The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, The World Today

Doing my daily scan of news across the board, and I came across this article on ArsTechnica about StarCraft 2.

The first thing to know is that I’m not a avid news watcher for upcoming games. I don’t actively review them for anyone, though I’ve thought about adding a section specifically for that here. Still might happen in the future. I do, however, feel the need to comment on game news I read when I think there is a point to be acknowledged that nobody is really commenting enough on. That is the case here with StarCraft 2.

I’m an old player of Starcraft. I enjoyed the first game a great deal and it’s expansions. As a matter of fact, I though they were so well done for their time that I still, on  occasion, load them up and play them.

That being said, following the news on the sequal has been interesting. First off we have the fact that it has taken them a really long time to get it made. A really long time. We’ve gone through several interations of the Windows Operating system since the last release of Starcraft.

Second, in all that time of development, somehow they have concluded that they don’t need to keep support for LAN games. This mindset truly baffles me because one of the largest group of people who played Starcraft was people who regulary played at LAN Parties. Starcraft was a staple game for them and everyone had a copy. So if that was they case, what would bring a company to the decision that slapping those fans of the game int he face would be a good idea? Unfortunately I don’t have an answer to that.

As it stands, I’ve seen the three ‘Battle Reports’ for the game and seen the screenshots. It looks like a solid RTS game. I’m hoping that the storyline from the single player can hold muster with the rest of it.