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Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (Mac/PC DVD-ROM)

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (Mac/PC DVD-ROM)

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From: Blizzard Entertainment
Category: Video Games

List Price: £44.99
Buy New: £34.99
as of 9/9/2010 08:32 CDT details
You Save: £10.00 (22%)
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New (26) Used (1) from £32.99

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars reviews
Sales Rank: 23

Platforms: Windows XP, Mac OS X
Genre: sci-fi-strategy-games
ESRB: Rating Pending
Media: Computer Game
Operating System: Mac OS X
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.8

MPN: STARCRAFT2
EAN: 3348542228696
ASIN: B000RE216U

Release Date: July 27, 2010
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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3 out of 5 stars WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY KERRIGAN?   July 27, 2010
NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit)
244 out of 278 found this review helpful

One can only respect BLIZZARD for not setting a release date before they knew they could meet it. No matter that this was the most awaited game for over a decade, they would release it "whenever it would be ready". Well, it is ready, it is here and it rocks. Too bad they kicked the respect bucket in the end. But first things first.

THE GOOD OLD GAMEPLAY GETS THE CIGAR
Seasoned and new gamers alike will appreciate the simple yet highly enjoyable gameplay. The factions are well balanced and the units perfectly valued. You gather minerals and vespene gas, you build your defenses, you upgrade, you expand, you gather your forces - and you unleash hell. Repeat as needed until satisfied.

STARCRAFT: THE QUICKENING
The game is much faster than the original. Resource gathering, building, researching and expanding all go faster now. This is something that will appeal to most and I for one liked it. It conveys an enjoyable sense of urgency, adding to the immersion. And because the game is richer and deeper, the tension just keeps mounting.

SWARMS!
The game designers either enjoyed STARSHIP TROOPERS one times too many or they are fond of killer bees documentaries. Either way, be prepared to have to deal with a lot of swarming enemies! The plains shall be soaked in Zerg blood leaving you with a thick metallic aftertaste of accomplishment.

SPACE. SPACE IS BEAUTIFUL
Visually this game is GORGEOUS. It looks like C&C4 was supposed to (but failed miserably). The units are detailed in design yet clearly discernible whereas the environments are superbly done (although not that variable). True, I could do with somewhat more realistic graphics but I can see that this could only be done at the expense of clarity when the number of units rises. What needs a bit getting used to is how some of the buildings do not look that different. No complaints about how they look but one can easily confuse them and build the same building twice.

COME FOR THE VESPENE GAS. STAY FOR THE STORY
The story picks up just where SC-BROODWAR left off. Following each mission nicely done videos move the single player story along (no spoilers, not to worry) that, although we are given the illusion of choosing between different paths, apparently they converge towards a predestined end.

DAMN IT JIM, WHERE IS THE REST OF THE GAME?
Why only 3 stars then? Well, in a nutshell: GREED.
Apparently ACTIVISION's influence is not very healthy to customer relations. Together with BLIZZARD they are trying to turn the StarCraft franchise into yet another World of WarCraft phenomenon - and, at the same time, using STARCRAFT II as the vehicle, turn BattleNet into the new STEAM. Unfortunately this results in a barely palatable product and using your fan-base to advance your corporate ambitions is always tacky.
Although priced even more than a full premium game, this is not a complete STARCRAFT sequel. You would not know this by its price-tag(!) but this is only A...THIRD of the game, the first part of three: you can only play the Terran campaign. The Zerg and the Protoss campaigns will be released independently later (and priced as if they were full games, one could safely bet).
To add insult to injury, one has to keep spending even more money if he wants any "premium maps" and "premium content" sold only via the BattleNet. Since this is a game that will be played mostly online don't be quick to dismiss this if you have a competitive streak.

OK, LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT IT - BUT THERE IS A HYDRALISK IN THE ROOM, ISN'T THERE?
Much more serious is the NeverLettingGo-OnLineActivation requirement. The game will ask for activation during installation, which also includes signing up to BattleNet (and, yes, this means that even this expensive game never becomes yours to keep). But that is not all: a periodic OnLine confirmation is also required EVERY THIRTY DAYS, FOREVER. You can play offline but no more than a month between re-activating.
Unlike the latest EA and UBISOFT flops (which have an idiotic Always-OnLine requirement), with SC2, after its initial Activation, you CAN play a single player game (campaign and skirmishes) without logging on to BattleNet. Only, to do this you have to log on as a ..."Guest" (I know, a Guest to your own game and your own computer...). You will be able to save your progress but you cannot tie it to your BattleNet account later, so any progress or accomplishments are lost for your online Account. After your 30 days are up you have to re-activate once more.
That is why a Broadband Internet connection is included in the minimum system requirements. You can decide if this bothers you.

SORRY TO BRING THIS UP BUT SPAWN SEEMS TO BE MISSING FROM MY COPY...
Remember how we could take our original STARCRAFT CD to a gathering of friends, Spawn it on everyone else's PCs and start a LAN party? Now one can play with his friends only through the BattleNet - and the Spawn function has been eliminated! Yes, that means each one of your friends now has to have his own original copy of the game!
The brass at the top conveniently forgets that the ability to Spawn games was the main reason both STARCRAFT and DIABLO acquired such huge fan-bases.
Et tu, BLIZZARD?


This is a good game, one I think we will be enjoying for years - or for as long as BLIZZARD shall allow us to do so. However, I had higher hopes for BLIZZARD's respect to its own customers.

RECOMMENDED.


2 out of 5 stars I love Starcraft but I cannot recommend this game until Blizzard fixes problems   August 4, 2010
Chris (Tallinn, EST)
21 out of 25 found this review helpful

I love Starcraft but I cannot recommend this game to anyone. This game cannot be played when you are offline, which simply means that you have to be always online to play. In itself, if done well, it is not a problem, but Starcraft 2's implementation of this makes it entirely not playable at times.

Starcraft 2, in case your connection drops even for a second while you are playing the campaign, will be unable to reconnect and properly save your achievements to your profile. There are even cases written in forums where save games are lost and thus the player has to replay entire portions of the game.

Even worse is the problem when the servers happen to be down, which has happened a few times by now. If battle.net servers are down, no one can actually play the game. While online component is unavailable (and cannot be replaced by LAN which does not exist for this game), the major problem is that you cannot play your single player campaign either. It will not work, for you have to be online with your battle.net profile in order to actually play the games single player component. The only exception is the guest account, but that would mean restarting the campaign nor no options to transfer your achievements later on to your online profile.

This game is a disappointment for all the wrong reasons. Once you actually get to play the game, it is good, but I cannot recommend this game to anyone and discourage everyone I know from buying it for many months until Blizzard has actually made it possible for people, who have purchased the game, to actually play it.

There is one exception, people who have pirated the game through filesharing are able to play and enjoy the single player component without problems. Which is a shame.


3 out of 5 stars Good and bad points.   September 2, 2010
David Lazarus
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

The game itself is brilliant. I have been playing for hours, on my 27" iMac and the visuals are great. It is immensely playable. Though setting it up is a pain, especially if you have a slow email. It took me nine hours to set up the battle.net account before I could play. Then as other people have commented on the reliance on being online is something that will mean that I will never buy another game that requires this in future. If the industry think this is the way of the future then the industry is dead.


3 out of 5 stars Great game - Shame you can't play it offline on startup   September 1, 2010
H. Ahad (London)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Great campaign mode with lots of variety.

I only found out that you can't play offline when I tried playing the game on a train journey. The only way you can do this is by verifying your account when you start up the application. This is ridiculous! As I have to keep my laptop on sleep mode which drains the battery.


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