It would be redundant to discuss the virtues of the game; my previous articles cover this thoroughly. Instead, I want to refute some of the criticisms of the game that have arisen online. There are two significant ones: that the game is merely a graphical update of the original Starcraft, and that the game ignores the evolution of the genre over the past decade. As I will discuss below, these arguments are without merit.

Ooh Shiny Graphics!

‘Starcraft II is just Starcraft with updated graphics!’

I have heard something along those lines so many times since the beta was released that it is becoming tiresome. This line of criticism stems from the misconception that gameplay is what makes a good game and graphics don’t matter. I would argue that gameplay is the foundation of a good game, but to relate to today’s gaming audience a game has to have the right interface and visual trappings.

Graphical technology accentuates visual media

Think about classic films: they have great stories when you break them down to their component parts, and the characters are multi-dimensional and interesting. What holds back most current film consumers from appreciating classic film, however, is both the antiquated style of the film and its technical limitations.

It’s easy to point to today’s low popularity of black and white film as revealing of the shallowness of today’s film audience. This just isn’t the case. Films are a visual medium, and much of what is conveyed in a film that is critical to the story is done visually – not merely by pantomime, but by color, clarity and effects. If the film were entirely about story, it would be equally well executed in book form. What makes a great film great is that it uses visual storytelling methods to accentuate the story, and today’s technology allows for a much greater range of visual storytelling.

There are so many more stories that can be told through today’s technology that creativity is at all time highs. While in the wrong hands much of this technology can obscure the critical story elements of a film, in the right hands they can enhance the total experience. Much the same can be said about graphics and gameplay.

Hydralisks look more intimidating in person. From a top-down view they're slightly less frightening

Style differences alienate the player

Beyond mere visual limitations, the style of speech, clothing and architecture in classic film is hugely different from what we’re used to today. This adds a layer of separation between the characters on screen and the viewers, which makes it harder to participate in the story. When viewing a classic film, we’re constantly reminded that this is something out of the past, and that frequently adds an element to the experience that wasn’t intended by the director.

Today’s technology isn’t just there to add CGI monsters, or to obscure the weakness of the story. It gives the viewer something to hold onto that is familiar, and allows a director to tell a story with which the viewer is able to associate. Updated graphics in videogames are much the same.

The original Starcraft has a strong gameplay foundation, but the viewer is constantly reminded that they’re playing something out of the past when experiencing it. When playing Starcraft, the interface is clunky, the graphics are poorly detailed, online interface is virtually non-existent, and all of these things serve to distract the player from the game’s strengths.

The Starcraft universe has its own heroes. They only dominate the story, however, not the battlefield. They're still merely men (for the most part)

A critic will frequently point to chess as a classic game that didn’t need updating, and Starcraft II is like a developer making your pieces into giant robots so that there are incredible special effects and awesome explosions during the game. I would argue that the original Starcraft was more like playing chess encased in a cardboard box, where you only have a tiny hole to look through to move your pieces. The incredible core gameplay in Starcraft was obscured by all these artificial interface hindrances, while Starcraft II removes the box. There is no longer anything separating you from all that gameplay that makes the classic style of RTS games appealing. 

Two Steps Back

The second criticism of Starcraft II is that it ignores the innovations made in the RTS genre over the past ten years. This argument uses as its foundation the fallacy that all things that are new are better.

It helps right off the bat to use a sports example: let’s say it’s 2020 and the military finally perfects robotic exoskeletons. The NFL is considering whether to add them to the game. Would this be a good addition? Wouldn’t it make things even more exciting? The hits would be harder, the game would be faster and the private sector could add jobs building various sport skeletons for the consumer! Also – isn’t there some rule that more robot exoskeletons are always a good thing?

Isn’t smaller better?

Since Starcraft, the RTS genre moved away from an economy-based large-scale game, to something with no base building, squad based combat, hero units and a cover system. The Company of Heroes and Dawn of War games were a refreshing shift away from the boring micromanagement of Starcraft! Even Warcraft III went small scale and added heroes. That must mean it’s better, right?

I would suggest an alternative: maybe developers couldn’t beat Starcraft at its own game. Much in the same way that nobody wants to make a fantasy-themed MMORPG, or even bring up the phrase ‘WoW killer’ anymore, was it really possible to improve upon the Starcraft formula? It made commercial sense to move away from that, at least for the first few years after release, in order for a developer to carve out their own niche. The fact remains, however, that even given its crippling technical limitations and antiquated gameplay, Starcraft was still the most played RTS game globally before the release of Starcraft II.

Could it really be that those squad tactics and cover systems weren’t different from classic RTS elements and therefore better, but instead were merely different?

Starcraft has never been a game about hero units and squads. Large scale battles are the name of the game

Ignoring bad genre developments is a characteristic of a visionary developer

The worst review of Starcraft II on Metacritic believes that Starcraft II is a bad game because Blizzard requires micromanagement from the player. Tom Chick (who happens to be a critic I hugely respect for always speaking his mind) says Starcraft II ‘rewards the harder core who can wrangle reinforcements, use hotkeys to pop off targeted spell powers, carefully place buildings at a particular choke point, and calculate intricate timing puzzles about when to use how many drones to gather how many minerals for how long.’

Blizzard was very specific about what they wanted the player to manage. Workers automatically mine resources or repair buildings. Units use their spells in an intelligent way so as not to waste energy. Siege tanks even aim at different targets so as to spread their splash damage across an army and not waste it all on a single unit. There are so many automated procedures that some of the ‘hardcore’ Starcraft players criticize the game for being too automated. The fact that there are criticisms from both sides implies Blizzard struck exactly the right balance.

I can’t think of what the point of this game is if it’s not managing the position of your army, using spells and abilities at the correct time to turn the tide of a battle your way, or deciding how you want to use your precious resources. Someone should tell Tom there’s a way to get these functions to automate themselves: let the AI play itself. Without the elements he listed there’s no game.

Many lament the fact that there is no cover system in Starcraft II. One of the great innovations of the Relic RTS games were that if your forces were hiding in trees, or behind a small wall, they would take less damage and dominate a similar force trapped out in the open. This is all well and good because you were using squad tactics and were only controlling a handful of units.

