Internet Hype Machine, Part II

Originally, this was going to be on the end of my last post, but upon realizing how long my ruminations on Shadow of the Colossus were, I decided that putting them in a separate post might make it a wee bit more visible.


I finally beat the original Starcraft, sans cheats, and have to agree with Todd that despite a few fun missions, the Protoss campaign drags a bit more than the others. There's a weird transition in the middle: the first chunk of the campaign gives you access to Zealots and Dragoons while your enemies having 90% of their tech tree available, and then the last few missions rapidly unlock your higher-tier units and you just stomp them with Carriers. Satisfying in the end, but with a bit of drudge that I wasn't expecting. Now I'm on to Brood Wars, and looking forward to that. For a 10 year-old game, it's still very fun and playable. The only things that have aged less than gracefully are the graphics and, to a lesser extent, the control interface. Those have been far surpassed by more modern RTS games.

Suffice it to say that Starcraft II is increasingly on my mind as I play through the original. There haven't been many updates at the main site recently, but 1Up.com did a nice week-long series on the upcoming sequel which can add some more grist to the Internet Hype Machine. Mill-chine? In any case they have some nice new information and more recent impressions, plus the amusing fact that Blizzard's pre-alpha build of Starcraft II is more stable and balance than most games' open betas. With WoW as a funding base, though, who's surprised?

In any case, the play-throughs of Starcraft and now, the original Fallout continue. My eyes burn at the graphics, but they've been worth it so far! And now, without any further ado, Space Pirates! (courtesy of 1Up's Worst Video Game Box Covers Ever feature):