There will be a blue flu of sorts in tech departments across the country next Tuesday as Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is released.
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by John Cole| 56 Comments
This post is in: Popular Culture
There will be a blue flu of sorts in tech departments across the country next Tuesday as Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is released.
Comments are closed.
kmeyer57
Bout damn time. I thought it was supposed to be released last year and had forgotten about it. Perfect timing, I’m bored with all my games.
Zifnab
I think I’ve got a bad case of The Swarm!
Davis X. Machina
Like first day of deer season…..
Zeke
Where does it hurt?
Ailuridae
Now maybe Blizzard’s lazy developers can get around to finishing D3. Assholes.
arguingwithsignposts
Lady Smudge is home and mastering her domain. (posting in multiple threads because I don’t know where Siobhann is.)
Bnut
@Ailuridae:
Yeah, right. We’ll get new Duke Nukem game first. And when D3 does come out, it will be watered down so it can be ported to consoles.
J.W. Hamner
I admitted to myself with Warcraft III that I just suck at RTS games and lose interest way too quickly for them to ever be worth it for me. No matter how good the reviews are, I will be strong, and not buy another $60 coaster.
Crusty Dem
I’m not sure if I want to get into this or not..
gwangung
Easily forgiven, of course….
MikeJ
Anybody twelve or less that gets this game wasn’t even alive when the first one came out.
Konrad
Activision-Blizzard is projecting 500 million to 1 billion in profit for the trilogy (yes, this is the first game of a planned trilogy). I’ve played the beta (wasn’t hard to get into it, just needed to preorder the game), and in some ways, it’s a graphical update of the original Starcraft, but it’s still looking like it will easily be the best RTS since Company of Heroes.
That being said, Activision did make some jerk moves, like not including LAN play (because of piracy) and the whole Real ID kerfuffle. The release may not be as big as a WoW expansion or MW:2, but this game will probably be the gold standard of RTS games for the next several years.
AnnaN
Whatever. When the first Starcraft came out, the husb and I went to the video store on the initial release date set by Blizz. This would have been October. We were sent away and told that Blizz was going to make a late Nov. release. Then a Holiday release. We finally got our copies in April.
Will blizz meet a non-WoW targeted release date? When they just last week sent out a gajillion invites to the SCII beta?
I want my D3 too. Damn it.
Apologies for the swears.
James Hare
I will be at work. Never got the PC gaming scene or the Starcraft thing. I don’t know about the rest of my department. I had no idea this game was even coming out. Right now I’m neck-deep in Crackdown 2 (if anybody likes obsessive compulsive open world games, a must buy).
I also don’t understand copping out on work to game. Sure I’ll spend whole weekends on the couch playing whatever game I’m playing, but sitting at work with Halo 3 and WAITING to play made the beginning all that more epic. Maybe it’s the folks telling me as a kid I had to finish my homework before I played video games — but I enjoy it a lot more when it’s a reward for work I got done than when it’s just what I’m doing. I can’t imagine waking up on a work day and saying “I’m gonna buy a game and play it all day and call in sick!.”
arguingwithsignposts
The iPad version will be the only version i bother with.
Sentient Puddle
This is the reason I can’t really get excited about RTS games anymore.
AnnaN
Ah, you really don’t understand. People plan these for months in advance. WoW Cataclysm doesn’t have an official release date (~Nov 2010), yet I plan to take off a day when it comes out. Not THE release day but within the first week as the servers stabilize.
Bnut
Lol, this made me laugh. Applebots need not apply.
Mark S.
Has anyone played Red Dead Redemption? I thought it was pretty good. Great graphics, not too hard. GTA in the Old West, which was nice because they couldn’t put a bunch of fucking helicopter missions in there.
Corner Stone
I love Ellen Page and I don’t care who knows it.
The way she says “hooman network” on those Cisco TV ads…it does it for me.
Efroh
So is there going to be a Balloon Juice gaming group for SC2? I’m game if there is one. I’ll be a newbie to Battle.net though (Kotick is the devil), so I’m not sure if it’s anything like Steam vis-à-vis setting up specialized communities.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
Although she was underused in “Inception” IMHO.
Corner Stone
Why does Pakistan need Afghanistan as a bulwark against India?
Bostondreams
@Efroh:
Ooooo…Blizzard will own your identity. Real ID is your friend.
Comrade Luke
No LAN play? That’s just terrible.
Efroh
@Bostondreams: You can still play without friending anyone (which, to my knowledge, is the only way your real name can be revealed).
J.W. Hamner
@Mark S.:
My 360 RRoD-ed before I finished it (waiting for it to come back), but I think Red Dead Redemption is pretty awesome.
As far as recent 3rd person action games go, I actually think Just Cause 2 is better from a pure mayhem perspective (not from a “story” perspective, which assuredly deserves the air quotes) and graphical goodness (on a PC). The demo is worth checking out… a grappling hook, parachute, and a mission to sow Chaos are more fun than I would have expected.
Efroh
Also JC, you need to link to the Korean SC2 announcement when you talk about the flu. (Blizzard filled an entire stadium, just for the announcement.) Should be interesting to see South Korean productivity stats for the next few months, lol.
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts #6: Here I am!! (Also saw Her Ladyship over yonder, thanks.)
Mark S.
I never heard of the red ring of death. I’ll be a tad pissed off if that happens.
The games I’m looking forward to:
Mafia 2
Fable 3
Fallout New Vegas (I think it’s called that)
Portal 2 (which will probably come out sometime in 2018)
SiubhanDuinne
@Anna, #13:
Why, damme, it’s too bad!
Yes damme, it’s too bad!
Did you hear him?
Did you hear him?
Oh, the monster overbearing!
Don’t go near him!
Don’t go near him!
He is swearing, he is swearing!