Blizzard has never been a company on the cutting edge of innovation. They identify the fun. Then they distill that fun into a paste that is best consumed in apple sauce to improve the flavor

In Starcraft II, on the other hand, you are controlling vast armies. Control over a battlefield, angles of attack, supply lines and battlefield information are the key strategic elements in a game of Starcraft II. A game falls apart if a developer uses the kitchen sink design philosophy and throws everything haphazardly at a game just so it can be included in the feature list. A cover system in a game that focuses on huge armies and fighting force mobility would be crippling and would detract from the dynamic and fast paced gameplay that makes Starcraft II so appealing.

Tom Chick is essentially saying he wants a different kind of game: one that is smaller in scale. In a hero-unit RTS with squad tactics and a cover system, there are very few strategic decisions to be made. Tom likes tactics and enjoys real time tactics simulations. When you have no base and only one squad there’s never really a question of whether you want to sacrifice a squad in a diversionary tactic, or abandon part of your base to the enemy because it will allow you to catch him out of position and crush him from behind. Starcraft II is a real time strategy game, and maintaining an informational advantage, and countering your opponent’s positioning and unit selection are the critical tasks in front of any budding general.

I could criticize Madden 2010 for not being a futuristic racing game, but is that really a valid criticism considering I have unreasonable expectations? Starcraft II is very clear about what it is: an RTS in the classic style, where base building, economy management and strategic combat decisions are paramount. Much of the game has been automated and streamlined, and the elements that haven’t are what comprise the gameplay. You might not like it, but don’t claim that Blizzard was cowardly or ignored developments in the genre just because they didn’t change their formula. Starcraft II was many years in the making and Blizzard was not unaware of these developments made in modern RTS games. They merely determined that this was not a positive evolution but instead detracted from the core strategic fun.

The success of Starcraft II shows that gamers agree. There’s a reason Starcraft II sold half as many full price copies in its first 24 hours as Dawn of War sold in its entire lifetime. It’s not the hype machine, or the slick advertising. I can think of another Activision game that had similarly slick advertising: Mirror’s Edge.

Starcraft II and its two sequels will be the RTS benchmark for the next decade the same way Starcraft was for the past decade because Blizzard moved back to the core elements of the RTS genre. They had the courage to ignore the foolish gameplay evolution that took place in their absence.

Hell, it’s about time.

Starcraft II will be released in a few short days. Hopes run high among its fan base that Blizzard can recapture the magic that vaulted the original Starcraft to the top of the RTS heap. Blizzard has an impeccable track record, and many fans have received an extended free look at the multiplayer during beta testing. How did it stack up?

Balance

Real time strategy games usually only distinguish themselves through innovation. Balance is typically a prerequisite to being a passable RTS; without balance what does it matter what unique strategic decisions you allow? Rarely, however, is balance not just a building block but a distinguishing characteristic. By rarely, I mean only in one case: Starcraft. Include Starcraft II, and that makes two cases.

RTS games are complicated enough to make - designing tech trees, animating units, creating maps, scripting single player campaigns and recording sound effects is a tall order. Considering that poorly balancing a game can render all other work meaningless, developers usually just make factions symmetrical in function and slightly different in appearance.

Not Blizzard.

The iconic 3 factions from Starcraft: the Zerg, Terran and Protoss, return for Starcraft II. By some black magic Blizzard has managed to make each faction distinct yet perfectly balanced. Many baby seals must have been sacrificed to successfully perform this feat.

These guys might look hardcore, but they are slaughtered by the truckload in-game

Gameplay

A great game is easy to learn but impossible to master. While Starcraft II is slightly more complicated than chess, it is conceptually simple. You harvest resources with workers, and use those resources to build production facilities which in turn consume resources to build an army. You use that army to (hopefully) kill your opponent before they kill you.

There are of course many complicating factors. You don’t have perfect information as you can only see what your units can see. Imagine in chess if your pieces could only see the squares immediately surrounding them. You wouldn’t know how your opponent opened or how his pieces are positioned until you got close, so you would have to make decisions with less than complete information.

A good player in Starcraft II will try to counter what their opponent is doing, so initially you want to be able to scout out their strategy while preventing them from doing the same. You also need to be able to make educated guesses about what your opponent is doing from what you are able to see. At the highest levels, nearly as much can be gained through knowledge of what your opponent isn’t doing as from what he is doing.

The Immortal is one of the most powerful Protoss units that perfectly exemplifies how units are never obsolete even in longer games: it shrugs off powerful attacks but is susceptible to weaker tier 1 units

In addition, you can trick your opponent by allowing them to scout what looks like a certain strategy, destroying their scout, then changing your strategy to what will counter how he was planning to counter you. You can go around in circles trying to outmaneuver your enemy, but like in actual warfare many battles are won or lost before they even happen.

Decisions don’t end when a battle begins, however. There are many tactical and strategic decisions to be made that influence the outcome of a fight. You can take the same 2 armies and have them face each other with different positioning and on different terrain, and the outcomes will be drastically different.

Certain units and armies thrive by being in wide open space with the ability to maneuver around their enemies. Certain units do lots of damage to a small space and funneling an enemy army through a small choke point leads to total annihilation. Air units can outmaneuver their opponents in complicated terrain. Some units can tunnel underground and surprise their enemies from below, or circumvent static defenses.

Even within large battles, certain individual units can turn the tide. Some units can convert enemy units to your side for a small period of time. Stealing a key unit can make the difference between victory and defeat. Some units are good against clusters of enemies but become weak if their enemies are spread out; controlling your army is key. Having the correct parts of your army in the front, and in the back, and sometimes even flanking or surrounding your enemy is paramount. Even if you have a bad army composition because you misjudged your opponent’s strategy, you can still win with proper troop micromanagement.

In Starcraft II you are almost never out of the fight. The further behind in a game you are, the higher risk strategies you must implement, because conventional thinking won’t get you back into a losing game. Never give up. Never surrender!

