Found: One Troll

SC2 took several hours to download, so I only got one match in tonight before bed. I played as the Protoss against another Protoss player on the Desert Oasis map. First, the game is very much StarCraft. If you were worried that Blizzard was going to go mucking around with a perfectly good thing, you needn’t (yet, it is just the first day of closed beta). The classic Protoss units that I fielded felt just like the old ones, and the new units each felt like they each had a purpose and their own place on the battlefield. I’m a fan of the new top-tier unit for the Protoss, the Mothership. Aside from kicking serious ass with its disruptor pulses, the Mothership cloaks all nearby friendly units, including your buildings. Want to hide an entire base or army from prying eyes? Park a Mothership over it.

Some new elements of the UI are pretty nice. Your ‘control groups’ are displayed at the top of the unit pane and can be selected with a click. Each group lists the group number and the strength of the group (in number of units). Although not strictly necessary for someone like me, who has long since developed standards for control group assignment over decades of strategy gaming, it’s definitely a handy feature to have, especially for keeping track of group strength in the middle of battle. I now realize that I forgot to check out how many units can be selected in a single group. SC1 had a group limit of 12 units, but I do not know the (current) limit for SC2. I will find out and report it later.

Another nice feature is the improved end-of-match report. There is a new screen on this report which shows each player’s build order. This will be a great tool for helping to improve one’s game when matched against significantly better opponents, to be able to see in detail when they build their resource gatherers, when they expand and build their armies, etc. A good build order is key to victory in multiplayer matches, and a poor one can easily cost a player the game.

The graphics are also quite good. I  will, however, admit that I am a sucker for the way Blizzard’s art style can make even low-poly models look beautiful. The movies and screenshots that were available before this beta really do not do this game justice.

Of course, playing the game only highlights how utterly terrible I am (and always have been) at multiplayer strategy games. This Penny Arcade comic about Warcraft III (NSFW for language) sums up my experience with online strategy games. My opponent disconnected in the middle of the match, but I took a look at his forces and he would have stomped me quite soundly if he had stayed. Hopefully over the beta period I’ll be able to improve my skill. It also looks like I’m going to have to install FRAPS because printscreen does nothing in SC2 as far as I can tell.