Starhammer 20k: Initial Impressions

Thanks to Aaron's generous gift of a 7-hour guest pass, I today finally got to try out Starcraft 2, and after a handful 6 hours of games as the Eldar Space-elves Protoss, Aaron as the Tyranids Zerg, and his friend Brandan playing the uncountable Imperial Guard Manspam Terrans, I feel like I have enough to comment on.

First off, my relationships with RTSs is somewhat odd. I'm always a big fan of single player campaigns, but my ability in regards to multiplayer has always been somewhat lacking. I'm usually fine on the macro side of things, but when it comes to managing units closely (especially abilities) we start to get difficulties, to the point where I'll buy a universal upgrade or passive upgrade over an active upgrade every single time, because I know I'll always forget to use them. In addition, my play style has always been "wall in and wait until I can build enough big units to hit cap." Multiplayer doesn't usually support this, and the only time I've had any success period online was playing team matches on Company of Heroes, which is a bit easier due to more intelligent AI in terms of unit design (i.e. Oh hey, there's a unit over there firing at some of my allies, I think I'll keep just standing here). Thus on the whole I stick to things like FPSs for my multiplayer fixes.

With that said, I decided to try online with Aaron since I was promised to be playing with others, i.e. on a team. I did some research on how the game worked and/or differed from SC1, and some general intro game tips for playing the game and particular playing as Protoss, which I think later helped. I played one game Saturday night against two Easy AI with another on my team, just to familiarize myself with the units and buildings and tech tree.

Sunday was actually game day, and then I truly got to play some "real" SC2. Thankfully I had watched some videos on gameplay, so I wasn't surprised by what happened there or misunderstood what needed to be done. The first couple games against AI went well, and then we moved onto live opponent. We played quite a few games, and I'm happy to report that we won far more than we lost. I think my particular favorite deserves some screen caps. It was 3v3 and featured early on the opposing Protoss playing Cannon-spamming, actually forcing Aaron to abandon us, and kept me constantly the defensive as the space next to me, previously occupied by Aaron, was now full of enemies. Aaron somehow escaped and completely rebuilt, and never even got raided again. Maybe they forgot he existed?

"Oh hey look there a zerg base"

Oh wait nevermind, they just failed in general. Despite pushing up and keeping us on our toes (In the minimap I'm yellow, Aaron is purple, Brandon green, and the other colors bad guys) they never really pressed their advantage. Thus, Aaron, free to roam and and practice his trademark dickishness, decided to go hunting.

Aaron successfully wipes out most of Yellow's base with a well-timed Roach/Gargoyles(?) strike, completely wiping out his yellow base and shooting down his Metal Boxes as they flew, slowly, away.

But Aaron was not alone! As if connected through some kind of Brood Telepathy, without actually talking to one another, I had chosen that moment to launch an all out attack that killed all my units except three carriers at the cost of all  of Blue and Yellow's units at the top. 

But 3 Carriers was all I needed!

Defenseless, Yellow was hit at both his bases at the same time without any planning on our part. We're just that awesome.

Eventually with help from Brandon we swept through the last two players, and as you can see below, everything ended well, happy Xenos together at last.

Good End!

So yes, I discovered that in a team setting, my play style could actually be useful. Protoss excel towards the endgame, so with Brandon and Aaron there to keep me alive and harass the enemy at the beginning, I could actually be useful (And I helped!...  kind of). I also could tell playing consistently with a couple of excellent players helped my skills grow too, since I could see a large difference in how I was playing even a couple hours in. Another favorite moment was later at a different game, where I got raided early on, fought it off with help, and just kept chugging along with 3 bases alive and well. 10 minutes later, I hit unit cap with a large number of Colossi, Immortals, Carriers, and a platoon of Zealots, and marched by through all 3 enemy bases supported by the massive waves of the Imperial Guard Terrans. Good times. 

Obviously I still have a lot to learn and a lot more to improve upon (I'm just starting to get a hang of what counters what, how to recon properly, etc.) and I suspect SC2 online will be much like L4D/2, a game that I really only play with I have some teammates online as well. 

In terms of the game itself, I think I was slightly deceived by all the previews and reviews. There are lots of changes, sure, and plenty of new things, but as someone who played SC1 8ish years ago and hasn't touched it since, it feels exactly the same. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it feels kind of throw-backish, but it definitely feels different than something like any of Relic's recent titles. But, as you can tell, I had a lot of fun and even tried a little of the campaign out. Enough fun, actually, that despite my numerous talks against buying it to various friends, I actually bought it >_<. I blame Aaron, as usual.

Anyway, more updates to come as gameplay continues.

-HTMC