Starcraft II, one of the most anticipated sequels to one of the most entertaining RTS games ever has a lot to live up to. It delivers on a number of fronts, keeping the fast paced play that made the original a classic. Just like in Starcraft, players will have to actively manage their economy, production, and micromanagement while having to fend off interference from the enemies. Each race has a "macro mechanic", a different way of boosting economy and production that makes each faction seem distinction. The game itself looks nice visually, even though the system requirements are rather low, keeping in line with a high level of compatability with most systems just like in Starcraft I. The single player section is also well done, featuring a variety of missions and allows you to purchase new units and upgrades that make it far more interesting. In addition, the achievement system rewards the player for accomplishing different feats during the campaign-- this in combination with difficulty levels offers the player a huge number of options for challenge. The casual player who merely wants to see the plot can play on the normal/casual difficulties, the more experienced players can try hard or brutal. And the extreme completionist may aim for all the achievements on the highest difficulties. All and all the single player is well done. However, Starcraft II is horrifically backwards in the multiplayer aspect. The lack of LAN play is a bit annoying. One may claim that LAN is obsolete due to high speed internet, however, Battle.net's servers are still fairly unreliable at times, and players wanting a game with each other can be screwed if the server decides to go down. The Battle.net interface itself is cumbersome, and there are quite a number of hoops to adding friends. The worst part is the lack of chat channels, making it extremely difficult to meet up with new players except in game, which can be difficult for beginners, as most of the focus during actual gameplay... is well playing the game. Chat channels are needed for the social aspect of a multiplayer enviorment and the rather primitive chat functions do exist are hardly adequate. It is fairly sad that such a simple feature that existed in Blizzard's previous games does not exist here. The automated matchmaking system is probably one of the best parts of the game. It is extremely reliable in finding you a match with someone around your skill level. Of course, it does some time for the system to adequately gauge your skill. The ranking system though, is fairly vague, unfortunately. There are no detailed statistics (as with Warcraft 3) The friends system is also a mess. Unless you add friends as "Real ID" you can not tell what activity a friend you added is involved with. Due to the fact that REAL id requires giving out an email address and others can see your real name, some people would rather not have that info given to every random person they wish to add. The final blow to the multiplayer is the server segregation. In games such as Starcraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II, the servers were separated into regions, however a player can easily hop from one or another to play with distant friends. In Starcraft II, this is not possible, unless you wish to buy a separate copy of the game for each region. Thus, I'll never be able to play this game with my European friends. Also, the game lacks polish, as if it were rushed out the door. The hotkey mapping is mostly nonsensical. That would not be a problem if the hotkeys were customizable like in many modern games, but they are not. It does not reflect well to not have features that games 5-6 years ago had. Although, promises have been made to remedy these problems, however, after months as of this writing nothing has really been done. Overall, this is a decent game to play for the single player. If you want to play it for the multiplayer, I would recommend holding off into the expansion, Heart of the Swarm, comes out when most of these issues will probably be resolved. Otherwise, buying the game pretty much makes you an extended beta tester as it is still extremely poorly polished with basic features missing.
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