuitive.)

I held for well longer than was needed as well. Perhaps you should play on a harder difficulty.

I also hate the loss of LAN/Spawn/more then one race. It's like someone gave me 1/3rd of SC 1 with a graphics upgrade and charged me $60.

Losing LAN support is annoying but it's not really a necessary evil anymore (doing more to simply aid in piracy then in aiding lan parties) given that the battle.net system serves the exact same function and 99% of people playing this game are going to have an active internet connection.

There are more races coming Baron. But the kicker is that it's going to be XPack content. Blizzard's 'official' reason: "We can focus more on building the storyline if we space it out"

Yes, it's as if companies putting out RTS games put new races into expansions. Games like command and conquer and dawn of war! This complaint is bull***.

Translation: "F**k your customer loyalty and patience for the last 12 years. You want a 100% complete game, you'll have to pay more than a meagre $70 for it!"

But being that they merged with Activision, that should hardly come as a suprise.

Like I said, it's a good beer and pretzels RTS for the casual player. Or it's great if you're a fan of the old titles. But as far as a modern RTS goes, it's as if it's format is behind by a deca-right...

Yes, because so many people loved the changes made to the command and conquer series! Clearly in refining what was popular before blizzard has made a game that is "behind the times". You know what needs updating too? First person shooters, you shoot too much and it's all in first person. They should change it all so it's more "modern".

Sorry Kyric, but the Source Engine is just one of many engines that have Starcraft II beat IMO.

The source engine is old and outmodded. No ones been praising left 4 dead 2 or portal for their lush and detailed environments. Thats because they are incapable of them (also they are incapable of large outdoor spaces which is why they are all canyon shooters at best). The source engine has held up well, but it's an engine for the FPS genre and performs horrifically in anything close to an RTS platform game (draw distance is inherently tied to processor use for instance, a giant empty box can kill a high end computer if it's big enough).

That's not to say that the SCII Editor isn't a wonderful piece of technology, but it's certainly not the cream-of-the-crop. Hell, I've even seen a mod for FO3, which is Bethesda drivel, that turns the game into an RTS/RPG hybrid.

Thats an out of engine mod using coders and out of engine assets. It is not using anything packaged with fallout 3. This comparison is also bull****.

Blizzard's editor isn't -really- isn't anything special. Developers have been putting out editors capable of cross-genre builds for years.

No not really. They've been releasing SDKs for years, which is a far cry from a comprehensive user oriented map editor.

Havok Engine. Been around forever. Has way less bugs then SC II.

The havok engine is a piece of proprietary physics software that is recoded and optimized in every game that its placed in. In many games it's buggy as gak. It doesn't have bugs because it's not an interactive product. It's a set of tools.

That statement is so silly I almost ignored it. But frankly, if I was GW, I'd be sending Blizz C&Ds instead of sending them to fan sites.

Who cares, both companies are ripoff artists.



You three should become a bit more aquianted with game development or at least try to argue from a factual basis in the future. This isn't rantcraft 2.

metallifan wrote:

Few flaws with this:

HoTS is being called "First in a series of expanions", meaning that the story of SCII will be told through several expansions
HoTS will, as per Blizzard, focus on Kerrigan during the events of the original SCII, leading up to and going a little ways past Jim finding her after the Artifact's blast.
The second expansion after HoTS is supposedly going to cover the Protoss in a lot of depth, so it's unlikely HoTS will contain any Protoss missions.
No word on the UED returning. I'm guessing that won't happen for a while (if at all).

Ah had not read up on that, so we are basicly going to pay for allto of expansions with basicly the same price over and over? Gotta milk them money Activision!
But nice that we are getting some background story what happend to Kerrigan during Wings of Liberty.

Pretty much. You're paying for background. It's supposed to be out later this year. Apparently there won't be any new units or buildings. No word on more MP maps either. Sounds like it's just going to be another campaign for around the $30-$40 range.

metallifan wrote:Pretty much. You're paying for background. It's supposed to be out later this year. Apparently there won't be any new units or buildings. No word on more MP maps either. Sounds like it's just going to be another campaign for around the $30-$40 range.

