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I caved in a bought it after a friend offered me a guest pass and I had seven hours of free play with the full client (Damn you Blizzard and your brilliant marketing).

I can see why the game succeeded so well in the 90's. But it'll die fast in the new age of auto squaded infantry, and units that can move and shoot at the same time. Also, DRM can burn in hell and so can anyone who puts it in their game. Say hi to Hitler for me.

I do enjoy the game, and I'm sure the SC hardcore will be playing for years, but most players are going to abandon the game fast. It honestly is way too old school to draw the crowd, lacking even the simplest of improvements other games have made to the genre in terms of command and control. People can make the arguement that it's a different kind of RTS all they want, but the game is still going to be utterly ancient and it's always going to be a bad thing. It's a good thing there are ALOT of SC hardcore out there to give each other game time lol.

EDIT: While the game shows a lot of Blizzard's brilliance, it also sadly shows a lot of the same bad design choices that killed MW2 on PC (And there's no console market to buffer them this time). I sense Activision's greedy hand in this...

Just so everyone knows, SCII wont be bundled. Everything is done totally online and through the blizzard website. When you buy SCII at gamestop or walmart or something, your aren't buying ANYTHING but a CD key. The CD in the box only takes you to the blizzard website where you download and "Activate" your game TO your account.

on the + side to that, you can download and install the game on ANY computer you want by going to blizzards website and logging in to your account.

Gameplay is just amazing. A LOT has changed in SCII that make it....interesting. for those that loved SC, the units are very different in SC2, and there is more to do.

HIghly recommended and if you wanna play a game sometime, add me to your friendslist (which is now ingame!)KizzyPop


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LordofHats wrote:I can see why the game succeeded so well in the 90's. But it'll die fast in the new age of auto squaded infantry, and units that can move and shoot at the same time. Also, DRM can burn in hell and so can anyone who puts it in their game. Say hi to Hitler for me.

very FEW units can move and fire.

Can't wait for R.U.S.E in all honesty. The trailer looked funny as hell, but it still has my interest.

Kyric wrote:HIghly recommended and if you wanna play a game sometime, add me to your friendslist (which is now ingame!)KizzyPop

I'll add you tonight! I've been looking for players to add to my list, as no one I know right now is playing this game. My user name is the same as my forum one. I wonder if there would be any interest in a Dakka SC II guild?

Anyway, I hear what you guys are saying about SC II being dated, but TBH I didn't like the gameplay of some of the newer RTS's I've played (DOW II for example), so I guess I fall into the category of those who just wanted a shiner Starcraft .

Ruckdog wrote:

Kyric wrote:HIghly recommended and if you wanna play a game sometime, add me to your friendslist (which is now ingame!)KizzyPop

I'll add you tonight! I've been looking for players to add to my list, as no one I know right now is playing this game. My user name is the same as my forum one. I wonder if there would be any interest in a Dakka SC II guild?

Dakka SCII guild! xD awesome. ill be looking forward to it. currently im at work. i can get on right now if i want, but i gotta pause every 10 minutes until my boss walks past! xD

Ruckdog wrote:Anyway, I hear what you guys are saying about SC II being dated, but TBH I didn't like the gameplay of some of the newer RTS's I've played (DOW II for example), so I guess I fall into the category of those who just wanted a shiner Starcraft .

Yeah, DOW2 Didnt go over very well imho. Warcraft, diablo, and starcraft are the bomb! xD

DoWII was one step forward five steps back. Rather than build on the game people loved, Relic just remade Company of Heroes and put 40k wallpaper on it. It's lack of success isn't because it wasn't good, and more because it wasn't what fans wanted. Consumer disappointment can be a real b****.

very FEW units can move and fire.

So? The pathfinding in the game is horrible, almost like it was copy pasted from 90's era RTS games. Since units in general can't move and shoot at the same time, it meals a large mob ends up bumping into each other and running around dying instead of shooting. That's just sad.

And I haven't found any units that can move and shoot thus far other than the Diamondback, which is SP only. I found none on the Protoss side of things, and I haven't even toyed with Zerg yet.

