July 26 - July 30

Section: 

A complete single player campaign by any reasonable standard that reportedly offers more than 20 hours of solo play and unique units. A multiplayer experience that has been crafted over a public beta period extending more than 5 months and that is already featured at the highest levels of play. A matchmaking system that even during the beta, which was presumably weighted down with Starcraft's most eager fans, was able to provide competitive matches to a non-hardcore player such as myself. A robust map editor system and eagerly engaged, highly established community that is set up to deliver a diverse range of new experiences from day one. A pure RTS experience that is not hampered by the need to serve other systems besides the PC. A level of spit-shine polish that has become the trademark of a company with a flawless game pedigree. These are a handful of the reasons that I believe Starcraft 2 deserves Game of the Week as well as my $60 and pound of flesh.

On the other side I've heard the endless kvetching about the loss of LAN support, the $60 price tag and the supposed cowering deference to the Kotick Doctrines displayed by the weak willed Blizzard. I know already that as high praise rolls in for this game -- which having played over the past couple of months, I take as a given at this point -- many will assume that it is the infected opinions of those either on the take or delivered from the clutches of objectivity by the hype. I can not imagine a world where anything I say will be taken by those that subscribe to the conspiratorial whispers of impending evil as anything less than the musings of the delusional.

Either way, soon enough the only reasonable measure will be the product that lives on the shelves. Let the games begin.

PC
- Starcraft 2

PS3
- BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
- Clash of the Titans

360
- BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
- Clash of the Titans

Wii
- Arc Rise Fantasia

Coming Soon -
- Mafia 2 (PC, 360, PS3) : August 24
- Metroid Other M : August 31
- DC Universe Online : November 2
- Kinect : November 4
- Little Big Planet 2 : November 16

Comments

Now PC is the popular one!

Talk about predictable!

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Now PC is the popular one!

Ha, you win good sir. Well played.

I know it's all about Starcraft II this week, but I couldn't help notice that Metroid: Other M is dangerously close to release, and I've seen next to nothing about the game. No hands-on previews or even a trailer. What the deuce?

Chuck E Cheese's: Party Games is the TRUE Game of the Week.

Fail.

Oh, that's this week?

I'm already terrible at Starcraft 2 and I haven't even played it, so I see no reason to pay $60 to confirm my failures.

"Hell! It's about time!"

Already 5 missions into the Campaign, picked it up at a midnight release. It's great so far, so good choice.

Redwing wrote:

Already 5 missions into the Campaign, picked it up at a midnight release. It's great so far, so good choice. :D

Gah, b*stard! Living in the future!

Can someone remind me why Blizzard games are NOT available on Steam? Seems like a tremendous oversight to me but perhaps obvious to better informed people.

Clemenstation wrote:

I'm already terrible at Starcraft 2 and I haven't even played it, so I see no reason to pay $60 to confirm my failures.

It's not about being good or bad, it's about being one of us. One of us! ONE OF US! part of the conversation.

Stitched wrote:

Can someone remind me why Blizzard games are NOT available on Steam? Seems like a tremendous oversight to me but perhaps obvious to better informed people.

Probably because Activision-Blizzard sees itself and Battle.Net as a competitor to Steam either now or in the future.

kaostheory wrote:
Stitched wrote:

Can someone remind me why Blizzard games are NOT available on Steam? Seems like a tremendous oversight to me but perhaps obvious to better informed people.

Probably because Activision-Blizzard sees itself and Battle.Net as a competitor to Steam either now or in the future.

To expand on that, Blizzard didn't spend all that time and money on redesigning battle.net as a digital distribution system for their games just sell SC2 on Steam.

See? I didn't even know Battle.net was a distribution system for their games. Shows how often I buy games from their site.

Stitched wrote:

See? I didn't even know Battle.net was a distribution system for their games. Shows how often I buy games from their site.

Well, they sell one game every 5 years, it's understandable.

Honestly, if they want it to be a DD platform they need to provide a lot more content.

Redwing wrote:

Already 5 missions into the Campaign, picked it up at a midnight release. It's great so far, so good choice. :D

I hate you.

Now here's something I'm curious about. $60 bucks for the killer multiplayer + 30 mission Terran campaign... okay fine i get that SC1=30 mission/3 factions.

But has there been any pricing or information on the Zerg and Protoss portions of the single player, are they really going to be $60 each? I'm an odd duck I primarily want to play SC2 for the single player campaign and then hop online for the modded maps where you get to play D&D or Godzilla. But dropping an extra $60 for each campaign seems insane, maybe $20 for the single player and $40 for the multiplayer... but then again how does Blizzard deal with people who don't buy the Terran version and wait for the Zerg version... terribly confusing.

There's no word on the pricing for the other campaigns. For me, if the content is there to support 3 full price games, that's all I need.

I'm just curious as to what they offer in games #2-3 to make up for the multiplayer from game#1.

My piggy bank is almost full, so a few more nickles here and there, and I'll have enough to buy the game.

Single player campaign looks amazing. Just it, is well-worth the $60. I think people are forgetting what an absolutely amazing STORY the first SC and BW expansion were.

kaostheory wrote:
Clemenstation wrote:

I'm already terrible at Starcraft 2 and I haven't even played it, so I see no reason to pay $60 to confirm my failures.

It's not about being good or bad, it's about being one of us. One of us! ONE OF US! part of the conversation. :D

Ah, but if playing video games has taught me anything, it's that trying to get in on every conversation means that you have no time to say something worthwhile.

Gotta choose your battles!

Cayne wrote:

I'm just curious as to what they offer in games #2-3 to make up for the multiplayer from game#1.

I believe they're adding to the mp too.

I could be wrong, but that's because I don't actually care.

Redwing wrote:

Already 5 missions into the Campaign, picked it up at a midnight release. It's great so far, so good choice. :D

Jealousy consumes me.

Cayne: There was some confusion from the way Blizzard originally announced it but the other campaigns will not be separate games, they're expansion packs to the game being released now. Similar to how Brood War was an expansion to Starcraft 1. There has been no word on pricing but I suspect they'll be priced similarly to the World of Warcraft expansions which I believe launched at $40. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they go up to $50.

I definitely want to play SC2, but I'm so quickly outpaced in multiplayer games likes this that I'll probably just wait for the price to drop so I can play lonely singleplayer. I've got enough multi games right now anyway.

Well, the obvious choice is Arc Rise Fantasia.

Stitched wrote:

See? I didn't even know Battle.net was a distribution system for their games. Shows how often I buy games from their site.

Battle.Net is what they're really selling you here. They removed LAN precisely because they wanted to force everybody to play through the new B.Net.

kaostheory wrote:
Stitched wrote:

Can someone remind me why Blizzard games are NOT available on Steam? Seems like a tremendous oversight to me but perhaps obvious to better informed people.

Probably because Activision-Blizzard sees itself and Battle.Net as a competitor to Steam either now or in the future.

Modern Warfare 2 uses Steamworks. Activision has released every major new release on Steam so far this year, and hasn't announced any plans to make Battle.net their internal distribution network. Whether or not this is going to change is an open question, but I honestly don't think that they're going to make it their new portal for now.

Blizzard has never used any of the other digital distribution channels, choosing to publish their stuff either through boxed copies or their own channel.

Mystic Violet wrote:

Well, the obvious choice is Arc Rise Fantasia. :D

A woman after my own heart.

Stitched wrote:

Can someone remind me why Blizzard games are NOT available on Steam? Seems like a tremendous oversight to me but perhaps obvious to better informed people.

Because they prefer to charge $40 for Diablo II and expansion, which is 10+ years old now, instead of a more reasonable price that people have come to expect from Steam.