My Initial Starcraft 2 Beta Impressions

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Frequent readers of the site will know I have something of a thing for Starcraft. I played the game a decade ago like crazy, and recently have gotten into watching professional matches online which is almost like pretending I like sports. Almost.

But at long last I finally got my own beta key for Starcraft II, a game I’ve literally been waiting nearly half my life to be released.

I’ve spent a decent (read: enormous) amount of time playing the game the last few days, and I figured I might as well write down my impressions of the game so far. There are issues outside of gameplay that irk me, such as the four hour download and install time, and the fact that I can’t play the game on anything but “low” graphics settings even with a decent computer, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

Starcraft is tricky. It’s incredibly fun and time consuming, but at the same time, can be immensely frustrating. Despite all its strategy, it can often feel like one big game of rock, paper, scissors, and if you happen to choose wrong, you’ve just wasted twenty minutes. Sure, good players can react and adapt at lightning speed, but I am not a good player, and it can get a bit dull and repetitive doing the same 10 minute lead up to an attack only to be rushed or to find out that you went mass one thing and they went mass the other thing that happens to be the best against your units.

I go on big swings with this game, where I’ll demolish everyone in the placement matches with first-timers, only to be thrust in the “gold league” where players curb stomp me left and right.

I honestly don’t have a favorite race at this point, but I’ll just discuss what I’ve encountered with each so far.

Terran:

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I like Terran a lot because the ability to block off your ramp means your rarely every die from one of those super early zealot/zergling rushes that I f*cking hate with a passion. The ability of flying buildings is always nice, especially for expansions that happen to be located on islands, and the addition of Reactors to various buildings allow Terran to pump out mass units like never before.

I only really have two strategies with Terran. Mass Marine/Marauder/Medivac, which has really good drop potential, or mass air, a mix of Vikings and whatever those air-to-ground things are that aren’t Wraiths but cloak. I haven’t had too much success with that yet though.

I haven’t figured out how to effectively utilize the factory yet. Hellions and Siege Tanks just don’t seem very good, and Thor drops are fun, but they’re vastly overrated units, despite being voiced by Ah-nold.

Protoss:

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I feel like Protoss has a lot of potential that I haven’t utilized yet. I just discovered what Warp Gates do, and that Warp Prisms do something similar, but I don’t know how to fully implement them in any sort of strategy yet.

I’ve found Protoss mass ground to be fairly week compare to Terran and Zerg, but contrastingly, a good Protoss air force is nearly unstoppable. I have yet to see anything that’s able to combat Void Rays and Carriers, and god forbid you throw a Mothership into the mix. I actually think the Void Ray is too overpowered, as Void Ray rushes have been my downfall FAR too often, and you have to explicitly prepare for it or you’ll never survive.

Again, like Terran, I haven’t experimented much with Immortals or Colossi from the Robotics facility yet, and have yet to develop an effective strategy utilizing either. Though to be fair, I have yet to develop many effective strategies period.

Zerg:

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For some reason I find Zerg to be the most stressful race to play as, because for some reason I always feel like I’m behind on spawning larva or creep or whatever.

I’ve recently had quite a bit of fun watching Banelings tear through infantry, and a good Roach/Hydra combo can cut through most stuff like butter. Mutalisks are much better in this game, but I have yet to experiment with any other Zerg air. I have however, been torn apart by Brood Lords once or twice. Those things don’t f*ck around.

I probably play with Zerg the least, but as I get more comfortable with them that might change. Now, what the hell is an Infestor exactly?

Alright so it’s clear I still have a lot to learn about the game, which would probably explain why I’m getting my ass routinely kicked. But I have won some games, and have had a few epic matches that came down to one or two buildings left standing and a handful of units still alive on both sides and were a lot of fun to play.

Losing in Starcraft is one of the more frustrating video game experiences I’ve had to endure, but winning is proportionately satisfying, though for me it happens far less frequently. My best experiences with the game so far have been 2v2 matches with my buddy on a laptop right next to me. Nothing beats local multiplayer if you ask me.

The game seems pretty balanced now, though I’m sure patches will keep fine tuning every week or so. I know I’ll never be a pro, but this is the game I’ve been waiting a decade for.

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6 Comments

  1. The biggest question remains: How good were you at the original and how do those skills transfer to the new one?

    If you weren’t any good at the original, then this entire post is kinda pointless because every Beta testing was likely a SC1 freak and is carrying those micro skills over to SC2.

  2. Hey Paul! Glad you picked it up.

    Void Rays are wrecked by a good mass mutalisks.

    And in terms of Zerg Air you need to get the things that look like Sentinels from the Matrix, and upgrade them, they essentially turn into Zerg Carriers, they are called Brood Lords and a few of them can wreck a base.

    Dont discount the good mass zealot though, you get enough of them and they can do some damage.

    I know what you mean about always being behind with the larva with zerg, and the best strategy I can suggest is using the larva spawn with the queen, and just constantly casting it when ever you can, it will leave you with a good amount of larva at all times.

    I bought the Beta for myself and a buddy, he gets home from med school and as soon as he does, we will do the side by side laptop tactic. I really like that idea.

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