I've never heard a single thing that states "no new units or buildings" anywhere. Where are you getting this information? It's not the wiki, I've read that, it's not the wikia, I've read that, it's no blizzard site, and it's not ign, gamespot, gamespy, or kotaku. Is this just something you hear on a forum somewhere? It's patently ridiculous to assume that they would include no new multiplayer content.

Shuma, where did I say "No new multiplayer content"?

I said:

No word on more MP maps either

Which means "I haven't heard anything about new MP maps yet", just as it reads. Not "They're not adding any"

Come on mate, you're not Fateweaver. Just not all there right now? All I've read is that there won't be new units. I just haven't heard anything about new maps/content for MP.

BaronIveagh wrote:Havok Engine. Been around forever. Has way less bugs then SC II.

Havok is a physics engine, not a game engine. You can't build a game just off Havok like you could Source (Which I believe actually contains some version of Havok) or Unreal. Physics Engine != game engine.

Losing LAN support is annoying but it's not really a necessary evil anymore (doing more to simply aid in piracy then in aiding lan parties) given that the battle.net system serves the exact same function and 99% of people playing this game are going to have an active internet connection.

This. LAN parties were fun, but the internet isn't the slow laggy crapfest it was back in the day. Heck, you can still have the equivalent of a LAN party! Just go to a place with public internet access, hook up and have fun. If you have a good enough home connection you can even do it at your house. There are some insanely fast internet options out there today.

The source engine is old and outmodded.

QFT. Valve has done a lot for the the mod community, and the Source engine was a wonderful thing, half a decade ago... Honestly, I'd like to see Valve release something new. Source is still a wonderful engine for a lot of things, but the poor thing is getting old and senile.

metallifan wrote:Shuma, where did I say "No new multiplayer content"?

I said:

No word on more MP maps either

Which means "I haven't heard anything about new MP maps yet", just as it reads. Not "They're not adding any"

Come on mate, you're not Fateweaver. Just not all there right now? All I've read is that there won't be new units. I just haven't heard anything about new maps/content for MP.

Stop equivocating, you said no new units or structures. That is bs, you are making things up. The entire point of my post was to call out the entirety of your post, I don't really care if you make a small ironic accommodation in the middle of it. Thats like a piece of ham in a sandwich that used bricks instead of bread.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Blizzard did quite a lot, the online space of battlenet is quite revolutionary in the genre and there have been several non cosmetic changes to the gameplay. The campaign is lengthy and sizeable with great online integration and a significant number of units and possible strategies and there is a single player challenge mode which presents even more play value for the dollar. The game has not been in development for yen years straight and it's one of the most densely content packed RTS titles to ever have been released. It puts the gak EA has been throwing out for command and conquer to shame and it's offerings are every bit as competitive as what relic has been doing (while providing a much more complete online game out of the box).

You're a hater without a cause.

Um, if battlenet is revolutionary, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. I'd call it steam's ugly cousin, but that's be insulting to steam. I grant the campaign is lengthy. In fact, it's way lengthier then it probably should have been, since it seemed like every other mission was 'wait this long, occasionally shoot zerg/protoss, and win scenario'. If I can turtle and sit afk and win the battle (possible with auto-repairing scvs + the 'honest it's not living metal' upgrade) thats not exactly deep gameplay there.

ShumaGorath wrote:
I held for well longer than was needed as well. Perhaps you should play on a harder difficulty.

I always do the first playthrough on 'normal' or it's equiv when I get a game. Mostly since I'm never sure if it's going to be 'Hard' or '8 star hard'

ShumaGorath wrote:
Losing LAN support is annoying but it's not really a necessary evil anymore (doing more to simply aid in piracy then in aiding lan parties) given that the battle.net system serves the exact same function and 99% of people playing this game are going to have an active internet connection.