The Corruptor is basically one of those squid things from the Matrix. Unfortunately, nobody can be told what the corruptor is. They have to see it for themselves

User Friendliness

Starcraft II will be the first game to utilize the full Battle.net 2.0 interface. While many fans of the original Starcraft criticize the system for being too ‘simplistic,’ that is because they’re living in the past. Battle.net 2.0 is a streamlined and comprehensive gaming system.

Games can be set up with the push of a button, and everything is taken care of automatically behind the scenes. Ladders ensure you’re going to be facing players of comparable skill level, and the wait to get into a balanced game is frequently a couple seconds for a 1v1 game, and a couple minutes for a 4v4 game. I’m sure those times will decrease in release as there will be orders of magnitude more players compared to the beta.

In addition, there is a great replay system where you can watch and analyze old games. There are achievements and custom user portraits and decals to individualize yourself in-game. Finally, there is a friend system where you can chat both in and out of games, and eventually across Blizzard games. Battle.net 2.0 might not yet be perfect, but it’s a great start, and over time players will wonder how they lived without it.

Interesting that the protagonist in Starcraft bases his operations from a Terran Battlecruiser. In game, however, Battlecruisers are powerful but still slaughtered by the truckload. Maybe it's a special battlecruiser? Otherwise this might be a short campaign

Custom Content

The award for the game with the most longevity has to go to either Counter-Strike or the original Starcraft. While the actual game of Starcraft II has the potential to be just as long-lasting, its lifespan will be prolonged by user-generated content. Even though the game hasn’t even been released, there are already hundreds of custom game mods created for the beta.

Some of the most popular include variations on tower defense and tug of war game modes. In the popular Battlecraft: Armageddon mod, players receive money every few seconds and have to choose which units they want to spawn to run at their opponent. They can’t control these units, which merely mindlessly run at the enemy. The skill comes in using your money to choose units which counter your opponent’s units for lower cost. The number of game types that will emerge during release when millions get their hands on the editing tools mean that people will be playing Starcraft II far into the future, even if the standard game modes have long been forgotten.

Starcraft II is going to be a massive success. Blizzard has created the RTS that will long be the gold standard considering its polish, balance and refined gameplay. It will storm the sales charts and more than return the $100 million spent on its development. Video gamers around the world are about to find out what we beta testers have known for the past few months: Blizzard has created something really special that we will be playing for a long time.

For those unfamiliar with the system, the game divides you into one of five tiers: platinum, gold, silver, bronze and copper. You are placed into one of those tiers based on several placement matches, and within each tier there are many 100-player divisions.

Chris claims the lack of global tiers are deceptive. He claims the opacity of the system which promotes or demotes you between tiers is harmful to the game. He also claims the way the game decides whether you’re favored or not compared to another player is confusing.

Flaws with the ladder?

Let’s quickly review the reasons he claims the ladder is flawed.

The first aspect criticized is the lack of global tiers. Let’s just assume that the game sells about as well as the original and there are over 10 million copies sold. Instead of thousands of 100-person divisions making up each of the five tiers, Chris believes there should be global tiers.

Because each division is made up of 100 players, if you’re one of the better players in the silver league you might be ranked 25th in your division out of 100. If there were global tiers, on the other hand, the equivalent position would be 500,000th out of 2 million silver tier players.

Chris claims that the divisions are deceptive because if you’re 1st in your silver division, you’re not really the ‘best player’ in the silver league because there are thousands of other divisions; this artificially inflates the ego of gamers and is wrong.

Here is the Blizzard Starcraft II team in a design meeting (with Jace Hall). This is why the matchmaking system has come apart at the seams; too much drinking

The second criticism of the ladder is the way in which it occasionally matches you with players in different tiers. The point of the ladder according to Chris is to match you up against players of similar skill levels, but what’s the point if it’s going to occasionally match you up with players in the tier above or below?

The final criticism is that the system that promotes or demotes you to the tier above or below is opaque (and intentionally so), and this is harmful for gamers.

Does Chris Beault have a point, or is he trolling for hits?

Now let’s analyze those points and provide a counter-argument. First is the concept that separating out each tier (league) into separate divisions is somehow deceptive.

It’s difficult for players to really appreciate progress either up or down the ladders if there are 2 million players per tier. Let’s say you win a game and go from 40th place to 30th place on your 100 person ladder. That’s real progress. If you move from 550,000th place to 500,000th place though, are you really making progress? Technically, sure, but it probably doesn’t feel like it. There are half a million players in your league superior to you.

Matching you against opponents of a comparable skill level is the most important aspect of the matchmaking system

While Chris Beault says this is artificially inflating the ego of gamers, I’d say that one of the primary purposes of videogames is to offer concrete accomplishments where effort directly translates into reward. Outside of videogames, it’s rarely as concrete.

Is it really deceptive to players to divide them into divisions within each league? Does Chris believe there are players out there who see 5 tiers with 100 people in each tier and jump to the conclusion that every player believes there are only 500 people playing the game?

There is even precedent for this type of separation: World of Warcraft has multiple servers, each of which contain a small fraction of the total player base. While this is partially because of server limitations, it’s also because it’s difficult for players to come to terms with numbers in the millions.

You might not notice man, but your buildings are on fire. Might want to check that out

Chris claims it’s deceptive; I say players can easily deal with 100 player divisions. They understand if they’re 30th in their division out of 100 players, that’s equivalent to a percentile. They’re better than about 70% of the players in their league.

The second criticism is that the leagues hold no purpose because you’re occasionally pitted against players in the league above or below yours. I disagree with this conclusion. When you are approaching the top or bottom echelon of your current league, the game pits you against players in the league above or below yours respectively to see if you should be promoted or demoted.

If you’re in the top 5 in your division of 100 in the silver league, the game is going to pit you against players in the gold league frequently. If you lose most of your games against them, then you probably deserve to stay where you are. If, however, you still win the majority of your games, then eventually you’re going to be promoted to the gold league. The same is true if you’re at the bottom of your league; if you still lose to players in the league below you on a consistent basis, then you’re going to be demoted.

It's kind of unfair that this guy's base is surrounded by lava. Usually people can just run right into mine and kill me

The point of the ladders is to match you with players against whom you will win half the time. The pace of games and the strategies used between leagues are significantly different. Just because you win most of the time in your league doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to cut it in the league above yours, or vice versa.

