Tom’s hardware had an article on their site about their impressions of the Starcraft II Beta.  So naturally, I’m going to dissect it.  In effect, my impressions of their impressions.

Attention stat whores: Blizzard has accomodated you.

“That was almost a decade ago, and Blizzard, you’ve come a long way, baby. I had an opportunity to sit down with the StarCraft II beta this week, and as jaded a veteran of the boom and rush as I may be, I find that it not only meets but also exceeds my expectations.”

Terrific!  That means that this should have a fresh take on their genre-defining classic.  Considering advances in RTS games over the last 10 years, they had to keep up somehow, so clearly they must have done that.

“Notably, StarCraft IIis for the most part a graphics revamp of the original game. The tactics are still there – the tried and true zerg rush, turtling with Protoss, the pesky Terran penchant for bunkers in all the wrong places.”

…

Really?  Really?!  Then have they actually come a long way?  Your expectations are an idiot.

“But Blizzard has gone further.”

I fail to see how they couldn’t have…

“The multiplayer interface is divine in its simplicity. Gone are the clunky machinations of uncertain matchmaking. You click, it finds you a game.”

I’m not sure how I feel about matchmaking in general.  Left 4 Dead 2 supposedly has this, yet I still get matched with people who seem to have no idea how to operate a door knob, let alone a pipe bomb.  I’m going to count this as a negative until I see it in action for myself.

“The interface itself presents a seamless transition between the game and Battle.net. The prompts are informative and nearly everything takes place from one integrated, elegantly laid out screen.  Multiplayer matching is wholly painless, a welcome evolution from the days of router forwarding and IP exchanging.”

OMG! It’s so streamlined!

I haven’t used this interface (since it’s a closed beta and apparently nobody thought to invite the Angry Ones), but let’s get something straight here.  By and large, games in general have been past the day of IP exchanging for years.  Routers are another issue (Borderlands and its port problems are a nightmare), but come on, don’t bring this up like it’s a great leap in game design.  A large number of games today don’t have port issues and (if they’re smart) use manual IP entry as a backup method of finding servers.

I think this looks about the same in the new game, too.

“My first few matches, I found myself gravitating towards my old faves– Protoss boom, Zerg rush, staples of any old school StarCraft player. It surprised me how quickly I fell back into the old build order.”

I’ll admit it.  I wasn’t very good at the original game.  My friends usually beat me so bad I actually felt physically violated.  So the fact that you were able to immediately implement old build orders and strategies (I use the phrase loosely) means that this game is just as poorly balanced as the original.

“After amassing what I thought was a sizable force on one map, I set out to blast my opposition’s resource gathering outposts. Too late, I happened upon a plateau covered in photon cannons guarding a gold-colored outcropping of minerals.”

Oh, that little guy?  I wouldn’t worry about that little guy.

Gold minerals?  The hell you say!

I was obliterated in short order, and learned a stern lesson that while some things stayed the same, there were new elements to consider. Golden minerals are worth far more per chunk than regular blue ones, and so tend to provide the owner with a massive boost, although it paints them as a giant target.

Gold snow, however, has a much lower value per unit.

Ok, so it’s more efficient to harvest them.  That’s cool.  Fewer drones or SCVs or whatever.  But massive resource caches were always a huge part of the original.  This is a slight modification of it.  I’ll give it a slight plus for that, since it’ll focus action differently.

Another feature worth looking out for are distractions and stealthy environmentals [sic] like smoke, which can hide enemy units. Xel’Naga towers, activated by proximity, can reveal large swaths of territory among other functions.

THIS is your plan?  That’s like thinking the Americans wouldn’t notice the burning oilfields in Iraq.

First off, “environmentals” isn’t a word.  I just wanted you to know that.  Further, I fail to see how an “environmental effect” (see what I did there? That’s a real phrase) is “stealthy.”  In fact, smoke sort of draws one’s attention.  And now that I know you can hide in it, I’ll make use of the attack ground feature… if there is one.  Still, new tactical options are a good thing, so I guess that’s a plus.

Auto-cast is a much welcome addition, and players who lose too many buildings find themselves revealed on the map to prevent the lonesome supply depot hidden in a corner from denying a victory.

Shh!  I’m HIDING!

Auto-cast gets a no score; that already exists in numerous other games.  It may be new to Starcraft, but it’s hardly an innovation.  As for the second part, that sounds good in theory, but what if I haven’t lost all of my unit-producing buildings?  Terrans can hide shit all over the place if they have a mind to.  So if they lose everything but a command center, which is hidden at, say, an ally’s base, will it reveal the ally’s base as well?  At the very least, it’s giving his opponents a reason to go to that spot.  What if it’s early and they still don’t know exactly where that is?  Granted these sorts of things may not denote sound tactics, but they’re possibilities that shouldn’t be discounted.  I see that as a huge negative.

From what I’ve seen so far of the game,StarCraft II is set to be a quality sequel deserving of the title.

You haven’t convinced me of that at all…

Fans of the original StarCraft will find comfort in being able to jump right back in with a healthy smattering of new units and strategies to employ.

First off, a note on strategy.  I don’t consider Starcraft (or most of the so-called “Real Time Strategy” games) to be a game of strategy.  The old school of base building and massive unit output is more like managing a pretty, graphical spreadsheet: in the end, it’s all about maximizing your output from your input.  If you’re into this, fine, but that’s not strategy.  These games always relied on overwhelming your opponent with either numbers (zerg) or firepower (protoss) and then dumping your mass of troops into the enemy.  Real strategy encompasses resource management, to be sure, but it also involves the movement of troops relative to the enemy, political and psychological elements (morale), and all those other factors that go into preparing for the tactical encounter between forces while managing your military and political rear areas.  Frankly, if you’ve managed to hide a supply depot so well that it actually saps your opponent of the will to continue looking and they drop, then you actually deserve to win.  Political exhaustion.  Ask the Vietnamese if that works as a strategy.

I’m totally baffled as to why Tom’s included screens of the Audio configuration menu…

Considering the scale involved with many of these games (i.e., not nations, theaters, or even armies), they would be more accurately termed Real Time Tactical games.  But that doesn’t really roll of the tongue, and even then it would be inaccurate.  Starcraft, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t involve any actual tactics.  Turning flanks, suppressive fires, coordinating with allied build orders to compliment strenghts, etc.  None of these things happen.  Company of Heroes requires at least rudimentary tactics, such that even an out-resourced opponent can still bend you over a barrel and rape you if you attack in massive waves of cannon fodder.  SC doesn’t do that.  All it takes into account are quantity versus quality (which basically amounts to zerg v. protoss.  Why are the Terrans even there?).  I’d rather have to worry about a hanging flank than whether or not that one extra Protoss carrier will destroy their HQ faster than they can say “Holy molasses!” instead of just as fast.

Bottom line?  My first impressions from their impressions make SCII sound like fanboy porn, and little else.  Call me if Kerrigan takes her top off (oh, right, this is just a Terran campaign.  Kerrigan will be a separate $50 purchase).