Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Nuclear Launch Detected.

By TheGraveMind

For those of you who don't know, Starcraft 2 was just released today. The sequel to one of the greatest (arguably THE greatest) RTS games, a decade in the making. Things like "Nuclear launch detected" are well known around the world from this game dating back to the late 90s. Even up to this current moment, SC1 has had a strong following. Very few other games printed in '98 can say it is still being played. In South Korea it is even a national sport I believe.


It is no wonder there are many internet memes out there based off of the Starcraft following.
The zergling rush, one of the most popular phrasing deriving from the game.
Then the Koreians caught on, and the rush grew stronger.
Finally, with better graphics and a faster processer, Star craft 2 brings us with these zerglings!

Ok, so not being a wikipedia file on Starcraft, enough of its past.
STARCRAFT II the game
It is faster. much much faster. For me most games have lasted 9-33 minutes, One on one games. The mining is faster (goes by 5 resources and half the time) and everything builds a little faster. I played protoss in the first one, and I am currently trying them out in the new one. One major difference is there really is no Late game power players. There is early game, mid game, and game over. It used to be that the protoss could upgrade the most and became the most powerful in the later part of the game. And as mentioned, the Zerg rush early on. Well in the second one, these roles are reversed. The protoss are supposed to be the advanced civilization, so they already have things ready and developed. The zerg have to grow each unit and evolve into new technologies.

So the first few easily noticeable things, besides the graphics. Again, the speed of everything has been shortened. Some may also notice a few buildings have been adjusted on there cost. Some other things you may not notice, some hot keys have been moved/changed. Mostly the right hand keys, This is a big deal at first to long time players. I learned to type one handed by playing the original. You never let go of the mouse, so you need to hit the P button with your left hand. Well now all the P's are now E's. I still catch myself reaching for the P every once and a while.

I realize not everyone may have played starcraft, or Computer RTS's for that matter. In the competitive circuit, the game is all about speed and efficiency, so hot keys are single keyboard letters that replace having to move the mouse and click on an icon to activate something. This is generally a 40k blog, so I'll make that comparison and raise some hell maybe.
Protoss = eldar
Zerg = Tyranids
Terrans = imperium.
Then you'll get the die hards on either side, who came first, whats on second, I've never made it to third base.

I've played a little too long into the night, so I'm going to call it here. To anyone interested, Check it out. It is a great game, if your computer can handle it (as with all new games) and it is fun and really not that hard to get into. I'll try out the Single player storymode when I get more free time. Questions or opinions?

8 comments:

  1. I pre-ordered this about two months ago and I should be getting it today, I am pretty much drooling with anticipation at finally being able to play this. I used to play the original with my buddies at LAN parties back in my college days, good times all around. A revival of said times, is mandatory in my opinion with this sequel.

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  2. ahh. if only my 7yr. old computer could run it. I'm used to running stuff on lowest video settings, but the newer games have outpaced what my good 'ol AMD processor and DDR ram can do.

    I'm not sure I can run the DoW2 stuff.

    oh well, back to Master of Orion2, and Master of Magic for me. yeah they're TBS. and both 15+ yrs old.

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  3. You may be fine.

    Blizzard doesn't ride the bleeding edge of hardware. They always aim for the widest possible audience. WOW, Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo 1/2 ran on pretty much everything from day one.

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  4. Also, you may or may not know that Blizzard originally had the license to do a 40K game back in the 90's. But GW didn't like the progress they saw and revoked their support (dur!). So Blizzard went ahead with the game and re-worked the races to be a bit less like GW's IP.

    That's why Starcraft is so 40K-like.

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  5. Ah another distraction from getting anything 40k related done... I'm trying so hard to resist this game. You aren't helping!

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  6. @ross, Ya I've been playing the original online with friends up until a few days ago. I used to have LAN parties for it back before college.

    @sandwyrm, I knew there was some kind of cross over like thing, but I couldn't remember exactly what. That does explain a lot, and one could say it might have been for the better.
    Oh, and I don't know about how well normal computers can handle it. I'm using my laptop as I am away from my house, and it can run it, but just. I get a little bit of lag any time there is fighting or a lot going on on one screen. My laptop is built to be a gaming computer. I can do WoW just fine on it.

    @inner geek. Ya, I was planning on taking my free time this week to paint up my 1.5k list. Then I remembered about starcraft. I got all of Zero done yesterday.

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  7. I wasn't jumping for joy when this came out (I know, bad dork) but I've been leaning so heavily toward FPS lately or RPG-style games that I've just gotten away from RTS in general.

    I was a zerg fan back in the day (go figure) and there's a good chance I'll be picking this game up before too long.

    And to tie it all back to 40k... I'll throw out that I always felt Protoss also had a Tau-ish look to them (although this couldn't have been known until years later when the race actually surfaced). It seemed a bit of a fusion, though, to me.

    And I don't mean to accuse Blizzard of keeping tabs on the original source, but having Zerg turn into the 'late game evolution' players strikes a chorde with the "wow, hormagaunts got a lot cheaper and lost some stuff... until a Tyrant shows up with Paroxysm, anyway...". Not that I'm complaining from either end, mind you.

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  8. I always played Terrans, and I kinda always dug them being the 'other' Space Marines. If only Codex: Space Marines had Siege Tanks.

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out dang bot!

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