Archive for November, 2010
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Following and supporting DIY music and creative culture in Florida.
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StarCraft 2 Review
Memory is a fascinating thing. Not because it is usually wrong and horribly inaccurate, but because strictly speaking the brain never really remembers. It recreates. There was a prevailing notion among psychologists that the brain worked like a filing cabinet or a hard drive - cleaning, indexing, and storing information systematically in your brain for later recollection. This wasn't true.
When you remember, you're actually just re-creating the scene in your mind. This has great benefits. Thinking back to your first passionate kiss is a great example. If you weren't me and were doing it properly, you probably had your eyes closed and weren't flailing your limbs like a sweaty octopus trying to open a jar. You can voraciously recall the texture of their lips, the lingering aroma of their hair, and the way it made you feel. It isn't just a visual memory ? it is an experience you can recall on demand (I still can feel the light prick of Norman's mustache and his pleather pants as they tangled my leg hair). Even when I recall the first of many times I was punched in the face, I can still count the individual knuckles and their texture as they embraced the outline of my jaw. The look of disgust on that English professor's face still rings true like a massive Gregorian bell in my brain. And I still don't care what he says, Atticus was a pedophile.
It's all in the glasses.
There are, unfortunately, some draw backs to this as well. Since you never really store the memory entirely, but instead just recollect it ? over time our memories become horribly inaccurate. Like a game of telephone, but with yourself, every time you remember a moment of time, the great da Vinci of your brain adds a little twist. It's a terrible thing, memory. It punishes us for remembering the things in our past that we wish to revel in as often as we can ? while keeping the things we bury deep down in pristine condition.
So when I thought back to the original Starcraft while installing the second iteration of Blizzard's foray into the canon, I had flashbacks to a thirteen year old version of myself, cooped up in a room until four in the morning. I treaded lightly in lieu of the realization that the things we remember often aren't as we recall. I dismissed the imagined wide grin on my face as I frantically placed pylons and built carriers. I ignored the countless hours spent at school thinking of new ways to dispatch a zergling rush. I had to approach this game as any adult would ? miserable, discontent, and under the influence of alcohol. Although I was out of Spaten Optimator, I substituted alcohol with a heavy dose of skepticism and general distaste for humanity.
With all of my childish expectations aside, I began my journey into the single player experience of a game that literally took centuries to produce.
Scholars generally believe that StarCraft 2 is indeed, a video based game.
I was awestruck. The child in me jumped with joy, whilst the adult sat back, casually noticing the graphical faults and poor dialogue. I wanted to scream in pleasure and horror at the same time ? like a roller coaster made of video game. The characters were predictable, the plot listless, and the missions pointless. The signature Starcraftness prevailed, making the experience tolerable, but tolerable is not what you want for sixty dollars.
The game, on its own, with no external circumstances, is fairly good. But when you then consider the fact that the game was delayed three years, by one of the world's biggest and most talented game developers, it starts to dwindle. And once you do that, prepare yourself for a swift kick to the testicles, because it is then that you realize that the game in its entirety actually costs $180, and you just played only a third of it. That's right ? the next two installments will come in whatever amount of time it takes them, forty or fifty years presumably, and it will cost you $60 each time. Actually by then, accounting for inflation and the Chinese invasion means you'll probably be spending 600 Yuan. Either way, we the consumer end up shafted.
Take for example Half-Life 2. After a year delay, the game was released six years after its predecessor. You had a robust moddable multiplayer and single player experience, with revolutionary graphics and storytelling. Conversely, a third of Starcraft was released after a three year delay, eventually twelve years after its predecessor. A third of it. Not the full game, but a third of its intended story arch. Imagine courting the love of your life for a decade, and finally getting her into the sack to realize she's only going to first base with you. That's right, you'll have to wait a few more years to get to second base, and if you're lucky, only $120 and some years later will you maybe get to home plate. Oh, and she's a racist. It's not enough to make you give her up, but it does seriously hinder things.
Charts gonna chart.
This would all be justifiable of course if the game were ground breaking, but it's just not. I understand that Starcraft is a time and tested recipe, devoid of any need of serious change, and that's fine. But nothing was stopping the developers from releasing SC2 as a multiplayer only game until they felt the single player was worth a release. Actually, a grotesque amount of profit was stopping them, so I rebuke my previous statement.
Eventually I came to realize once I had finished my affair with this mess of a thing that I was disappointed. Not by the game, but by Blizzard. Had Stardock entertainment or Hothead games released this, I would have been satiated, but they hadn't, and I wasn't. When Emeril Lagasse shows up to dinner, you want fine risotto and pistachio-crusted tuna, not pizza. When Pink Floyd releases a CD, you want Dark Side of The Moon, not A Rush of Blood to the Head. Don't get me wrong ? Pizza and Coldplay are great sometimes - but they don't take your breath away. Starcraft and Half-Life did; And where Valve and Blizzard differed is that one cared whether or not the sequel would.
Yes, I realize that this is essentially meant to be a Multiplayer game, but if you're Korean you weren't going to really care about what anyone said in a review anyways. If you want to endlessly play the multiplayer, go ahead and get it. I was going to, until I realized they removed core functionality for the sake of protecting their software against piracy. At a lan party? I hope you have internet, because local area network play isn't included. This baffled me. Would you buy a car if every time you wanted to drive it you had to submit a retinal scan, enter a password, and sign a license agreement with the car manufacturer? This was enough to stop me from purchasing the game ? but that would have prevented me from playing the single player and writing an indignated nerd review.
So there we are. Buy it if you want to play the worthy multiplayer sequel of the greatest multiplayer game of all time and don't mind missing core functionality. Don't buy it if you're looking for a single player experience worthy of the Blizzard namesake, or your time and wallet. One of these scenarios ends with you hypothetically being punched in the face by a man, and the other results in you quietly walking away with your dignity and money. Unfortunately, I have always been doomed to repeat my mistakes ? poor memory or not.
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