It's really annoying if you're in that one percent that are, say, connected via a government network and not allowed to have an alternative outside connection. Or if you're like a growing segment of the population that has had to turn off their home highspeed internet to save money due to unemployment. Or if you play on a laptop and are someplace the connection is spotty/battlenet blocked (hotels/some internet cafes)

Of course, if Blizz does take battlenet pay to play, like they've been talking about since last year, we might hear a change of tune.

After all, right now in Capitalist Russia, battle.net pays to play you. How much longer before the US falls into line with this? Ve shall see, tovarish. http://www.incgamers.com/News/21948/starcraft-ii-monthly-fees-confirmed-in-russia

Um, if battlenet is revolutionary, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

How much?

. I'd call it steam's ugly cousin, but that's be insulting to steam.

Yeah, I know. Battlenets never crashed when I tried closing it, it's nothing like steam! Realistically it's vastly closer to WoWs in game networking system (which it is based on) then steam which includes a significantly different interface.

I grant the campaign is lengthy. In fact, it's way lengthier then it probably should have been, since it seemed like every other mission was 'wait this long, occasionally shoot zerg/protoss, and win scenario'.

There were like four forcefully timed missions out of 27. There were several others that could not be completed until scripted events (Such as the train mission) but you're vastly overstating this.

If I can turtle and sit afk and win the battle (possible with auto-repairing scvs + the 'honest it's not living metal' upgrade) thats not exactly deep gameplay there.

Cool, you can't do that IN A SINGLE MISSION IN THE GAME.

I always do the first playthrough on 'normal' or it's equiv when I get a game. Mostly since I'm never sure if it's going to be 'Hard' or '8 star hard'

Same.

It's really annoying if you're in that one percent that are, say, connected via a government network and not allowed to have an alternative outside connection. Or if you're like a growing segment of the population that has had to turn off their home highspeed internet to save money due to unemployment. Or if you play on a laptop and are someplace the connection is spotty/battlenet blocked (hotels/some internet cafes)

If your unemployed why are you buying a sixty dollar videogame and intermittent internet connectivity has never been an issue for me and I "LAN" regularly at my apartment. I'm not one of the one percent though, and since it's one percent I don't really care.

Of course, if Blizz does take battlenet pay to play, like they've been talking about since last year, we might hear a change of tune.

After all, right now in Capitalist Russia, battle.net pays to play you. How much longer before the US falls into line with this? Ve shall see, tovarish. http://www.incgamers.com/News/21948/starcraft-ii-monthly-fees-confirmed-in-russia

Yeah, they have monthly and daily fees in several regions. They also have box sales in those places too. The micro transaction pricing structure is commonplace in asian countries.

You should probably do research into pricing trends in the asian continent before decrying the use of a standard pricing scheme by a company with a large sales volumes in those areas. Most companies (including blizzard) refuse to use such pricing structures in the west because it's counterintuitive to rapidly recouping the cost of development in their primary markets (where people have more money).

ShumaGorath wrote:

Cool, you can't do that IN A SINGLE MISSION IN THE GAME.

Actually, that's how I won the train mission. I set the diamond backs and some other stuff to patrol between the two dug in points and the end points of the tracks and killed every train. There were enough bunkers to kill the kill team since they split between the two points due to pathing.

BaronIveagh wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Cool, you can't do that IN A SINGLE MISSION IN THE GAME.

Actually, that's how I won the train mission. I set the diamond backs and some other stuff to patrol between the two dug in points and the end points of the tracks and killed every train. There were enough bunkers to kill the kill team since they split between the two points due to pathing.

... Ok, yeah, I can see that on normal. I will give you that one.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Um, if battlenet is revolutionary, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

How much?

. I'd call it steam's ugly cousin, but that's be insulting to steam.

Yeah, I know. Battlenets never crashed when I tried closing it, it's nothing like steam! Realistically it's vastly closer to WoWs in game networking system (which it is based on) then steam which includes a significantly different interface.

I grant the campaign is lengthy. In fact, it's way lengthier then it probably should have been, since it seemed like every other mission was 'wait this long, occasionally shoot zerg/protoss, and win scenario'.

There were like four forcefully timed missions out of 27. There were several others that could not be completed until scripted events (Such as the train mission) but you're vastly overstating this.

