OMG StarCraft

StarCraft and eSports have once again surfaced in the blogosphere and in a very impressive way. StarCraft is known for its popularity in Korea, but the latest headlines speak of a new collegiate league that has 23 major universities already involved.

StarFeeder's contributing writer “Peanut,” otherwise known as Christina Kelly at Harvard University here in Boston, MA, — about 30-minutes from where I live — has written an op-ed piece about the Collegiate StarCraft League published in The Harvard Crimson.

So you love real time strategy games, but are on a tight budget and unsure of which hyped title you should spend your hard earned cash on? This economy is making no exceptions, it’s relentless and taking a toll on all of us. Now, more than ever, gamers need to embrace their favorite pass time to help ease the stress and forget about what’s going on around them, if at least just for an hour or two.

I have been to Blizzcon ’08 and experienced hours upon hours of fantastic StarCraft II alpha goodness. With the launch of the full public beta for Dawn of War II last week, I’ve now spent enough time getting to know the title and learning all the in’s and out’s to properly let you know which you should be focusing your time, energy, and money on.

So follow me as I break down the positives and negatives of both titles at this stage of development, and hopefully I can help you figure out which game is the right fit for your style and your budget.

About a week ago StarCraftWire.net reported that UC Berkeley had announced a college StarCraft course. Yes, you read that correctly, a college course that offers credits to play StarCraft.

Well I for one didn’t believe it at first, but Leord at StarCraftWire.net said he was going to interview the instructor of the course and get the story straight from the creator’s mouth. He in fact did, and apparently the class has gotten quite a bit of media attention since Leord first broke the story.

Many gamers have shown an interest in the course and it turned out that instead of 40 odd expected pupils, Mr Feng, the Course Facilitator, got attendance up over his elbows. The course became very popular: every single seat in the 120 seat lecture hall was taken, and there was another 30 odd people left standing.

-StarCraftWire.net

In fact, GamePro's own Justin Lewis attended the first class and brought a video camera with him to document just how popular this course has become. Lewis also had a few minutes to speak with Feng about his background and what this class is all about. Check out that video and Lewis' thoughts on the first class after the jump.

We will witness many changes in 2009. Obama is now in office; who knows what will happen with the war, the economy and life. RTS gaming is following that same pattern of "change," it has multiple epic titles that could become timeless classics.

Some of the more hardcore RTS gamers may be quick to say that the next iteration of Sins of a Solar Empire will wear the crown at years end. But truth be told, most casual gamers, and the majority of gamers have their eyes fixed on two titles: Dawn of War II and StarCraft II.

Both titles will make a legitimate run at RTS game of the year in 2009, but which do you think has the better chance at claiming the glory?

In a few weeks DoW II's beta test will begin, and I will certainly be a part of it. I've never played the original DoW and after hearing how similar it is to Company of Heros, I'm tempted to go out and buy it (or atleast purchase it on Steam). In any case, after having hours of hands-on time with the StarCraft II alpha build at Blizzcon '08, I'll be extremely interested to see how DoW II and StarCraft II compare.

No doubt, both games play completely different despite both being RTS titles. Check back after DoW II's beta starts to read my thoughts.

For now you can check out IGN's video feature comparing the two titles after the jump.

StarCraft2.com has finally decided on 3 winners for its first ever SC2 comic contest. I gotta say, they are pretty cool. I look forward to other ones in the future.

Congratulations to the winners of our first monthly StarCraft "Vespene Laughs" Comic Contest! We'd like to thank everyone who participated -- we received many hilarious and creative comics from all around the world, and picking the winners wasn't easy.

Winner 1 - Matthew Socia

Check out the rest after the jump...

The people at StarCraft Legacy took their time and worked very hard to compile a giant Blizzcon wrap up of all their member's thoughts and impressions of StarCraft 2. Second and even third opinions are certainly worth your time, especially when it's from credible sources like this.

Zero from StarCraft Legacy:

At last year's BlizzCon, the multiplayer demo of StarCraft II had been 2v2. However, this year, the multi-player was limited to 1v1 matches. Although this made things easier in regards to having a more friendly match to focus on the intricacies of each race and the individual units, it did limit the fun in more competitive matches if both players were not evenly-matched. With a 2v2, if you were hit with an early rush and weren't prepared, there was always the chance that your ally could provide assistance, but by being alone, if you did happen to survive an early attack unprepared, you were hindered for the remainder of the match, provided that you survive until the end of the time limit.

I have talked to plenty of gamers out there who say "I can't wait for StarCraft 2! But, I'll have to upgrade my machine first." Well this post is for you. Kalos at StarCraftwire.net has done some more research and put together a list of hardware he recommends you buy if you are looking to upgrade for StarCraft 2.

The requirements I had in mind when selecting the below parts can be seen in my previous StarCraft 2 System Requirements article and to a lesser extent across the previous chapters of the Kalos Chronicles. Regarding the graphical requirements of StarCraft 2, we found solid proof from Blizzard's own development team when we uncovered the contents of the StarCraft 2 Graphics Requirements Confirmed article I wrote a few months back. With this in mind, a very quick and minimalistic summary for hardware requirements, here goes our current estimated recommendations:

Check'em out after the jump

A Kerrigan animatic shown at Blizzcon, you may remember this scene from StarCraft

One thing that often gets overlooked at Blizzcon is the art panel. The room itself is jam-packed with fans asking all kinds of questions, but press coverage on the interwebs is usually minimal. That needs to change, the press needs to embrace Blizzard's motto of Bigger, Bolder, more Badass.

The magic that Blizzard creates is fueled not only by Chris Metzen, the man behind the stories, but by Samwise Didier and his team of extremely talented artists. I was able to sit in on the roughly 90-minute long panel discussion led by Didier and his minions, I mean colleagues, Allen Dilling (unit design) and Brian Sousa (level design). I left that room with a new found respect for what these guys do every day at their job, and I have to say I was a bit jealous.

As I sit here at my day job, taking a quick breather from the arts and entertainment section I'm about to edit and then design, I find it hard not to keep my mind from drifting away to thoughts of Blizzcon and the crazy weekend I have ahead of me. (Don't tell my boss btw)

In fact I've been dwelling on Blizzcon since at least Friday and I can't get my mind off of what I'm going to feel like the moment I sit down in front of a computer in the press room and start up StarCraft II for the first time. I remembered the first time I loaded up and played StarCraft, I shared that with you in an earlier post, and I can't help but wonder what my experience will be like this time around, 10 years later. Will it be as memorable? Will I be disappointed after over a year of build-up and hype?

As I developed a preliminary plan of attack in my head last week I thought to myself, I'm going to spend at least a full day just hogging a computer and playing StarCraft II. As this week has progressed and as I've gotten the Blizzcon schedule of events, my thoughts inevitably have changed; I'll actually have some work to do.

I'll be meeting with lead producer Chris Sigaty and senior art director Samwse Didier to pick their brains about StarCraft II, the progress they've made since the last time we heard from them, and God willing, I'll pry a release date out of them, although I'm not holding my breath on that last one.