This isn't exactly a problem, but the bad pathfinding compounded with inability to shoot while movie (I mean come on! I can get infantry, but vehicles too? Really?) makes the game more tactically complex than other RTS games. Every battle is a three way battle between you your opponent, and some crappy design choices . Most people won't bother trying. Soon only the SC faithful will be playing the game, along with people like me who can get over a few minor moments of game design stupidity to play an otherwise awesome game.

My review of SC2.
Alrighty the campaign was great and alot of plot twists. The campaign was very exciting and involving. And I swear i played by emotion some times. I really like the game. And it really showed me that old games with sequels like starcraft are FTW. 9.5/10. Only problem i had was. If you get Goliath just Goliath with all their upgrades they are unbeatable. I swear i ran 30 of these and i killed everything in my path.

Gameplay. Alrighty the gameplay was perfect though i wish they didn't get rid of some units i liked from the original starcraft. The Game-play itself was flawless. 9.9/10

Graphics. For a RTS it has pretty damn good graphics. 9.9/10

Story. The story was very good and has a good writing touch to it. 5/5

Map editor. I don't know what to say about this. But the map editor from WC3 was alot easier to use than it's starcraft 2 counterpart. But once you get the feel for it. It makes for a very fun tool to use. 9.4/10

Battle.net. Alrighty the battle.net has alot of problems. But conisdering they are working on it i have to give them a break on this. But ever since they got rid of Chat Channels That pissed me off. Not only that but their has been alot of fuss at the moment about it. Battle.net on a gaming basis is very fun and very involving. You make friends and you can have fun. In this manner they have won that. My Review. 8.5/10

total score: 9.2/10
This Recommended for everyone. I had a great time with it and i spent 20 hours of my life playing it. It was alot of fun and the ending make me cry :*(. I love seeing nova too as she makes a return in this. This Asherian commands Review and me signing off to review more games.

LordofHats wrote:DoWII was one step forward five steps back. Rather than build on the game people loved, Relic just remade Company of Heroes and put 40k wallpaper on it. It's lack of success isn't because it wasn't good, and more because it wasn't what fans wanted. Consumer disappointment can be a real b****.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that Relic did due diligence by the 40k Universe and the original games. And I can appreciate it for what it was, as a kind of rpg-RTS hybrid (I have never played Company of Heros, mind). In that sense, I agree with you it was a "good" game. I would fall into that category of the Disappointed Fan, becuase for me the biggest joy in DOW was rolling into battle with 3 LRBTs and a Baneblade, with Commissars providing the summary executions as necessary. DOW II just wasn't that kind of game, unfortunately.

Asherian: Thanks for the review! I look forward to finishing up the single player this week to get the story.

Your welcome. I actually was writing this when i played the game. I should join G4 because of this....

Dawn of War II was intended to be a far different style of warfare than Dawn of War, and people seem to not understand that.

DOWII is to Kill-Teams as DOW is to Apocalypse/40k.

Kanluwen wrote:Dawn of War II was intended to be a far different style of warfare than Dawn of War, and people seem to not understand that.

Usually when a sequel or a next installment is made. Its not far fetched to expect them to be similar.
DoW 1 and DoW 2 are VERY VERY different type of games. Its not whether people understand that or not cupcake.

Kanluwen wrote:Dawn of War II was intended to be a far different style of warfare than Dawn of War, and people seem to not understand that.

DOWII is to Kill-Teams as DOW is to Apocalypse/40k.

That isn't the issue. People liked DoW's style. DoWII was a completely different kind of game. It turned people off because it wasn't what they wanted. That's why I don't play it. That and I hate Windows Live.

Alrighty the campaign was great and alot of plot twists. The campaign was very exciting and involving. And I swear i played by emotion some times. I really like the game. And it really showed me that old games with sequels like starcraft are FTW. 9.5/10.

