Starcraft 2: Critical Analysis of Gameplay and Implementation

Starcraft 2 is a video game that has recently come out from Blizzard. However, this Blizzard is not the same Blizzard of the past as it is now owned by Activision. In this review of Starcraft 2 I will explain how it will never be the greatest Real Time Strategy (RTS) game because it is missing vital key elements for success from other RTS games. In addition, I will touch on some of the failures in implementation that Activision made.

I have previously written a guide on Associated Content titled "Starcraft 2: How to Beat an Insane Computer." In brief, in this guide I explain that if you play the island map Agria Valley and play as Protoss and have the computer play as Zerg, you can initially wall off your main base and expand and control both islands. Then you can lose your main base and bunker in on the islands with photon cannons and then mass Carriers and wipe out the Zerg insane computer. Now when I did this strategy playing against Terran I was unable to win, however I was able to 'trick' the computer into essentially a draw even though the computer had over 40,000 minerals and tens of thousands of vespene gas. What happened was, was I was unable to wipe out the computer and ran out of minerals on the 2 islands. The computer had collected all of the minerals on the main land but was at 200 unit cap and only had a few air units.

The problem here can be explained by poor scripting of the computer and also poor gameplay aspects. As far as poor scripting is concerned, the computer should have sent over his air units to one of my islands. Now granted, I did have a lot of photon cannons on them eventually they should have kept resending more and more air units once the others died off. Since I was out of minerals I was unable to build anything. In addition, the computer should have been able to be smart enough to kill off the majority of its own SCVs and ground units and build a lot of air units. However, clearly Blizzard does not thinking deleting your own units is smart gameplay as the computer has not been implemented to do this and there is no way to do this unless you force attack your own unit. This arrives at the poor gameplay aspects of Starcraft 2.

Now I understand that Starcraft 2 is essentially Starcraft with better graphics and other updates but the original gameplay aspects are not all that different. But I have a problem with the gameplay of Starcraft II as it fails to draw on important aspects from other RTS games like the Age of Empires and Command and Conquer Series. One aspect has already been touched on: deleting units. You should be able to hit the delete key and delete your own units. This is important at all stages of the game but can greatly alter and affect the landscape. The second aspect is converting minerals to vespene gas and vice versa. In the Age of Empires series this is allowed and helps improve your ability to produce units when you have lopsided resources. Typically this results due to limited amounts of resources of the map, which is the third aspect of poor gameplay. Starcraft 2 should have a way to continue to collect resources even when the map is exhausted of minerals and vespene gas. I mean Command and Conquer has a way to do this and so does Age of Empires. I understand that all three of these aspects of poor gameplay I outline if changed they would vastly affect gameplay, but because they are not implemented I feel Starcraft 2 will never achieve greatness and truly be a great RTS.

Starcraft 2 also has several alarming issues not from a gameplay standpoint. As a person who thoroughly enjoys RTS games for their gameplay I think gameplay is most important but the other issues are nonetheless important.

Starcraft 2 ships and requires you to constantly be connected to the internet to properly play the game. Not everyone afford or is always in a situation where they always have the internet available. If they are traveling or are at work for example.

Starcraft 2 does not have any LAN implemented. A huge huge aspect of RTS games is the ability to play LAN. Any seasoned veteran clearly remembers the time when they would have friends over and they would play a RTS game over their own home LAN. In addition LAN parties are also quite a popular thing. However, now Activision has forced Starcraft 2 gamers to not be able to play LAN. This to me is a travesty.

Starcraft 2 has a selling point of $60 retail. This price only includes 1/3 of the campaigns. Activision will later on release 2 other games which have the Zerg and Protoss campaigns. For now you can only play as Terran on the campaigns but all three are available for multiplayer and standard versus computer play. In my opinion, and many others $60 is just too high of a price point for not a full game. This is not a fair and just market price.

Starcraft 2 does not allow you to play with more than one monitor. Many games now have multiple monitors. Some have three in an eyefinity setup. Starcraft 2 forces them to only use one monitor. The rationale is that if a gamer is playing with 3 online and the other person only has 1 monitor the person with 3 monitors will have a competitive advantage. This is true but clearly Activision has interest in people playing the campaigns. They are planning to release two addition Starcraft 2 games which have the other 2/3 of the campaigns. The campaigns can be played by yourself against the computer so there is no reason why gamers should not be able to enjoy up to three monitors when playing the campaigns. This is a poor oversight.

Starcraft 2 uses Battle.net to play. When you get the game you are required to submit your personal information to Blizzard. Many gamers will not be pleased. In addition Battle.net has no chat rooms and does not allow gamers who live in the U.S. to play with gamers who live in the U.K. They currently have a region lock. So you would need to buy 2 copies, one to play with U.S. gamers and one to play with U.K. gamers. Cleary Activision thinks ping and latency is an issue here but the original Starcraft from the 90s allowed this to occur.

I have not touched on every single issue of Starcraft 2 but I have clearly laid the ground work for why it will never become the greatest RTS game. There are clear oversights in gameplay mechanics and clear oversights in implementation of the game. Past experiences and successes should be drawn upon and grown into something better in the future. This did not happen. Instead past successes were not implemented and removed in the release of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty.

To learn more about the issues I encourage you to read the reviews on Amazon where currently the ratings are pretty much split between 5 star and 1 star.