Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Review
Short Version: The most important lesson I learned from Starcraft II – more of the same only BETTER in every way possible can make for an absolute Masterpiece! The list of improvements are extensive: Extremely high production values, massive amounts of interesting well voiced In-game cinematics, Engaging Singleplayer missions with interesting objectives, a near limitless Map Editor, and a full compliment of Online Multiplayer features including built in league and ladders, Blizzard delivered the Best RTS I have ever played in exchange for the 10 year wait from the original!
What you’ll Like:
• The Graphics are Jaw-dropping and there’s an Insane amount of detail in nearly every aspect of the game.
• The Adventure-like Metagame that allows to you watch your recent exploits on television, play fun tunes on the jukebox, learn more about your companion characters and explore your ship and newly acquired units.
• The Added RPG elements of upgrading your units skills and abilities or hiring mercenaries with in game credits and research points acquired during missions.
• The Extremely Flexible Map Editor allows you to create nearly any type of game you can imagine, if you can get over its learning curve.
• The Branching Story Paths forcing you to choose one mission over another each with unique cinematics and consequences.
• The gameplay from the original remains intact while the new units add new layers to the games strategy.
• Best Part: All of the excellent added story-driven cinematic’s in between missions.
What you’ll Hate:
• As a result of splitting the game into 1 full game & 2 expansions – There are only a handful of Protoss assignments and absolutely no Zerg Missions.
• Battle 2.0 is fancy but ultimately less functional than 1.0. Why did they remove chat rooms, force region restrictions, and strip=out Lan Play? Oh yea. To over-monetize everything they can – be on the look out for more of this.
• Worst Part: Knowing I’m contributing to Activision’s bottom line.
Final Verdict:
9/10*
Legendary!
*Final Verdict: 9/10 If corporate influence is to be counted – then consider Battle Net 2.0 changes, Region Locking, No LAN play and The so called “StarCraft II Marketplace”
BAD ASS APPROVED! Safe Buy!
*UDPATE
Kotaku reports that the Australian version of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will not be region-locked. This means Australian gamers are free to play with us guys in the USA if they choose to do so during first sign-up.
Here’s Blizzard’s Q&A to clarify things…
Q: Who is eligible to play on the North American servers?
A: All players, including those in the regions of Hong Kong and Macau, who purchase the English Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand Standard or Collector’s Edition of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will have the option of playing on the North American Battle.net® servers in addition to the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand servers if they prefer.Q: How much will this cost?
A: The option of playing on North American Battle.net servers will come at no additional cost to all players who have purchased the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand version of StarCraft II.Q: How will access to the North American servers be granted?
A: Our intention is to ensure that within 60 days after the launch of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, all players with a copy of the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand version will automatically gain the ability to also access the North American servers — this will be handled through Battle.net account management.Q: How will I know when I can access the North American servers?
A: We will have additional information on how and when to access the North American servers on our StarCraft II community site.Q: What will happen with my Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand Battle.net account?
A: Once you get access to the North American Battle.net servers, you will have access to both regions for online play. You can choose which one to play on at any given time, and can switch back and forth at will.Q: How will my friends list and rankings be handled?
A: All account-specific data, including friends lists, rankings, achievements, statistics, titles, and unlockable rewards, will be tracked separately for each region’s Battle.net servers, and will not carry over between them.Q: If I have already purchased the North American version, can I also play on the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand servers?
A: No. To have the option to play on both servers, you must purchase the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand version of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. This solution is specifically targeted to address gamers in Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand who have social relationships with North American players from previous Blizzard Entertainment titles.
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237 thoughts on “Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Review”
i was never interested in Starcraft until i seen the trailers for this
try warcraft 3 region of chos + the frozen thoren
This is StarCraft 2 FOOL!!! YOU BUY! YOU PLAY! End of discussion!
i wonder when Heart of the Swarm will get here, its been quite a while now.
anyone, i adored single player, it was AMAZING.
i loved the customization.
I dont think the negative points you said are legit. The reason you only get 1 account per game is so people dont make new accounts to destroy noobs.
The expansion packs arent made yet (over a year after release) so you cant be angry at that situation, unless they’re extortionatly priced. Cos they know ppl will “just want it!”, like me.
The Lan situation does suck a bit, but its surely to stop piracy. Also, why would u need Lan when u can play custom games online, the servers are good.
Guess passes can be useful so a friend can see if they can run the game on their comp. But a downloadable demo for all would be waaaaaaaaaaaay better.
The Starcraft 2 is as you said A FUCKING AMAZING GAME OMFGBBBQ360NOSCOPETOTHEBALLSTRIPLEAMOTHERFUCKINGWIN TO THE MAX in terms of single player and multiplayer.
I didn’t buy it.
Why? Too much corporate bullshit like “oh you have no Internet connection! No SC2 for you then C: have a nice day dickhead and thanks for buying the game” or “what? you want to make nice fan made things like DOTA 2.0 or something? NO WAY ASSHOLE NOW SUCK MY CORPORATE DICK” (referring to world of starcraft ban and sue)
and so on, and so on.
Sorry for angry rant, i had to do it. :C i took no enjoyment bashing a game this awesome.
you need a internet connection to activate all new PC game. You can play sc2 offline if youvw already activated ur account on that computer. There is no difference.
