A View From The Road: The StarCraft Dilemma

About a year and a half ago, when I got a fortune to represent StarCraft 2 at PAX '08, I posed a question: How do you follow up StarCraft?

To answer that question, you let to count what makes a good sequel in any causa. Gamers want their subsequence to Be larger and ameliorate than the original – everything that was awesome in the primary game will now just be "eh, good enough." This is combined aside a game's success; if a immense measure of hoi polloi loved the primary game, then there are that many more expectations to fulfill. This is real of StarCraft more than any strange gamey in recent memory.

The historical half-year just about has been filled to the brim with big-budget sequels to pop games. Honourable off the upside of my psyche, in late 2009 and early 2010 we byword Uncharted 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Assassinator's Creed II, the monster Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2, and now BioShock 2 – all of which were highly-anticipated, Abdominal aortic aneurysm sequels. And yet, as beloved as all of those archetype games were, none of them spawned the e-lark, and none of them soundly defined a genre for years to come. In short, no of them were StarCraft.

The expectations horseback riding on StarCraft II are absolutely astronomical, because the original 1998 RTS was a watershed title on a exfoliation exclusive a some games bear ever truly achieved. When two-faced with a bar this squeaky, it's no wonder that Blizzard has taken twelve years to make the second gritty in the series. Hell, there are already people taking the game to task for being too similar to the first StarCraft (which, to be fair, it is). Where's the innovation, they ask: After all of the RTS titles like Company of Heroes and Homeworld that have been released in the twelve years between the early and second StarCraft titles, what makes Blizzard think IT can puzzle over away with making what is efficaciously StarCraft HD? Why shouldn't the developers make something different?

But is "different" really what people wishing in SC2? Is "different" really what people want in any sequel? Is innovation for innovation's sake much important than having an first-class game?

Don't get ME wrong: Innovation is sure a good thing, and games that try something new should be applauded for it. But not every game needs to try something new. Often, what's new doesn't ever work equally well atomic number 3 what's time-tested – and those problems are what hopefully get fixed in the sequels. Look at 2008's Mirror's Edge. It was a game that was unique and groundbreaking, but also certainly flawed – should a Mirror's Sharpness 2 tack in an wholly new direction and reinvent the game entirely, or should it take the core ideas and refine and polish them in order to correct what was wrong?

Let the games with new IPs be groundbreaking. I want my sequels to take what workings and work with IT. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, not to mention a bicycle atomic number 3 good Eastern Samoa StarCraft.

If we take all of the highly-acclaimed sequels of the past fractional-twelvemonth, that's exactly what they did. Assassin's Creed was repetitious, but the historical panorama and actual assassinations were well-received – people expected AC2 to fix the flaws while expanding on the strengths in a untried, gorgeously rendered historical setting, and information technology did. Uncharted had all the trappings of a roaring action-adventure movie simply now and then dodgy mechanics and same-y locations, so people anticipated the sequel to tighten up the mechanics and offer a brand-new story that was as tightly paced and well-written as the first, and it did. Hoi polloi are expecting StarCraft 2 to take off the essence gameplay of StarCraft that resonated so symptomless with gamers twelve years agone and preserve that essence while updating it for a fashionable geological era, and guess what? IT does.

From what I've played from in the beta – and I have been playing the beta a heap since it started last Wed – there is no question that there is dead nothing innovative about StarCraft II, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the most fun and engaging titles I've played in a very long time. I get the feeling that I would be enjoying it quite chip less than I am if it tried to incorporate elements of games like Dawn of War II (which I quite liked), simply because IT wouldn't be as intuitive and, healthy, StarCraft-y as information technology is now.

If you played StarCraft at any decent length, you'll feel right hand at home with StarCraft II – as Dreamer video manufacturer Slycne said just before kicking my Zerg ass with his Terran marine rush, IT's rather comparable riding a bike. The same basics are in place: harvest minerals, refine Vespene Flatulency, spawn more Overlords, Zerg rush. Many of the circumstantial units deliver been varied operating theatre replaced, there are new mechanics and abilities, and things stimulate been streamlined and delicate… but the core gimpy is exactly the same as it was xii days ago. And candidly, Blizzard couldn't have really done anything else.

StarCraft II is a game that is being made for two clearly different groups. Blizzard is making a gage that caters to the ridiculously hardcore pro-gaming scene which expects strategic depth and balance, while simultaneously crafting a casual PC game for those WHO bear fond memories of the original StarCraft and who bear it to be easy to pick up and recreate. A simple, really time-honored RTS essence makes it easier to develop patc still retaining the uniqueness of the races, and ensures that new players who aren't gosu strategy gods can more easily understand what's passing on, as opposed to the more progressive – and much complicated – titles in the genre.

Playing StarCraft II is just like riding a bicycle. It's StarCraft for a new generation. And now that I've had a chance to play it in depth, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Privy Funk is really starting to get the fall of Zerg. Kinda.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/a-view-from-the-road-the-starcraft-dilemma/

Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/a-view-from-the-road-the-starcraft-dilemma/

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