If I can turtle and sit afk and win the battle (possible with auto-repairing scvs + the 'honest it's not living metal' upgrade) thats not exactly deep gameplay there.

Cool, you can't do that IN A SINGLE MISSION IN THE GAME.

I always do the first playthrough on 'normal' or it's equiv when I get a game. Mostly since I'm never sure if it's going to be 'Hard' or '8 star hard'

Same.

It's really annoying if you're in that one percent that are, say, connected via a government network and not allowed to have an alternative outside connection. Or if you're like a growing segment of the population that has had to turn off their home highspeed internet to save money due to unemployment. Or if you play on a laptop and are someplace the connection is spotty/battlenet blocked (hotels/some internet cafes)

If your unemployed why are you buying a sixty dollar videogame and intermittent internet connectivity has never been an issue for me and I "LAN" regularly at my apartment. I'm not one of the one percent though, and since it's one percent I don't really care.

Of course, if Blizz does take battlenet pay to play, like they've been talking about since last year, we might hear a change of tune.

After all, right now in Capitalist Russia, battle.net pays to play you. How much longer before the US falls into line with this? Ve shall see, tovarish. http://www.incgamers.com/News/21948/starcraft-ii-monthly-fees-confirmed-in-russia

Yeah, they have monthly and daily fees in several regions. They also have box sales in those places too. The micro transaction pricing structure is commonplace in asian countries.

You should probably do research into pricing trends in the asian continent before decrying the use of a standard pricing scheme by a company with a large sales volumes in those areas. Most companies (including blizzard) refuse to use such pricing structures in the west because it's counterintuitive to rapidly recouping the cost of development in their primary markets (where people have more money).

this post is........................
an epic win

Yeah, for sure. I occasionally disagree with ShumaGorath, but I always look forward to reading his posts.

I'm loving the game. Picked it up this past week and i've played through the first four missions. The whole always connected to BNet was a bit iffy to me at first but It's growing on me with the news and community updates right there. The achievements are fun and the launcher/patcher works great. It reminds me a lot of WoW.

I haven't played anything but the campaign yet and so far I like the story and the way they've put it together. It's not revolutionary I suppose as far as things go, but it's still damn fun.

I'm playing on a Mac that's four years old so I can't have the graphical settings up too high but I've found a good balance that makes it look great and still very playable. Having my system maxed on on RAM helped out big time.

I was going to let it go at forcing him to admit that I had at least one point, but since some joker thought his post was made of win, I must now expose it as epic FAIL.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Yeah, I know. Battlenets never crashed when I tried closing it, it's nothing like steam! Realistically it's vastly closer to WoWs in game networking system (which it is based on) then steam which includes a significantly different interface.

I suppose it's not, since steam wasn't hacked within two hours of activation, like battle.net was.

ShumaGorath wrote:
If your unemployed why are you buying a sixty dollar videogame and intermittent internet connectivity has never been an issue for me and I "LAN" regularly at my apartment. I'm not one of the one percent though, and since it's one percent I don't really care.

That one percent is laying down their lives for you in desert hellholes and obscure third world countries. Or deciding how much you pay in taxes next year. Both should be cause for your concern.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Yeah, they have monthly and daily fees in several regions. They also have box sales in those places too. The micro transaction pricing structure is commonplace in asian countries.

You should probably do research into pricing trends in the asian continent before decrying the use of a standard pricing scheme by a company with a large sales volumes in those areas. Most companies (including blizzard) refuse to use such pricing structures in the west because it's counterintuitive to rapidly recouping the cost of development in their primary markets (where people have more money).

I'm also familiar with the South American pricing. SCII will set you back 119 Argentine Pesos, 235 for Unlimited use. Admittedly, it's half price for your initial purchase, but figure on paying 3-6 times that in subscription fees. Further, in some locations, they're charging the full 60 bucks (equiv) for the box and then again for the subscription (Estonia, Ukraine).

In Singapore, it actually costs $20 more up front (current conversion) then it does here, AND they get the subscription fee. Isn't THAT a pleasant thought...