What u talking about fan made things? there is a custom editor and there is an intergrated way to download ppls inventions….. i cant see how you could be more “fan made content” friendly
i dont really like starcraft, but thats probably because i am a huge fan of warhammer 40k and because starcraft looks like if it has ripped of warhammer 40k
@ODST
(i would say thumbs up this but everyone that says that get downs i atleast want this to have no downs or up because it sort of derfends both games.)
Im a fan of both games and I could never topp one over the other, all I should know between starcraft 2 and warhammer is never say warhammer ripped out starcraft on a starcraft review, game or anything else I will diffend starcraft and warhammer to the death, and I worry that saying this will get downed because I said I like warhammer and starcraft plus if you do say what you said you get starcraft fans that got warhammer 40k retribution to argue on it because someone went to their game and said what you said
sorry i ment starcraft ripped off warhammer 40k
That;’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.
Hey joe why won’t the video play?
Game absolutely rocks, awesomeness galore! And the completion of the awesomeness is this: http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/pd/productID.199817100/categoryId.35156900
Which is, even if you wont play Starcraft II (and risk every game lover calling you a total douche) the absolute coolest accessory to have!
SPOILER ALERT FOR THE CAMPAIGN STORY !
I love this game! I’m on my third play-through of the campaign and its still just as awesome as the first. However, on this play-through i chose to attack the platform which holds all the zerg air units. Tychus asked why they couldn’t just nuke the platform and the reason given was that the dens were too deep, and that a SURFACE explosion wouldn’t kill them all. BUT they way you have to kill the zerg in the dens is by destroying coolant towers WHICH ARE ON THE SURFACE OF THE PLATFORM. WHY CAN”T YOU JUST NUKE THEM?????
Again, i love the game i just needed to point this out.
F*ck Activision…. they are a perfect example of Corporate Commander, which you displayed. Blizzard used to be great… they still are, but are being held back by those money-sucking, subscription-grubing, minitransaction-selling bastards called Activision.
i bought this game on its release date and i just watched your review, i have to say i LOVE this game, but as someone who played the original and someone who followed the development of this one i have to say a few things did dissapoint me.
1. the core story of single player campaign. it was utter garbage, im sorry but it was. but what *SPOILER* jim raynor shot the guy who did jail time for him for a chick he only spoke to through video-telephone, not to mention she butchered millions of people like what the hell was that? and oh yh they explained it, the main enemy the zerg are just harmless critters that are enslaved by some evil thing that is just smoke with two red glowing eyes, soo cliche. it was almost like they spent a single day on the story
2. the anouncment that the expansion will be full priced 60$ activision pissed me off soo much, that was definitely not a blizzard decission.
3. the new voice actor for queen of blades. yh she really sucks compared to the old one.
But i did love all the things you pointed out and that is why i play the multi-player and i re play the campaign every now and then, i just love the space cowboy feel that blizzard created for the terran it works soo well its beyond words, it reminds me a lot of cowboy bebop, especially with how anime some things are like the viking that turns into a walker. the campaign i only re-play because the sub missions that dont follow the core game story are very fun and diverse.
all in all its a great game but i wish they did some things different
I don’t support games that I don’t view to be a complete package.
My solution to this is that something like 3 years down the road, after they’ve finished this game(Zerg and Protoss complete) will I play it, after buying the inevitable BattleChest that Blizzard makes.
And, funny thing, this will actually save me time and money in the long run, because each expansion will inevitably be put at LEAST $40 as Activision won’t go any lower and the battlechest will likely be around $80, well worth the price for a complete Blizard game.
Blizzard rocks and Activision sucks!
Blizzard cares about gamers. Activision however, just wants to rack-in the freakin’ dollars! You can even Google “Activision only cares about money” and find agreements to this.
I don’t know what they were thinking when they merged, but they should separate right now.
I waited 10 years for the same game… bullshit so what if its tweaked a little its the same goddamn game WTF blizzard were you too busy with WOW BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Well i bought this game and i want to play in a place where dont have internet… and i can’t play coz need to login to play a single player that’s is ridiculous…
I bought this game right after watching it. You don’t buy a game with out joe saying so.
It’s story is damn good for sure and I’m a hardcore fan of starcraft I. I played that for years and years. But… they REALLY screwed up battle.net you can’t just make your own game now and wait for people to join unless you’ve played it enough by yourself or with friends when you make a new map. You only see the games that are played the most. So if someone makes a new game that’s not played much you gotta scroll down forever to find it.
And the top game at the moment is FUCKING COOKING!??!WHAT THE SLKSLKHKSNJSD >_>../.. I loved all the bounds, league of legends kind of games, the survival games, the RPGs, And the RP maps in Starcraft. The RP maps i’ve found in SC II are definitely interesting but it was way easier in Starcraft. To make stuff in SC II RP maps it feels extremely complex. In SC it had a very simple system of beacons to summon monsters and stuff. When I first started playing SC RPs It was easy to understand and make your own towns but in SCII it just makes me feel like I’m retarded. SC still OWNs SC II on battle.net. It might get better after the expansions come out but for now I rather play SC than SCII.
while I feel raped by battle.net I still love starcraft and can’t wait for the next expansions to come I’m Excited as hell for them! I can’t wait until the next campaigns come out!! Its murdering me!!!! I need them now!!
Actually, that game isn’t the top game, its one that blizzard released. The actual top game is practically Dota 2.0…… god i hate Dota.