Chris’ final criticism is that there needs to be more transparency in the system that promotes or demotes you. He also wonders why it’s not based solely on wins; after all isn’t that what’s important?

For those that haven’t played the game, after a match ends there is a scoring summary based on resource usage, units created and destroyed and structures destroyed. The exact breakdown of points isn’t revealed, but generally it lines up with the player who performs the best overall having the highest score. This isn’t always reflective of who is the best player; in some 2v2 games for example, a team with both attack and cripple one ally, reducing his ability to perform for the rest of the game. Even if he’s the best player he probably won’t end up with the highest score.

Placement and promotion / demotion is likely partially determined by this score as well as the win/loss record. This is completely reasonable to me as the game only uses 5 placement matches to put you into a league. What if in every match you barely squeak out a win against potentially terrible players, are you really deserving of a spot in the platinum league? You’ll just be crushed until you’re demoted down to an appropriate level (if you even stick with a game where you constantly lose for that long).

If, on the other hand, you crush all your opponents and end the game with 2-3x their score, then you’re likely a more proficient player. It’s not an exact science, but it’s good enough for me. If Blizzard broke down exactly how the game rated you, then people would start to game the system.

Plug and play

Blizzard is trying something incredible with Starcraft II: perfect matchmaking. The long term viability of their game is going to hinge on its success, but I encourage the attempt whatever the result. Being able to press a button that says ‘find game’ and having it swiftly match you with another player at your skill level is incredible.

What Chris Beault wants is the status quo of a decade ago: gamers would create a server and find players of their own skill level on their own. That’s like installing drivers for your new mouse before it would work, or entering the IP address of the other computers on your network. Everything is plug and play now. You just log on and you’re good to go. Why shouldn’t game matchmaking function in a similar manner?

Gamers criticize Starcraft for being too elitist, or inaccessible, or having regressive design. The game is the highest selling RTS of all time though, and one of the best selling games ever. Whatever Blizzard is doing is resonating with gamers, and the interest across the internet for the sequel is sky high.

Not only is the game still in beta and therefore exempt from criticism, but its level of polish is incredible. The matchmaking system could use minor tweaking but at its foundation it is certainly not a flaw.

What went right?

Parity among factions

Starcraft was so popular because it was the first and only RTS game to achieve parity among factions without merely mirroring them. Balance is key to an RTS, and the only way most developers have achieved this is by giving every player the same units.

This is not the case in Starcraft, with the three factions (Zerg, Protoss and Terran) being significantly different from each other. Not only are none of the units the same, but each faction fits into their own unique but fair niche.

This doesn’t just break down into standard ‘these units are stronger but more expensive’ delineations used in other RTS games. Zerg, for example, don’t even build units from construction buildings such as barracks. They evolve their units from larva, and the implementation of this is completely distinct from anything players will be familiar with from other RTS games.

The mighty Protoss mothership is the final unit on the Protoss tech tree. See it and be afraid!

While Starcraft II had a significant leg up in terms of balancing as many of the mechanics and units are the same from the previous game, which had a decade of iteration, it is still an impressive accomplishment. Many of the units are new, or have been tweaked slightly, and yet still it all works well together.

These factions are not rock paper scissors to each other. It’s not like Zerg always beats Terran but Protoss beats Zerg; each faction can succeed or fail against any other depending on the choices they make.

Battle.net

Online games are threatening to new players because it’s easy to log on while you’re still learning and just get crushed repeatedly which isn’t much fun. Fortunately, the new Battle.net system seems to solve many of these issues. You start with 5 practice matches on maps that prevent rushing from your opponent to give you time to learn the ropes.

After practice, you play 10 placement matches to determine in what league you’re going to be placed. While the players in the platinum league are probably micromanagement masters who will outmaneuver you at every turn, the copper or bronze leagues are full of new players learning the ropes, just like you.

They might make a few mistakes, or fail to expand their economy at the right time, or even choose the wrong units to counter whatever army you’re building. You are constantly shifted up or down the quality scale until you’re winning about 50% of your matches. The game remains challenging without being frustrating.

The mighty Protoss colossi storm in from the left. As zerg, these are the units of which I'm most afraid

Gameplay

This is the most important part of any game, but I have it listed lower on the list of positives for Starcraft II because you know what the gameplay is going to be like. If you have played Starcraft, then be comforted that Starcraft II plays just like it. If you haven’t played Starcraft, then just look at the monstrous sales figures.  Over 10 million players can’t be wrong.

The gameplay is smooth and refined. The graphics are fantastic. The presentation is elegant and intuitive. When films cost hundreds of millions of dollars, producers want to make sure all that money is ‘up on the screen.’ In Starcraft II, you can really tell that the years of development are there in the game. There is a huge amount of polish for a Beta.

What were they thinking?

Viewing perspective

The most recent RTS I played was Supreme Commander, a game that took pride in its massive scale and its ’strategic zoom,’ where the camera could be pulled out to see the entire map. Starcraft, on the other hand, is a very small-scale game.

The first thing I thought upon loading it up was ‘holy crap this camera is zoomed in really far.’ The lack of strategic zoom felt like a holdover from the past. The maps in Starcraft II aren’t nearly the size as those in Supreme Commander, and therefore the need for seeing the whole map isn’t as significant. Still, why not just throw it in? Is it really that difficult to implement in the engine?

If Blizzard wants to suggest that it somehow adds to the game, I would say that’s ridiculous. The minimap is an outmoded way of moving around the map, and strategic options are limited as a result.

Zerg usually depend on greater numbers to overwhelm their enemy. Zerg has become a verb among those in the know (losers)

Limited options

Customization options in Starcraft II are very limited. You can’t change hotkeys (although Blizzard has suggested in the past this is something they might implement in the final release). In addition, there are few ways to select all units when some competing RTS games have a built in ’select all air units,’ ’select all ground units,’ and ’select all army units’ hotkey.