I give it a 9. I have not seen a story line that was so engaging as SCII's in a long time. Even Bioware's recent work can't compare. The voice acting was superb, and the characters enjoyable, though I think they could have been expanded better. But I do think that the story line is horribly predictable. I called almost every "twist" within a few seconds of related characters appearing (Within the first 10 missions I knew the entire ending of the game more or less).

Gameplay. Alrighty the gameplay was perfect though i wish they didn't get rid of some units i liked from the original starcraft. The Game-play itself was flawless. 9.9/10

I wouldn't call it flawless. I give gameplay a 9.5. I have quite a few complaints against the gameplay for it's ancient design and outdated concept. It's still loads of fun though, so I think a lot people will be able to get over it in time. It's like Mario. You'd think jumping around from one platform to the next would get old. It doesn't.

Graphics. For a RTS it has pretty damn good graphics. 9.9/10

I actually think the graphics are quite dated. Have you looked at the ground on the maps? It almost doesn't look like they're 3D rendered. I think they did it on purpose to keep an old SC feel, but it looks awkward to me.

Story. The story was very good and has a good writing touch to it. 5/5

Why did we go from a 10 point scale to a 5 point scale lmao

Map editor. I don't know what to say about this. But the map editor from WC3 was alot easier to use than it's starcraft 2 counterpart. But once you get the feel for it. It makes for a very fun tool to use. 9.4/10

Very curious about this. I haven't tried it yet but I might enjoy it.

Battle.net. Alrighty the battle.net has alot of problems. But conisdering they are working on it i have to give them a break on this. But ever since they got rid of Chat Channels That pissed me off. Not only that but their has been alot of fuss at the moment about it. Battle.net on a gaming basis is very fun and very involving. You make friends and you can have fun. In this manner they have won that. My Review. 8.5/10

8.5? I give it a 1. You can't access achievements without a connection. You're CD-key is forever tied to a single character account. The map list is stored online! You can see the game loading it from the net every time you try to pick a map . Without an internet connection, the game is worthless. And I have comcast. Crap internet is a given.

Overall I rate the game a 9/10. I hope the patch out the overbearing need for battle.net in time. It would be nice to have multiple character accounts (no reason you can't), and allow the access of achievements without a connection. The map list can be accessed without internet but you sit there for five minutes until the game blurts out nothing and you have to go back and then go to select map again to get the list to load. I'd like that fixed.

i say lord of hats is spot on. sorry.

Star Craft 2 for me filled the gap between DoW 2 and CoH Tales Of Valor, I like how the battles flows and how is leaves no options barred in online battels.

I love SC2, best RTS yet - 5/5 for me. The story was predictable but it was fun, entertaining, and executed well and there's going to be two more acts to tell anyway (and I doubt its going to get any easier for our heroes). Was not expecting that level of immersion. Haven't tried out those challenge missions yet but this is one of the few games where I actually want to max the content out since its fun and some of those achievements are pretty difficult.

Multiplayer is also fantastic and the e-sport community has gobbled up it up ever since beta. Blizzard RTS games are fun even as a spectator too imo. For anyone interested here's one youtube channel that features elite players competing for tournament $$$:




The map editor looks more in-depth than ever which added years to the first title and looks to do the same this time around.

Not a fan of no LAN but thats not going to stop this game from being one of the PC's biggest international hits and Blizzard in general is pretty good with its community; Activision be damned!

I just spent the whole night playing multiplayer, and i am rather disgusted at the amount of protos players. They just get a few of the carriers and assault you head on. SO UNCOOL.

PLAY ZERG FOR MANLY WIN

LordofHats wrote:DoWII was one step forward five steps back. Rather than build on the game people loved, Relic just remade Company of Heroes and put 40k wallpaper on it. It's lack of success isn't because it wasn't good, and more because it wasn't what fans wanted. Consumer disappointment can be a real b****.

Ummm....considering one of the complaints for CoH was "It's just DoW1 with a WWII paintjob!".

CoH has more in common with DOW1 than the RPGish DoWII.

halonachos wrote:Can't wait for R.U.S.E in all honesty. The trailer looked funny as hell, but it still has my interest.

