Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Pros: Blizzard has pumped out a really solid game. I was very happy that my low end computer was able to play this with great graphics and speeds. Replay of the campaign is still fun and there are lots of achievements to try and earn. The challenges help you learn which units are best suited to counteract others. Multiplayer is solid with whatever gametype and gaming experience you want.

Cons: It is rather short. Some of the stages it seems set you up to wait rather than letting you beat it quickly. So while it takes a long time for the round to finish. You could have been complete in just a couple of minutes.

Pros: Loved the first Starcraft so I figured I would give Wings of Liberty a try. If you have ever played the first version of Starcraft then you know how to play this game. It's not exactly the same, but it is very close.

Improved units in addition to most of the units from the first one. Enhanced multiplayer. Gives you the option to play vs A.I or you can team up with with other players and play the A.I. or you can play against other players.

This game won't get boring for a while because of the multiplayer (the campaign mode when by pretty quickly).

Haven't checked in on the cheats yet (everyone loves a good A.I. game where you just pwn them.

Cons: None that I can think of. Good game, good servers, good fun.

Pros: its a good game definitely going to be a classic

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: cant really go wrong can you?

Pros: Love this game, custom games and online are extremely fun. Single player is AMAZING. Highly recommend!

Cons: Updates are pretty large and kinda annoying from a new install. They also involve changing stats for units, NOT A FAN OF THIS. I understand you are trying to "balance the game" but this is for the expert gamers to decide upon when you are beta testing.

Pros: The campaign is great multiplayer is good to you don't even need the disk just a battle.net account

Cons: not many I can think of. Not heart of the swarm.

Pros: Game is pretty much like the original, with updated graphics, and smooth gameplay

Cons: 7 gig update right out of the box
same strategy as the original will still result in a win.

Couldn't play the game right out of the box, not even single player. Had to wait for the update (several hours).

Other Thoughts: The cost of the game is good at 19.00, but if you are on a limited bandwidth per month, or face overcharges, be sure you are willing to download a giant update.

I hate that this is the way games are shipped now.

Pros: It worked really well I played Civilization 5 without a hitch.

Cons: Did not come with an adapter.

Pros: It is always trying to hawk the next game or upgrade. Is totally internet based so it took a long time to upload and the install before I could play. I like the old Starcraft to play on planes and while traveling. Don't think I can do that now that you have to have an internet connection.

Cons: Needs internet to play.

Pros: This game is an excellent RTS. No doubt about it. There's been a meticulous amount of attention given to everything from game balance to artwork, and is really a great deal at $30 (I paid $60). The campaign is really fun and well done, albeit not much of a sweat on Brutal mode for a seasoned RTS player. This sequel brings back all the great elements from the first Starcraft and makes the experience easier to manage and more rewarding for strategic thinkers over speedy actions per minute fiends.

Cons: That said, this game still favors action per minute focused players since you have to manage absolutely everything with your army. While this is a great task to live up to, I feel that the controls could really be improved upon. Hotkeys lack intuitiveness and the overhead camera scrolling is poorly conceived. I find myself wasting too much apm just getting the best view of what I'm doing (just pressing the spacebar rarely gets me where I need to be efficiently).

Beyond the player interface, I strongly feel that BLizzard focuses way too much on the pro level crowd and not their main consumer base. All the balance decisions seem to be determined by what the pro level play calls for that doesn't really affect normal players in a positive manner. Some things such as the mindlessly fun monobattles are no longer easily available and when they were, constantly had drops and lags due to a lack of server resources dedicated to the just for fun crowd. Overall, the support and management for this game will likely not favor you, especially if you haven't purchased this game yet.

Blizzard has also made a real bummer of a move by destroying the starcraft LAN experience. All your games need to go to a Blizzard server, which is not optimal for latency and simplicity. I believe their motivation to do this was to curtail piracy, but as a super rich gaming company, I doubt it would have affected their bottom line to make this game more independent of their servers. Also the $40 expansion is a slap in the face to franchise stalwarts.

This game also feels incomplete. There is very little opportunity to acquaint yourself with playing Zerg since there is no campaign or even a solid tutorial. Your forced to learn via AI deathmatches (boring) or ladder matches vs seasoned players (steep learning curve). A whole zerg campaign may not have been feasible (or as fiscally advantageous for blizzard), but a substantial tutorial would have been great given that the mechanics of playing zerg have been changed a bit since the first Starcraft. Protoss also gets the shaft in this regard, although a few campaign missions help out a bit. Again this approach seems to favor the Pro crowd who would have no issue cutting their teeth from Beta onward against each other.

Other Thoughts: If you are on the fence regarding this game, you may want to consider another RTS for that genre fix. You can likely hold off until a "battle chest" type thing comes out with all the expansions, or at least the 2 that will be out soon in a combo pack.

If you aren't interested in another RTS or another involved sort of game out there, then Starcraft 2 can be a great experience for you.

My experience with the game is pretty mixed. At first I loved it. The campaign was excellent, and since Terran is my preferred race, I didn't mind the single race approach as much. I started in the lowest league on ladder and worked my way up to Diamond, which is basically the top league for normal people. This was very rewarding and I enjoyed noticing my own improvements in both strategy and execution.

Online play is pretty well matched but after a while I realized it often results in a lot of the same old over and over again. Even the flakiest and most predictable of games results in 20 minutes gone from your game time. Eventually this same old on ladder got really boring so I moved onto custom games. However, some of these games I liked, namely monobattles, seemed to disappear from Blizzards servers in favor of more ladder-like custom games. As a result, I moved onto other games altogether.

Recently I'm trying to get back into it since this game certainly has a lot of depth and potential for fun, but I'm still holding the high ranking I used to have, which means I'm set to get creamed until I get demoted into a league where I can be competitive again. Sorta weak on the matchmaking, but I can understand Blizzard wanting to reduce trolling by skilled players in lower leagues. Still I'll likely fire up a match or two tonight until I realize I can have way more fun doing something else. Namely Borderlands 2 for the moment.

Pros: Great game that i enjoyed BUT....

Cons: I hate games that you have to log in someplace in order to play. So while its a good game it will more then likely be uninstalled and thrown in a cabinet to collect dust.