I’m pretty confident this is an easy programming solution, and so the reasoning for not including these functions seems to be that they weren’t in Starcraft. In fact, this seems to be the rationale behind most of the outmoded decisions in Starcraft II. It’s understandable that Blizzard would hold constant much of the game; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it and all. Why not just include the extra options? Allow people to decide how they want to control the game, don’t do it for them.

Needless work

Starcraft players are famous for taking pride in their multitasking abilities. The whole purpose of an RTS game, however, is to test your ability to outmaneuver your opponent. Putting needless difficulty barriers between the game and the player is a terrible game design choice.

Think about Street Fighter: you should win or lose a match based on the moves you pull and what you implement to counter your opponent’s strategy. You should lose because you throw a high kick and your opponent chose to block high, expecting it. If you lose because you wanted to throw a high kick but couldn’t figure it out and therefore just flopped over onto the ground to be curb stomped, then the controls have failed.

Every unit is vital in Starcraft 2; unlike most RTS games, carelessly throwing away even a handful of units can be the beginning of the end

Starcraft players have complained that workers will auto-collect minerals for you. They complain that being able to click drones quickly and tell them to collect minerals for you is part of being a good player. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Being a good player is choosing the right units to counter your opponent’s army. Being good is managing your forces in battle correctly by sending tougher units in first and not needlessly sacrificing units against their direct counter. If you have a perfect battle plan but the controls prevent you from implementing it, then the controls have failed.

Blizzard should work to automate everything they possibly can, ‘purists’ be damned.

Starcraft II is still a work in progress, and it will remain a work in progress long after the retail version is released. The original game is still going strong after more than a decade, and while Starcraft II will probably replace it in the E-Sports scene, this is not just a game for professionals.

The matchmaking allows anybody to compete and have fun, and while there are a few missteps here and there due to influences from the original, Starcraft is the king of strategy franchises for a reason. The sequel does not disappoint.

Dragon Age had a story to rival the best books or movies, and it’s even more engrossing because you get to experience it first-hand and guide the action (it’s almost as cool as a choose your own adventure book … I mean … wait, was that out loud?).

Bioware has proven time and again that they understand drama and more importantly they have learned and improved with every game. I thought today we might just take a look at the final launch trailer for Mass Effect 2, a game that I believe will be one of the finest of the year. If Dragon Age or the original Mass Effect is anything to go by, we’re in for something special.

Besides, it has Martin Sheen. How bad can it be?

Mass Effect 2 looks to continue the tradition with an eclectic mix of characters, a strong protagonist and a story that will no doubt have multiple twists. Bioware’s voice acting chops are second to none, and the only wild card is how the game feels. By all accounts, the shooting has been tightened up and Mass Effect 2 will emerge later this month as ‘the total package’ (coincidentally also my street name).

Story

The original Mass Effect’s story was gripping in a Star Trekky kind of way (spoilers ahead if you haven’t played the original). You play as Commander Shepard, who prevents the destruction of civilization at the hands of the Reapers, a super powerful and unknown alien race. In the process, humanity takes on a significantly larger role in galactic with Shepard becoming the most famous and visible representative.

That is the short version, which is likely incoherent if you’re not familiar with the original, as I have distilled three hours of cinematics into two sentences. All you need to know is that while the story is standard ‘quality sci-fi fare,’ the side characters all have unique and interesting personalities. They are memorable, and the game puts you in multiple situations where you must make tough choices.

Mass Effect 2 comes with a mini-game: The Adventures of Squid Man and Dino Dude! Collect them all!

The second looks to continue where the first left off. Shepard must assemble a crew of dubious loyalty which must solve another galactic mystery. Seeing as how the developers describe this as the ‘Empire Strikes Back’ of the trilogy, I can assume that it’s not all sunshine and buttercups on the Normandy, Shepard’s ship.

Furthermore, I expect Dragon Age’s true moral dilemmas to reappear in Mass Effect 2. Decisions won’t merely boil down to ‘which of these two teammates do you want to save,’ or ‘do you want to kill this teammate who betrayed you or do you want to forgive him,’ and will hopefully venture into the realm of ‘oh god all these decisions are equally bad’ that Dragon Age explored.

Action Role Playing

There are two types of hybrid games: those that effectively combine two genres into a cohesive whole, and those that are jack of all trades but master of none and ultimately just a boring mess. Borderlands is a good example of the cohesive whole, while Fallout 3 would be a debacle with weak shooting mechanics and poor role playing elements.

Look at that Lens Flare. You know the game is going to be good now.

Mass Effect 2 looks to be hitting the sweet spot (we’ve already established that it’s going to have strong story mechanics) considering the evolution of its shooting since the original. Recharging health, a stalwart of the genre, is included. Location-based damage, something sadly missing in Mass Effect, is also included.

Even the foolish heat meter from the original has been replaced with ‘heat cartridges,’ and while that essentially changes the mechanic to universal ammo which is something of which I approve, they should have just called it ammo instead of ‘midichlorians’ or whatever their thermal cartridges are named.

This is Wrex. He is a Krogan battle master. He is bringing his gravelly charm to a computer near you!

Gone are the limitations of four weapon types in the game; there are now nineteen weapon types. There are also distinguishing character classes that change the style of gameplay and add replay value to Mass Effect 2.

Most importantly, elevators are gone from the game. Although I will miss the 80’s elevator music during the interminable loading screens, this is a welcome change.

Intangibles

It’s hard to convince you that a game is going to be great when your argument is ‘trust me, it’s going to be great,’ but that’s about all I have with Mass Effect 2. Its predecessor was a fun if flawed experience, its developer pedigree is second to none and every change sounds like it’s for the better.

Mass Effect 2 will be a tight third person role playing shooter, and will hopefully bring back some of the story and gun elements combined in classics like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex. At the very least, Wrex the Krogan battle master is worth the purchase price alone. Considering this is the Empire of the trilogy, might he be Shepard’s father? One can hope.

Now, what if Nintendo re-made Zelda except instead of a prancing elf fairy, you play as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Instead of killing lizards, shrubs and some evil Hog King, you fight angels, demons and mythical beasts. Well, replace Zelda with Vigil Games, throw in the art style of Joe Madureira (long time comic book writer and cult icon) and you start to understand why I’m looking forward to Darksiders.