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
Wait, this post was meant as a semi-annual redetermination of the geek quotient on this blog, right?
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Corner Stone: Couple of nice tries there… Bringing up Ellen Page to the geeks should be like catnip to cats…
fucen tarmal
@Corner Stone:
too complicated, i need a chick who doesn’t need to be shown the features and benefits of the same thing more than once. yes, ellen video conferencing, you don’t have to randomly show up a bunch of places to understand it, understand..
back in my day,i bet they wouldn’t have had to show alyssa milano how to do it more than once, tech or whatever else for that matter…i admire that sort of thing in a woman.
Corner Stone
@fucen tarmal:
I’m going to disagree. Because I’d like to show her the same components a bunch of times before she gets tired of it all.
Corner Stone
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: I know. I can’t do much more about it.
Corner Stone
@fucen tarmal:
You know what else I admire in a woman?
That’s right.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
LOL. I’m with you on this one.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
Hitler?
lol
Red Dead Redemption is easily better than Grand Theft Auto 4.
Fantastic ending too – bittersweet, especially when you realize that John failed in preventing the one thing he wanted to happen least…
I didn’t give a fuck about Nico Bellic and his annoying as fuck cousin or his annoying as fuck friends to bother finishing the game. They basically sucked all the fun and life out of the series.
Objective Scrutator
Screw you all. I’m going to be playing my old-school Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where you can run into a game breaking glitch if you so much as kill an enemy the wrong way. I still think it has one of the most impressive gameplay experiences to date, though.
The only online game I’ve played more than 5 times is MW2, which can turn anyone off of online gaming if you play it for too long.
EDIT:
I was a huge fan of the PS2/Xbox era of Grand Theft Auto. I hate the clunky feel and lack of ‘god mode’ of GTAIV, and I don’t much care for the top-down view of Chinatown Wars.
Sentient Puddle
Something about the ending of Red Dead Redemption didn’t quite sit right with me, and I can’t quite lay my finger on it. I think it might be the fact that it was all over too quick (in the sense that I felt like you spent so little time on the ranch, and then it was all over). Or maybe the whole nihilism thing got to me. In which case, don’t change a damn thing about it.
But yeah, much better than GTA4. That started out decently enough, but devolved into me not caring about anyone but Nico pretty quickly.
Mark S.
@lol:
What, you don’t like driving across town to pick your cousin up (which you’ll always be late for) and then driving all the way back to go to a strip club? Easily the most fun I’ve ever had playing a game.
PsiFighter37
I have been waiting 12 long years for this game, ever since I first sat down and got acquainted with Jim Raynor back in 6th grade.
I played the beta, and it’s definitely a bit more complex than the original in terms of mastering the tech tree and figuring out unit combos. Stoked for the single-player, though. If there’s one thing Blizzard did right, it was make kick-ass campaigns.
SiubhanDuinne
@thread:
How about a nice game of tic-tac-toe?
MikeJ
GTA IV seemed like a step backwards from the III series. The GTA set in LA is still the best of the series.
Sly
(NERD ALERT) The game I’m probably looking forward to the most is Civ 5, at least in terms of stuff being released this year. Strategy games, in general, have always been my favorite, and if some enterprising company out there could make a decent sequel to Master of Orion or X-Com, I’d be in heaven.
That and RPGs. I fear that The Old Republic will consume my soul when it is finally released.
Brachiator
@arguingwithsignposts:
Did you want to see her in more action scenes? As it was, she provided the narrative spine to the film, explaining to the audience Cobb’s motives, letting us know what level we were in, etc. Nice touch that her character’s name was Ariadne, after the character in Greek mythology who led Theseus out of the labyrinth of the Minotaur.
@Corner Stone:
They don’t. Pakistan has its own version of the military industrial complex (though largely sustained by the US). They use India as a convenient excuse to maintain a militaristic footing, and to rationalize their failures to invest more in economic development.
Fencedude
@AnnaN:
The game is ready. You can go and download it from Blizzard right now. I have it sitting on my Hard Drive as we speak, just waiting for the release date so it can be activated.
Anyway, I can’t believe I’m actually going to buy this, I’m so over PC gaming its not even funny, and I literally have stacks and stacks of games for all 3 consoles and both portable systems that I need to play, most of which are multi-dozen hour long JRPGs.
Ah well.
taylormattd
I’m still pissed you never transferred any of your toons to our Dkos Wreck List guild on Garrosh. :)
We’re actually 8/12 oh heroic ICC 10 now.
Andrew
Blizzard will release D3 when it’s done, like every other game they’ve ever made (except possibly WoW, but since it’s never “done” I can excuse it).
maus
@Efroh: No, it won’t be. Friends of friends can find it out, installing the wrong addon can expose you, they’re not very concerned about their users’ privacy when it gets in the way of their facebook integration.
4tehlulz
Will next Tuesday be the day that Kim Jong Il zerg rushes the South?
Efroh
@maus: actually that addon was a fake. Believe me, if my real name were going to be exposed to anyone but Blizzard while playing SC2, I would have canceled my pre-order. I have no intentions of using any add-ons and I don’t intend to friend anyone (which is when Real ID exposes your real name in any case). I’m also thinking about using a fake name when I sign up for Battle.net, but I think that’s overkill.
I do agree that Activision and Kotick are scum though. Worse thing to ever happen to Blizzard is when Vivendi sold them off to Activision. They are no longer the masters of their own ship. Should be interesting to see if any of the creative talent are forced out after the game is out, a la the Call of Duty developers.
Efroh
Opting out of Real ID using parental controls. Probably the way I’m going to go, at this point. Stupid Activision.
Sloegin
@4tehlulz: It won’t be a successful launch for Blizzard unless there’s a body-count to go along with it.