Tried the beta of ruse. Wasn't impressed to be honest not much in the the way of strategy. I would pay attention to reviews on it if i were you then buy it.

Maybe we should start a thread for Dakka members to put their user in SC so we can make a Dakka SC guild! Dakka Dakka! Dakka Dakka!

mcfly wrote:I just spent the whole night playing multiplayer, and i am rather disgusted at the amount of protos players. They just get a few of the carriers and assault you head on. SO UNCOOL.

PLAY ZERG FOR MANLY WIN

If your getting stomped by protoss running lots of carriers, especially as zerg, you need to seriously learn to play.

Kyric wrote:Maybe we should start a thread for Dakka members to put their user in SC so we can make a Dakka SC guild! Dakka Dakka! Dakka Dakka!

Well, I made it: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/309199.page . Now we'll see if anyone else is interested .

DoWII was one step forward five steps back. Rather than build on the game people loved, Relic just remade Company of Heroes and put 40k wallpaper on it. It's lack of success isn't because it wasn't good, and more because it wasn't what fans wanted. Consumer disappointment can be a real b****.

Dawn of war 2 sold well and was both a financial and critical success for THQ. Dawn of war one was a mindless non competitive funfest but it wasn't a particularly deep game, they tried to fix that with dawn of war two which is a significantly more cerebral experience. Some people just like to make a giant army and victory lap in every battle though so it's not everyones thing.

ShumaGorath wrote:

DoWII was one step forward five steps back. Rather than build on the game people loved, Relic just remade Company of Heroes and put 40k wallpaper on it. It's lack of success isn't because it wasn't good, and more because it wasn't what fans wanted. Consumer disappointment can be a real b****.

Dawn of war 2 sold well and was both a financial and critical success for THQ. Dawn of war one was a mindless non competitive funfest but it wasn't a particularly deep game, they tried to fix that with dawn of war two which is a significantly more cerebral experience. Some people just like to make a giant army and victory lap in every battle though so it's not everyones thing.

DoW2 is a much deeper game than DoW1 ever was, and Shuma describes the difference quite excellently. Personally, I enjoy DoW2 much more than DoW1. In DoW2 you are constantly fighting over territory, and all units have their place and counters (albeit soft-counters). DoW1, you made the biggest army you could and smashed it into your opponents army... which I guess has some appeal for some people.

However, I wish DoW2 had a Landraider :( but that might be a bit OP.

Also, DoW2 and the expansion pack sold very well. The single-player in both are great, and a real step up from most RTS 'campaigns'.

Do you need internet to use the map editor? (I use hughesnet dammit!)

Dawn of war 2 sold well and was both a financial and critical success for THQ.

Sales and critical success don't equal real success. When the game came out it wasn't what any of the DoW1 crowd expected, and it showed. A lot people bought the game and stopped playing a month or so later. You could see the people playing Dark Crusade and Soul Storm spike by a lot after the game released full of people who hated the new one (Of course, that died out fast). Now it's been awhile since I played at all, so maybe it's picked up steam since then.

DoW1 is only a "mindless funfest" when you get people like me who aren't that great at multitasking. When you get RTS vets going it gets a lot more interesting than build and smash. That's true of almost every RTS game. You have people like me who just enjoy going with the flow, and then you have the people who play to win a little too hard.

I never said outright that DoWII was bad though. I think it's weaker than DoW1 because I had no fun playing it. Single player was weak, multiplayer was overly simplistic in terms of resource management, and every battle ends with whoever spams the most mech as the winner because there were no where near enough ways to kill tanks and walkers. And I don't know what you mean by "deeper." Half the people I played just kept trying to build and smash, granted in fewer number than in other RTS' I've played. Only having two or three maps per multiplayer mode didn't help much either. DoWII was not an improvement. It was a rebuild of a perfectly good game that added up to a less than fun experience. I also hate windows live

Tried the beta of ruse. Wasn't impressed to be honest not much in the the way of strategy. I would pay attention to reviews on it if i were you then buy it.

