Starcraft 2

I know that a million voices just screamed out in joy today. Maybe more than a million. It was interesting that I had just mentioned this to YiJin and Chris a few days ago. This was a long time coming and everyone was expecting it.

Although I had never really played StarCraft before, I know that there are many people who are crazy over it. I've personally lived with people who swore by this game and spent days and nights mastering it. Although StarCraft is already a fairly old game, there is still an active community who plays it because it is still so playable. It's not a bad game, it just doesn't bring anything new to the table.

From the early screen shots, it would seem that it's once again, just a souped up rehash of a tired concept. When you've got games like Supreme Commander taking the concept of RTS to a whole new level, StarCraft 2 just doesn't seem to be doing anything new. It only seems to have souped up graphics. However, that's just from interpreting the screenshot.

The video trailer shows even more eye candy than the screen shot. Although it doesn't look like it's any different from any previous RTS, I'm sure that it will sell very well when it comes out. This has been one of the most eagerly awaited sequels for a long time. It's the only Blizzard franchise that hasn't had one. There are already 3 Warcrafts and 2 Diablos. Heck, even World of Warcraft has gotten an expansion.

I would have liked it if Blizzard actually took a chance to introduce a totally new game to the market. They certainly have the money from their WoW cash cow. They also seem to have the necessary talent. All they need is the necessary risk taking. But with video game margins being as thin as they are now, I doubt that any big company will take any risks. That's why I like to support indie companies like Introversion that produce really innovative games. Darwinia was excellent. I'm still waiting for them to release Linux version for DefCon. They've released the final beta this week and once it's ready, I'll buy it!