EPT1. Single Player
Firstly, I played through the campaign, and I have to say that I really enjoyed it, even some things weren't that good. I think a short comparison between pros and cons will do:
PROS
- nice cutscenes (sadly, most of them were already known before the release of sc2)
- good missions (especially the horner and first 3 zeratul missions, the odin missions were cool, too.)
- some of the characters are cool (I liked Tosh and Horner)
- overall the campaign is very well-designed. old units add a lot of atmosphere and the upgrades (science, arsenal, mercenaries) add some spice to the dinner. (even though some of them are too imba. the campaign is really easy to beat.)
- nice easter-eggs.
CONS
- too much crappy sidestories. no one needs hansen. as a consequence of this, the final missions feel like an appendix to the campaign and do not really evolve out of the gaming experience.
- tv shows. god dammit, I'm 25 and not 12. the idea of a clash between propaganda and serious journalism is nice, but the way it has been implemented is just dumb.
- bad "important" missions. sc2 was released in 2010, I don't think that there's a need for "survive x minutes"-missions anymore. the final mission is really disappointing and due to this deus ex machina-thingy called "the artifact" I felt somewhat betrayed. Seriously, all we need to have a chance against the mighty Queen of Blades are some alien artifacts? This is stupid, and even that Narud-Duran-stuff doesn't make it better. I'm really hoping that Blizzard will take the right path story-wise in the addons.
- some of the characters were really one-dimensional. especially that scientist dude.
- dialogue.
SUMMARY:
gameplay-wise the campaign really shines. most of the missions are fun. story-wise it's kinda lacking, but I don't consider it that terribad like some others do. the original starcraft-story wasn't that gread either, I always preferred bw over the original sc. some things in the campaign felt too childish, though. broodwar seemed to be more "adult".
I played through most of the scenarios and had fun with them. It's funny that the "expert" ones are easier than the other ones. It took me several tries to beat that terran micro mission with ghosts and ravens, while I managed to beat every "expert" mission on the first try.
I don't really care about achievements, so I don't have to say anything about that issue. They're a nice addition for casual gamers.
2. Multiplayer:
The battlenet 2.0 has evolved a lot, but it's still far from perfect. At least they've implemented chat channels.
I decided to start my sc2 career as a random player. I completely fucked up my placement matches and ended up in bronze league (played them drunk), but I think I won't have big problems leaving these pits of 6pool and 4gate soon. I've been c- on Iccup, so I hope I'll soon be in one of the higher leagues. The mms seems to be okay, and I'm learning the game quite fast. It's definitely fun, but also entirely different from bw. In bw my strengths have been macro and multitasking and I think that'll take some serious practice to shine again in these disciplines. (I haven't played bw for about 6 months now, so my mechanics are very rusty9
It might happen that I'll switch to protoss (I was zerg in bw), because I really fucking hate queens. Injecting larvae is boooooring. I also miss all the things that made zerg in broodwar awesome, such as positional play with lurkers and swarms, muta micro, muta / scourge battles and the good old protoss-killer unit (the hydralisk). And what has happened to all those cool zerg sounds? Zerglings and Ultras had fantastic (evil) sound effects in bw, now they sound like some pets from my neighbor's ant farm. Zerg design is really incomplete. It's funny that playing protoss feels more "zergish" than playing zerg right now, because you can mass up units very quickly with the warpgates. chronoboost is also pretty cool, cause it's very versatile. (can be used for probes, tech, etc.)
I don't want to talk about balance here, because I'm a scrub that's just about to dive into the game, but from what I've seen, the game seems to be on a good way. Ofc zerg is currently suffering, but I think that there'll be found a solution for this problem, soon.
Anyway, now I've produced a really big wall of text that noone will read, but I have to say: Sc2 is better than I expected. It's definitely fun to play, but I still prefer bw over sc2 as a spectator-sport.
The journey of virpi has begun. See you in Master League, soon.