Gah. My friend pulled an epic moment when he loaded up on that overpowered artillery and shelled me from across the map into oblivion, with a hoard of infantry and anti tank in the trees to stop my approach XD. I hope they patched that in the final version of the game. We even made a gentlmens agreement not to use aircraft and he had a full squad of B17's to shell at me too XD. Insult and ingury

CoH has more in common with DOW1 than the RPGish DoWII.

If all we're talking about is single player, I still disagree. CoH and DoW1 were very different games with a shift from a build and smash style to more fast paced squad oriented play.

Guys this is a Starcraft 2 thread. Not a damn DOW2 thread.

Sales and critical success don't equal real success.

Yes. They do.

When the game came out it wasn't what any of the DoW1 crowd expected, and it showed. A lot people bought the game and stopped playing a month or so later. You could see the people playing Dark Crusade and Soul Storm spike by a lot after the game released full of people who hated the new one (Of course, that died out fast). Now it's been awhile since I played at all, so maybe it's picked up steam since then.

It's funny that would would bring up soulstorm which in fact wasn't a financial success nor was it a particularly well made game. Dow2 online is about as hopping as you would expect an RTS to be and the expansion helped add quite a bit with the additions to the last stand mode.

DoW1 is only a "mindless funfest" when you get people like me who aren't that great at multitasking. When you get RTS vets going it gets a lot more interesting than build and smash.

I'm an RTS vet, and aside from map control and a very weak form of rock paper scissors countering it's pretty mindless. Short of an ork on eldar battle you're not going to see much in the way of tactical flow or micromanagement in battles (the former because of the sheer requirement for mass map control and the latter because of micro abilities and proxy bases).

I never said outright that DoWII was bad though. I think it's weaker than DoW1 because I had no fun playing it. Single player was weak, multiplayer was overly simplistic in terms of resource management, and every battle ends with whoever spams the most mech as the winner because there were no where near enough ways to kill tanks and walkers.

Yeah, they changed the game significantly with the only war patch update which jumbled tiers around and made it take longer to reach tier two. If thats your complaint (which makes no sense since its all that happened in DOW1 anyway) then I would suggest going back and trying again.

And I don't know what you mean by "deeper." Half the people I played just kept trying to build and smash, granted in fewer number than in other RTS' I've played. Only having two or three maps per multiplayer mode didn't help much either. DoWII was not an improvement. It was a rebuild of a perfectly good game that added up to a less than fun experience. I also hate windows live

In this instance I meant depth insofar as the broad counterability of army builds and the tactical inclusion of squad upgrades (that add meaningfully to gameplay itself) and terrain use. It takes a hell of a lot more to be "good" at 2 then 1.

Guys this is a Starcraft 2 thread. Not a damn DOW2 thread.

Starcraft two is cool.

Maybe you guys can help me with this...the cinemas in the game aren't playing smoothly for me. Would turning down my settings help? I haven't had any problems in normal game play, and this solution seems counter-intuitive since I thought the movies were pre-redered.

Asherian Command wrote:Guys this is a Starcraft 2 thread. Not a damn DOW2 thread.

I tried it. I am not particularly fond of the antiquated (not that there is anything wrong with that) gameplay with no cover mechanics or special damage types (use AV weapons on vehicles, for example) and heavy macro/econ. I played it a lot... 12 years ago. But now, its just not my thing.

Its hard to just pass on a thread where someone is insulting the mechanics and gameplay of a game I actually like, even when the majority of the thread is about a different game.

Ruckdog wrote:Maybe you guys can help me with this...the cinemas in the game aren't playing smoothly for me. Would turning down my settings help? I haven't had any problems in normal game play, and this solution seems counter-intuitive since I thought the movies were pre-redered.

Same here, turning down settings helps a lot but then you're also reducing in game visuals. Theres no easy fix.

I tried it. I am not particularly fond of the antiquated (not that there is anything wrong with that) gameplay with no cover mechanics or special damage types (use AV weapons on vehicles, for example) and heavy macro/econ.

Starcraft has damage types as well as a cover system.