To summarize: Zelda + Joe Mad – Prancing Elf Fairy = Win.

Who wants to go on an adventure?

There’s something about the mix of light RPG elements with action and exploration that makes for a great game experience. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of quality adventure games in the past decade, and most of them start with Zelda. Now that Nintendo is releasing Zelda and Thomas the Tank Engine Throw a Dance Party, or something (maybe it’s called Spirit Tracks, I can’t remember), another developer has to step up to the adventure plate.

Enter Vigil Games and THQ. Although lately THQ has been famous for their UFC games, Darksiders focuses less on sweaty men groping each other, and more on hardcore badassery (yes I know ‘badassery’ is not a real word. Thank you squiggly red line).

Fantasy is about escapism, and there’s nothing more interesting than entering a unique and compelling fantasy world. Darksiders presents that and more, with an art style that crosses futuristic mechanization with medieval swords & sorcery. Did I mention it all takes place in the near future on Earth after man has been wiped out by the Apocalypse? A minor detail, I suppose, except that you play as the instigator of the whole thing.

In Darksiders, War has been tricked into starting the apocalypse and then takes the blame for kicking it off prematurely. He must right his transgressions with the aid of his fiery steed, Ruin. Righting his mistakes appears to take the form of slaughtering angels and demons, but hey, it looks fun, why argue?

If you were wondering how the world ends in Darksiders, wonder no more! Apparently it’s incredibly cool. Too bad we’re all dead:

More adventure than action

Previews want to shoehorn this game into the brawler category and compare it to the upcoming God of War III and Dante’s Inferno games. This is a mistake, as while Darksiders has a strong combat component, it’s more about adventure. This is a straight up Zelda game with dungeon exploration, item unlocks for progression, and light RPG elements including equipment and weapon customization.

While there are enough fighting game fanatics on the staff of Vigil that you can be assured action and combos are more in depth than Zelda’s simple mechanics, the game is very Ocarina of Time esque with enemy lock on, D-Pad item selection and pattern recognition bosses.

Darksiders takes everything I like about the God of War games (epic sized foes, gruesome battle finishing maneuvers) and removes everything I hate (button mashing, quick time events, hit point sink enemies). If the result is a re-skinned Ocarina of Time with more advanced battle mechanics and greater weapon selection, sign me up.

Joe Mad, we salute you

Style and substance

Joe Madureira is the creative director on this game. That means he’s the one designing the environments and all the crazy monsters you’re going to be fighting. You might know him better from the Uncanny X-Men or Battle Chasers comics.  

Darksiders is taking the epic, exaggerated comic book art style used by Joe Mad, mixing it with runic artistic elements, and building a world around it. It’s a style that has influenced all Blizzard games, except instead of over-simplifying, Darksiders simply exaggerates everything. Weapons and motions are all larger than life, and the resulting visual energy is like nothing I’ve seen before in a video game. Check it out:

Video games aren’t about graphics. Gameplay is critical. That being said, there is a difference between great graphics (Crysis) and great style (Darksiders). Even if the textures aren’t the sharpest, or the animations aren’t the most fluid ever seen, Joe Mad has incorporated the broad strokes of an original fantasy world into Darksiders. It’s far easier to get swept away in a fantastical story when you don’t have to be told the backstory of the world or creatures and instead simply know by looking at them.

Darksiders claims to be an epic game, but it comes from an untested team. While Vigil Games has worked on Warhammer games in the past, this is the first time they’re creating an original narrative from scratch. It could be a total disaster with disjointed gameplay, poor narrative and awkward controls.

Having said all that, if you came to me with the concept art for Darksiders and said ‘we’re going to re-skin Zelda with this,’ I’m sold. Zelda’s gameplay style has long been in need of an overhaul. Nintendo is not willing to do it, so I guess somebody else has to rise to the challenge. The bar has been set pretty high. Good luck, Vigil.

If you really want an in-depth look at what this game will be like, watch the video below. If you aren’t interested after watching it, you simply don’t like Adventure games. Or you have a prancing elf fetish and can’t let go.

In the past, developers have focused on simply adding players and geographic scale to the game without appropriately modifying mechanics. This has without fail resulted in confusion, oversimplification and flattening the skill curve.

MAG aims to use an incentive system to combine small scale warfare and grand battle tactics harmoniously. While there are still many question marks, a game this ambitious deserves our attention.

How has large failed in the past?

To know how MAG is changing the equation, we must analyze what games have done wrong in the past. What first comes to mind when thinking of the scattered MMOFPS genre is Planetside. When the game was announced, its ambition was staggering, and rightfully so: it was impossible to implement given the technology of the day.

Planetside was meant to achieve full FPS maps writ large with hundreds of players on each side in coordinated strikes. What the game ended up as was a cheap Tribes rip-off that traded even less detail than Tribes for increased map size (staggering if you’ve actually played Tribes and seen how barebones that game is).

The shooting mechanics were poor, the guns felt all wrong and details were sparse at best. Even considering that, network and system requirements were out of reach for many gamers. Needless to say, the game was a commercial failure in comparison to its ambitions. What SOE didn’t count on was that players are inherently selfish and if you want them to work together, you need incentive and direction.

Dodge this

Another interesting entrant into the hybrid FPS scene was the Half-Life mod Natural Selection. It introduced a top down ‘Commander’ viewpoint, where one player was in charge of his team’s strategy and could give direction as well as manage resources. This is a feature that MAG is implementing. The problem in Natural Selection was that there was no real incentive to follow instructions, and at the end of the day kill to death ratio is the ultimate motivator.

Many games tried similar features, such as Battlefield 2, and MAG is by no means reinventing the wheel. What they are doing is refining the wheel to streamline the system, creating some sort of super wheel. Hopefully this is finally the package to popularize grand scale FPS combat.

I count 8 guys and maybe 10 more in the background or maybe that's trash. You promised me 256!

Bigger is better?

The current king of online FPS combat, Modern Warfare 2, focuses on extremely small battles. In comparison to the usual 12v12 or 16v16 matchups, team deathmatch games are frequently 6v6. The maps are compact and combine tight corridors with expansive sniper fields. Their detail and individuality are a far cry from Planetside’s bland environments.