And people wonder why software piracy is rampant there!

I'm really loving this game, which is odd because I wasn't a fan of the first one. I think they made the story deeper and easier to get into.

Sometimes I also thought I was playing mass effect with the ship parts. All in all a good game

Wow, a lot of back and forth on the merits of the game! For me, I just finished the campaign yesterday, and I thought it was a blast from start to finish! Took me a couple of tries to get the hang of the "All In" mission, though. Now it's time to focus on the multiplayer! Anyway, for me this game was well worth the price, and I can't wait for the expansions.

BTW, the only thing I really take issue with from the above discussion is the characterization of this game as "Beer and Pretzels." This suggests the game has no depth of strategy to it and can be played competitively with little or no thought. I think that is factually inaccurate, especially in multiplayer.

Metal Slug Starcraft 2!!!




No other RTS comes close to the complete package that SC2 is. NONE

I suppose it's not, since steam wasn't hacked within two hours of activation, like battle.net was.

Steam was hacked when it was in beta. My roomate had dawn of war 2 on a hacked steam/windows live account. None of these services are impenetrable. It also features a slew of phishing and account stealing scams.

That one percent is laying down their lives for you in desert hellholes and obscure third world countries. Or deciding how much you pay in taxes next year. Both should be cause for your concern.

I'm pretty sure the CBO and congress have access to better internet then I do and the soldiers can just play halo.

I'm also familiar with the South American pricing. SCII will set you back 119 Argentine Pesos, 235 for Unlimited use. Admittedly, it's half price for your initial purchase, but figure on paying 3-6 times that in subscription fees. Further, in some locations, they're charging the full 60 bucks (equiv) for the box and then again for the subscription (Estonia, Ukraine).

In Singapore, it actually costs $20 more up front (current conversion) then it does here, AND they get the subscription fee. Isn't THAT a pleasant thought...

And people wonder why software piracy is rampant there!

Those prices are designed specifically to counteract software piracy. Microstransaction and subscription models reduce the ease of use in pirated software. Regional price increases aren't particularly surprising either. Australia pays 80-100 dollars for the same boxes we do.

I was going to let it go at forcing him to admit that I had at least one point, but since some joker thought his post was made of win, I must now expose it as epic FAIL.

You're going to have to try harder then just appealing to the soldiers.

I'm pretty sure the CBO and congress have access to better internet then I do and the soldiers can just play halo.

I can vouche for Iraq's internet sucking. Soldiers have been very vocal about DRM's that require constant internet for play because when deployed they just don't have access to internet of that quality if any at all. It's not just soldiers though. A lot of rural areas have horrible internet even here in the States. I don't think it's wrong for such people to complain about internet that isn't available to them being a requirement for the game to be usable.

BaronIveagh wrote:I was going to let it go at forcing him to admit that I had at least one point, but since some joker thought his post was made of win, I must now expose it as epic FAIL.

Aw thanks, I always wanted to be like the Joker...

Ruckdog wrote:Wow, a lot of back and forth on the merits of the game! For me, I just finished the campaign yesterday, and I thought it was a blast from start to finish! Took me a couple of tries to get the hang of the "All In" mission, though. Now it's time to focus on the multiplayer! Anyway, for me this game was well worth the price, and I can't wait for the expansions.

BTW, the only thing I really take issue with from the above discussion is the characterization of this game as "Beer and Pretzels." This suggests the game has no depth of strategy to it and can be played competitively with little or no thought. I think that is factually inaccurate, especially in multiplayer.

I definitely agree for the most part - but I for one played just about every campaign mission the same. For the most part, build some defenses, turtle up for a while while I build up a kill team (typically the MMM strategy - Marines, Medics, Marauders) and sent it out to take out the enemy base(s). Oh, sure, some missions required a bit more flexibility - the train mission, for example, and definitely the zombies mission, but for the most part, it didn't require much more than that.

...then again, I'm playing on Normal, so take my experiences with a grain of salt. Normal is pretty easy, other than All In.