I've been waiting for a long time for StarCraft 2. Back when the original StarCraft was released, I was fresh out of university. My friends and I had plenty of free time, and we'd meet a couple of times a week to play video games over LAN. Next to Counter-Strike, StarCraft was the most popular among my friends. The RTS genre was still young and fresh, and StarCraft had good graphics and great balance between the three races.
Fast forward ten years or so, and I find myself chomping at the bit to play StarCraft 2. Would it live up to my expectations? Could it be better than it's predecessor?
Overall, the answer is yes to both questions.
EDIT: I had meant to publish this like... 9 years ago. Woops.
Quite a few RTS games have come and gone between the release of StarCraft and StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. Empire Earth (awesome), Empire Earth II (pretty good), Empire Earth III (horrid), Rise of Nations (awesome), Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots (awesome), Rise of Legends (eeeh), Supreme Commander (awesome), Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (awesome), and Supreme Commander 2 (eeeeh). I know that this isn't a comprehensive list of RTS games that were released in the twelve years between the two StarCraft games, but those games are what my friends and I played during that time.
We were spoiled by Rise of Nations and Supreme Commander mostly. Supreme Commander has a fantastic economy, and the best zoom possible... you can zoom out to orbit and see the entire map in one go. Of course, you need radar and aircraft to extend your vision across the map, but it sure beats Command & Conquer's zoom of like... three or four square blocks. Both Rise of Nations and Supreme Commander have very nice ground defenses, which allow you to hold off attacking armies long enough for you to field, or replenish, your forces. Both games will punish you if you rely entirely on static or mobile defenses, which forces you to build a combination of both.
It is these two games that I used to compare against StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty.
Supreme Commander
I wish that all RTS games from Supreme Commander onward had the fantastic zoom to orbit functionality of Supreme Commander. Yes, all RTS games from time immemorial have had minimaps, but this pales in comparison from being able to zoom out to orbit, hover your cursor over an area of interest, and zoom back in to the action. You learned quickly that this was the fastest way to get around the map. No having to click on the minimap or use the arrow keys, though these options exist in Supreme Commander. Out, in. You've zoomed all the way across the map almost instantly, and precisely.
As far as economy goes, Supreme Commander has both a simple economy, and a very complex one. There are only two resources: energy and mass. As you progress through the game, they become interchangable, you can use energy to create mass and mass to create energy should you be short on one or the other. The complex part comes into play when the fighting begins. You can go into negative economy if you try to do too much at the same time. Unlike many RTS games, you do not buy units instantly. Instead, each unit requires X amount of resources over Y amount of time. Try to do too much at once, and you spread yourself thin, and everything starts to slow down. Things will still get built, units will still roll out, but the time required may move up into ridiculous. This complexity requires you to constantly balance between economy and unit production.
Rise of Nations
Rise of Nations has a very in-depth economy, as far as RTS games go, one that evolves as you progress through various ages of the game. You start in the stone age, with wood collection, farming and mining, and progress to the modern age with oil, gold, and other modern economy basics. Once you get into a more advanced age, a market opens up and you can sell excess resources, and buy needed ones. If you understand basic economics, buy low, sell high, you should be able to game the market to your advantage... unless your opponents are trying to do the same thing, then things get interesting. There is one resource you cannot buy off the market, and that is knowledge, a resource gathered buy building universities and installing scholars. This resource is used to advance your research and technology base. Something fairly unique in the RTS genre.
As for combat units, they automatically upgrade to a more modern age once the requisite research has been completed, and this is key to Rise of Nations: Your units are never obsoleted. You might fall an age or two behind your opponents, and be at a disadvantage, but this can be rectified through quick research and judicious use of resources.
StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty
StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is the first game in the StarCraft 2 series. My initial thoughts on this splitting were negative, but after having a year or so to think about this since the announcement of this decision, I have a more positive view on it. Each part of StarCraft 2 will have about as many single player missions as the original StarCraft plus Broodwar, meaning that StarCraft 2 will be three times as big as the original. The Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void parts will be priced as expansions. If these things hold true, then StarCraft 2 will be well worth the price.
Rise of Nations does not have a single player mode, though there are tutorials to help you learn the game. Supreme Commander has a relatively short single player campaign, but it does teach you all the required basics as well as advanced concepts.
Comparatively, StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty has an entertaining, well polished single player campaign, if a little heavy on the cliches. It continues the story from Broodwar, focusing on Jim Raynor and his efforts to defeat Arcturus Mengsk. Not only does the campaign show you the ins and outs of the units available to the Terrans, there are a few missions which force you to think outside the box. As well, there are numerous tutorials and challenge games in which you can polish your skills. Of course, when you get to multiplayer, Zerg and Protoss will seem a bit foreign, but the skills learned in the campaign should give you enough of a head start that you can quickly catch up.
The economy of StarCraft 2 is no where near the complexity possible in Supreme Commander, nor Rise of Nations, but Blizzard's RTS games have always featured simple economies. The focus is on the units and combat: While the economy is required in order to win, it should not take up so much of your time that you get caught with your pants down when the opponent's units show up at your base. In Supreme Commander, you can find yourself in an untenable position when your economy tanks into negative number, while in Rise of Nations, having to keep track of up to six resources can be quite a distraction. StarCraft 2 won't let you go into negative numbers, nor does it force you to constantly keep track of many resources at once.
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