It is curious then that MAG is doing a 180 and supporting battles of up to 128v128, the largest yet in a non-persistent online FPS. Critically, Zipper Interactive is segmenting each side into 8 player squads. While some question the point of having 256 player battles if you’re going to constrain the focus, it’s hard enough to get 8 people to work together, let along 128.

This limitation on squad size will cut down on confusion and crystallize objectives. Zipper needs to ensure that the scale translates to each group, however, or else what’s the point of having all those players? Hopefully there will be payoff moments when your team’s commander coordinates pincer movements on a target and you both see your allied squads in action and the effectiveness of coordinated strategy so you understand the scale of the conflict.

90% of development time was spent on the skydiving engine

Do what I tell you!

First person shooters have historically had one mandate: everybody starts on a level playing field and skill sorts out the haves and the have-nots. That conventional logic was thrown out the window since Modern Warfare and gamers have shown developers that we love progression and unlocks. Variety is not the same as advantage, and the benefit of a Modern Warfare-esque progressive system is that even if you’re losing, you’re still accomplishing.

MAG, like all tactical games, has the daunting challenge of encouraging players to cooperate and follow orders. The difficulty is that sometimes effective strategy requires performing tasks that don’t result in kills, the one and only goal of playing online. Armies need support, defense and tactical distraction, and those aren’t fun.

What if you received an experience bonus for following the commands your squad receives from the commander? Might that encourage effective tactics? Zipper hopes so. The problem they have to deal with, and what I worry they won’t have the conviction to follow, is that the reward for following instructions needs to be massively higher than the reward for kills to overcome the stigma associated with a low kill to death ratio.

Call of Duty, which is still a kill hunt, has shown that match victory rewards on the order of 10x a single kill reward is not nearly enough to inspire role playing. To make MAG successful, Zipper should really make the only way to level up by following instructions, whatever they are, and I have extreme doubts that this will be the case. It’s too bad, because any player who has experienced effective strategic teamwork would know how rewarding it can be.

Furthermore, greater numbers of players frequently flatten skill curves. While in a small battle a single effective player can make a difference, when you’re faced with 100 opponents it doesn’t really matter how good you are, you’re not going to make much of a dent.

MAG has great potential, and also multiple potential pitfalls. I’m not going to lie: it’s probably going to be terrible. It could be a confused mess where nobody follows instructions and it turns out to be a 128v128 zerg fest with a few skilled snipers picking off hordes of terrible players. If they pull it off, however, it will be a revolutionary experience, one for which I have great anticipation.

Left 4 Dead 2 is essentially more of the same, with added content and gameplay refinement, and I can’t wait. New weapons, new special infected, new scenarios and new characters will all add depth to the experience. Most importantly, this is the first game that allows me fulfill my fantasy of killing zombies with a cricket bat. Wicked googly!

For those people complaining that the sequel is coming out too soon after the original, that’s like saying ‘even if you like ice cream, you can’t eat it every day!’ Yes you can. Ice cream is delicious.

Cooperative competition

How do you get teammates to work together in an online game? That is a question that developers have struggled with for years, and even the most popular online games didn’t try to tackle the problem. In Counterstrike, the closest teammates come to cooperation is letting your teammate rush in first so he takes the bullets and you get the kills.

The reason for which there was no incentive to work together in CS is because success is measured solely by kills and deaths. Most players would prefer to have a great record even if their team is losing; the server will still regard them as ‘the best player.’ Left 4 Dead’s most significant innovation is that there is little direct competition among teammates or between teams outside of the overall binary success/failure result.  

The special infected are relatively weak and expected to die, so it’s not a big deal to sacrifice your life if it’s going to benefit the team. Not only is there little correlation between ‘kills’ of survivors and playing ability, but you can be a great player with many of the infected and have few kills.

Likewise, disadvantaging a fellow survivor does you no good, as a hunter or smoker can quickly incapacitate even the best players without help from teammates. The only bragging metric in Left 4 Dead is whether you made it to the safe house, or whether you stopped the survivors. What happened in-between is irrelevant. Left 4 Dead 2 will offer even more of this experience, one which has yet to be replicated.

Hit for 6!

Don’t relax for a second

Very few shooters have the pacing found in Left 4 Dead games. In most FPS games, a full health team must be whittled down slowly and while you can be killed unexpectedly, it’s unusual for a whole team to be instantly wiped out. In Left 4 Dead, on the other hand, you can’t relax for an instant.

Because the infected can incapacitate even a full health survivor, a well coordinated infected team can incapacitate multiple players instantly. Unlike most games where a single member of a four player team being killed proportionally decreases performance, in Left 4 Dead losing a teammate triggers an exponential decline in effectiveness. A three man team is significantly less safe than a full team, and once you’re down to two it’s essentially over.

Zombies don't like 2 things: Fire, and fat sports coaches

Add in the pressure filled moments when you know a tank or a horde of zombies is approaching, and Left 4 Dead games can keep you on the edge of your seat in ways that few other games can.

The few anticlimactic situations in Left 4 Dead, such as cheaply killing a zombie horde by finding a convenient safe spot in which to hide the entire team, have been eliminated in the sequel. Many of the large events cannot simply be endured, you have to progress to a target point. The frenetic mobile gameplay will be more prevalent. Not only does this up the ante for the survivors, but it means there will be far more opportunities for the infected to incapacitate a straggler and thin the opposition.

Content is king

When people ask for a Call of Duty sequel, what do they want? More guns, more maps, more scenarios, and more multiplayer perks. Why, then, when Left 4 Dead 2 offers all of those things, do players lash out against it? What would constitute a true ‘sequel?’ How many new weapons? How many new infected? 

Part of the allure of Left 4 Dead scenarios is experiencing the same content multiple times and seeing the stunning number of gameplay permutations that emerge from the same setup. It seems that the only acceptable bar for the community is entirely new gameplay, but I know that’s not what I want. Don’t mess with a good thing. Improve on it slightly.

