StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Review
Evaluating StarCraft II on a completely objective basis is not an easy task.
This is a sequel over a decade in the making, a follow-up to a game so storied
in the annals of real-time strategy history that you can still walk into a store
selling PC games and find a copy of it on the shelf. It's hard to not look at
StarCraft II as a reunion with a good friend from your past, with all of those
memories forming the majority of your impression of that person today. It's
obvious that Blizzard was well aware of all of this because at its core
StarCraft II is not that much different from StarCraft. There are a number of
evolutionary changes in StarCraft II, but when you get right down to it, it's
still Terran vs. Protoss vs. Zerg in fast-paced, real-time strategy battles.
As in the original, StarCraft II includes both a single player campaign and a multiplayer mode. Unlike StarCraft, though, StarCraft II only includes a Terran campaign. The emphasis this time around is more on story than it is on gradually introducing you to the three factions and their units in order to prepare you for the multiplayer game. The campaign's story follows the rebel Terran leader Jim Raynor as he leads the struggle against the oppressive Terran regime, while also frequently bumping up against a new Zerg incursion into Terran space followed closely by the reemergence of the Protoss. The campaign has been restructured so that the story is told not just through cutscene cinematics, but through interactions aboard Raynor's battlecruiser that serves as the hub for the campaign. The battlecruiser is divided into different sections, bridge, lab, armory, and a cantina, and while each of these areas serves a primary role, they are also populated with different characters and interactive items. Click on a person and you could get anything from a short response to a full cutscene conversation, and what you get will change each time you return to the ship from a mission. Those who just want to play through the campaign can pretty much skip most of these interactions, but those who do take the time to go through them all will be rewarded with a much richer experience in terms of story. StarCraft II has a far richer storyline than you'll find in most games, let alone in an RTS, and most gamers will appreciate how it adds to their enjoyment of the game. The story stands on its own so don't worry if you missed out on the original game, but on the other hand, if you are familiar with StarCraft and Brood War, you'll appreciate that there is continuity in the fiction of the series.
As mentioned previously, the four rooms of the battlecruiser server other purposes beyond story and atmosphere. The bridge is where you select your next mission. StarCraft II's campaign has parallel mission threads and gives you the option of which mission that you want to take on next. In addition, there are some points at which you'll be forced to make a decision that will drive which mission is available next and cause a branch in the storyline. For example, do you help the Protoss eradicate a Zerg infestation on a planet at the cost of the lives of the human colonists living there, or do you try to evacuate the colonists while fighting off the Protoss and their eradication effort? When you do select a mission, you'll find that there's more variety to the missions in StarCraft II than there are in your usual RTS game or even in the first StarCraft game. You'll still see some of the familiar mission archetypes here – escort, base defense, etc. – but Blizzard has done a great job of adding a lot of variety to the basic formula. For example, surging lava may periodically flow the low ground or rampaging Zerg may make it too dangerous for your forces to venture out of the base at night. These changes may seem simple, but they all make you adjust your strategy to fit the current situation and keep the missions from devolving into a repetition of the same exercise mission in and mission out.
StarCraft II introduces an achievement system for the campaign, as well. Each mission includes three achievements which can be earned by completing side missions, accomplishing the objectives within a certain time, and the like, providing incentive to replay the missions to collect them all. And it's not just a matter of personal pride – your achievement score is displayed with your profile on Battle.net, Blizzard's online game network, so the more points that you score the more cred you'll have with your friends and rivals. The downside to this is that StarCraft II is effectively an online game even when you play it in single player mode – if you're not connected to the Internet and logged into Battle.net when playing you won't be able to earn any achievements.
Before I discuss the purpose of the other three rooms in the battlecruiser, I have to let you know that StarCraft takes a departure from the standard RTS tech tree model of upgrades even though StarCraft was one of the games that pioneered that model. There are no more research structures to be found, and you don't have to "research" unit upgrades such as a weapons enhancement each and every time you play a mission. Instead your accomplishments in a mission will earn you currency that can be directed towards upgrades once you're back at the battlecruiser – upgrades that will be permanently applied to your units in future missions. The game still keeps a tight control on the rollout of new unit types – they won't be available until you complete the corresponding mission in which they first appear – but once they're unlocked you can purchase and upgrade them for use in all future missions. In addition, if you scour the maps during a mission you'll come across alien tech artifacts from the Zerg or Protoss which can be analyzed back at the battlecruiser.
This is where the other sections of the battlecruiser come in. The ship's lab analyzes any artifacts that you recover, and when enough data has been gathered it leads to a breakthrough that results in the availability of a new upgrade. There are two research tracks, one for Protoss technology and the other for Zerg, and each yield different technologies. In both cases, though, each new tier forces you to make a selection between two new technologies/upgrades. When you select one of the upgrades the other is lost for the remainder of the campaign, so it's best to be careful to select the one that would be a better fit for your style of play.
The armory is the replacement for the standard tech tree from the first StarCraft and the hundreds of strategy games that mimicked it. In the armory you'll find all of the units that you've unlocked so far in the campaign and you'll have the opportunity to spend credits earned in missions to purchase upgrades for them. Each unit has two possible upgrades, but unlike the alien tech upgrades you can purchase both. There are also structure upgrades available, such as built-in defensive guns or armor plating.
While there are interactive objects and conversations to be had in all sections of the battlecruiser, the true interactive hub of the ship is its cantina. You can catch news broadcasts on the TV, talk to the ship's crew and visitors, and even play a fully functional arcade game. However, the cantina is not just about atmosphere; it's also where you need to go to hire mercenaries. Mercenaries are powerful versions of regular units that can really help you turn the tide of battle in a pinch. To call on their aid, you'll first have to spend credits in the cantina to unlock each type of mercenary unit. When on a mission a specialized merc compound building can then be used to call down a mercenary squad when you need them. You won't be able to spam the game with mercenaries; you can call on each type of squad only a couple of times per mission, there's a cooldown period between calls, and mercenary units are far pricier than other units in terms of resources.
StarCraft II's single player campaign does a good job of maintaining a balance between staying true to its roots and changing the formula enough to keep a twelve year old gaming concept from feeling stale and outdated. As someone who's played the original game, I can say that my disappointment in finding that there is only a Terran campaign in the game was more than compensated for by the variety of missions in the game and immersive nature of the campaign. The achievement system is a good addition to the game, but I wish that the possible achievements for a mission were listed up front before beginning it rather than as an afterthought. I didn't like missing out on an achievement I could have easily earned if I had only known about it beforehand. Overall, though, this StarCraft veteran is quite pleased with the new game's campaign.