Zombies are fireproof now? Ok, just give up. We're all dead

The new infected will add fun new challenges. Players have mastered fighting off boomers and hunters, but what will the jockey, charger and spitter add to the equation? How will daytime affect infected strategy? Will the personalities of the new survivor team be as charming and memorable as those in Left 4 Dead? Knowing Valve and their commitment to polish, I have to assume the answer will be ‘yes.’

Left 4 Dead was one of the most entertaining cooperative first person online experiences in recent memory. It revolutionized how people approached cooperative gameplay, and did for first person shooter genre what a game like Starcraft did for RTS games: demonstrated that opposing teams can be both different and perfectly balanced.

Fun gameplay mechanics should be developed, not redone from the ground up, and I for one am happy that Left 4 Dead 2 is taking the successful formula from the first and building on it. If you’re as excited as I am to have a go at the Tank with a katana, then mark November 17^th on your calendar. Left 4 Dead 2 is coming, and this time it all goes south.

Emergent gameplay is the white whale of open world videogames. Developers have long touted how even they don’t know how a given situation will play out. These claims are usually largely overstated; sure, you’re going to drive around in GTA and blow stuff up but at the end of the day you have to finish the missions.

Red Faction: Guerilla was the first game to truly crack the code. Instead of including the ability to go on a GTA-esque rampage in-between ‘completing’ the game, they made that the whole game. Every mission was ‘here is a rocket launcher and a sledge hammer. Go hog wild.’

Just Cause 2 is Red Faction: Guerilla squared. They have taken that template and mixed in Desert Strike, Far Cry and Michael Bay. Avalanche Studios may have created a game that attains Uncharted 2’s action movie feel without heavy scripting. If you like open world destruction, this game is for you. If you have a zipline fetish, this game is also for you.

Have a blast out there

Just Cause 2 will be the game that Crysis could have been. It’s easy enough to build a tropical island and put some guys on it. Add in some trucks and a helicopter and there you go: the perfect open world game, right? The problem is that even though you can crash a jeep into a school bus full of children, players will quickly become bored without direction.

Tell a player to crash ten jeeps into ten school buses, however, and suddenly everything clicks. They aren’t procrastinating, they’re accomplishing! It sounds so simple, but so do all great inventions after the fact.

GTA set the standard for open world games and everybody followed in lock step with small, targeted missions instead of larger open ended missions. Rewarding you for completing a story segment is far different from making a mission that rewards you for killing 100 civilians, or destroying 20 police cars.

Some would suggest that even directed destruction quickly becomes tiresome. Those people clearly haven’t played Red Faction: Guerilla and experienced first hand how a little hook is all it takes for mindless destruction to be transformed. Red Faction had destroyable buildings. What does Just Cause 2 have?

Did you know one of the vehicles in this game is a jumbo jet? Day 1 purchase

Paratrooper

Just Cause 2 is just like every other shooter you’ve ever played. Except you have a parachute. And a zipline. Also, you can base jump from thousands of feet up and slingshot yourself from one object to another while airborne with your zipline. Also, you can attach people to each other with ropes and create all sorts of comedic physics nightmares. Oh, don’t forget about jumbo jet you can pilot and crash into buildings. Did I mention you can attach tanks to helicopters and swing them around like a giant wrecking ball? Or that you can collapse buildings onto fuel tanks and shoot rockets and jump jeeps off cliffs and … sorry, got carried away there. See what I mean? Just like every other shooter.

The amazing thing about the game is it introduces very few new things to the shooter repertoire: a zipline and a parachute. Introduce too much, and the player is quickly overwhelmed. Half Life 2 was just like every other shooter, except you could manipulate gravity. Small changes from the standard FPS ‘rules’ that everyone is familiar with can create huge variations in gameplay, as illustrated above.

If you’re not convinced that this tiny hook can create gameplay situations that are unique and innovative, check out the following video:

Last action hero

It’s hard to know as a developer when you’ve crossed the line from cinematic to ‘on rails.’ Quick time events and cutscenes create dramatic action sequences that would be impossible to reenact with in-game controls, and as a result cinematic games sometimes feel too restrictive. Even a well executed experience like Uncharted 2 required carefully scripted situations to approach the drama of an action movie.

Is it even possible to create more than just the occasional lucky cinematic event in an open world game? Just Cause 2 is certainly making an attempt, with heroic leaps from jeep to jeep, catapulting from helicopter to helicopter and making last minute escapes from fiery crashes.

It does this without being scripted, of course, by rendering screw ups trivial. Instead of falling under the tires when you miss a jump to another vehicle, you can just pull your parachute, soar into the air and catch up using your zipline.  You have to appreciate the little things …

I hope you're insured!

Concerned?

Many games with promise derail somewhere between potential and execution. Just Cause 2 has a couple easy slip-ups it could make: the controls could be fiddly and frustrating (after all it’s tough to aim while you’re rapidly moving before you add the complication of being airborne), the world could be too large and unwieldy and the missions could be dull and repetitive.

Avalanche has implemented an innovative aiming system, however, where the game aids aiming in general but the skilled can still refine the aim towards specific weak points on an enemy, vehicle or building. This streamlines difficulty yet still allows an advantage to skilled players.

The multitude of vehicles and paragliding opportunities will hopefully facilitate swift travel and the missions smartly appear to center around destruction. Everything appears on track but stranger things have happened; every time I start to doubt the potential of Just Cause 2, however, I merely watch this vertical gameplay trailer and am reassured.

There are plenty of ‘just one more’ games, such as just one more would be WoW-killer, just one more action brawler, or just one more open world action game. Most of these I write off as potentially fun distractions, but likely pretenders to the champions of each genre (WoW, God of War and GTA).

Just Cause 2 stands out from the sheer number of ‘holy shit’ moments in the game. It isn’t merely copying open world games that have come before it, but is instead bringing something new to the table. I haven’t been as impressed by gleeful destruction since first stepping into a mechanical walker in Red Faction as I am when watching clips of Just Cause 2. Hopefully this will be a true summer action flick of a game, and not one where all the good scenes were in the trailer.

Finally, take note, Avalanche: mechanical walkers make every game better. There are months of development time remaining. I think you know what to do.