I recently starting playing Red Dead on the PS3. GS said in their review that this game is not just GTA 4 with horses, but in my opinion it is. Don't get me wrong the game is actually very nice, but it still feels 90% of the time like GTA 4.

Lets see if there are similiarities between the two, shall we ?

• both main characters were bad people early in their lives, but are now trying to change their ways. They do so by killing people.
• both main characters make friends by helping people out. These friends continue to give missions.
• both games have auto-aim and alllow for adjustments after aim has been set.
• both games have the ridiculous animation for jumping.
• both games have the same issues with turning a vehicle 360 degrees.
• both games make you navigate a big map for one mission to the other.
• in both games progression is linear in therms of map discovery(first one section, then another one, and another one etc.)
• in both games 80% of the mission require you to kill or chase people (or both).
• the dialogue in both games has an abundace of ironic lines. (this people can't take anything seriously)
• both have mini-games that you can play for money or other rewords.
• in both games friendly AI is retarderd.
• in both games enemy AI turnes away and runs insetead of ganging on your psoition.
• in both games main character lines are shallow and superficiall and lack continuity (in GTA 4 Nico says he does not sell drugs, and then you get missions in which you help drug dealers, in Red Dead John says in numerous ocassions that he is a changed man or that he wants a normal life and in other dialogues he insults people or threatens them - even when playing good side -).
• in both games you might have problems climbing onto a slightly higher surface, especially when you are near a wall.
• in both games, world navigation is about the same (train. car, taxi/camp travel)
• in both games most missions make you follow the directions of a companion.
• in both games that main characters is naive and gets shot or shot at while they were not expecting it.

I also think they use the same game engine, due to the similar bugs and idential mecanis for firing, vehicle control and character animations (in game, like: movement, jumping, object interctions .. etc).

Overall Red Dead is nice game, but when I play it, I always get the felling that I have played this before.

I just finished Starcraft 2 the second time (casual and normal), and yes, I am still considering playing it a third time on hard. Played a few missions on hard, but it's pretty .... hard to get the achievements...

Also I played half a dozen custom games vs AI and it i'm totally impressed. On easy the AI feels like you are playing noob, but starting from normal and goin up the AI gets really smart. He actualyl explits your weaks points, attacks your secondary baeses, has a sweet defence againts drops and is actually exepnding in a organised adn well defended manner.

On the other hand, even if the he tries various unit combinations, on normal he does not uses unit specific counters. For example i played mostly using Zerglings and Mutalisks agains a Terran opponent and i have not seen any Goliaths. Near the end of the game he treid to train some fliers but i had already crippeled all of his defences.

The Protoss still seem a bit to powerfull and they are still very easy to play. The zerg, however seem to be a little more difficult to play, since their units and strategies have changed a lot since SC1. The multitude of changs added to the Zerg make them versatile and flexible since a pack of units that are well micro-managed can becaome a powerfull force. I was able to fend off a group of Marauders and Marines wirh two defence towers(a forgot the name :) ) an wtih Queens that healed them constanly ... quite nice, I must say.

I also played against other players in 1v1 and i totally kicked a**. 100% wins but this is because the bases acces i blocked(still in the 50 training games) and rush is almost useless. So in the confort of this setting i was able to build Banshiees and and attack the main base without any resistence.

It took a long, long time to finish this game. I played all mission on casual and normal to get the achivements, clicked on everything between missions, finished all research and even finished most of the upgrades in the armory. I played the secret mission which i thought was really, really awesome and i played through all the chalanges, some of which i could not get Gold for.

The mission i like the most is the one where you have to chose from Tychus and the general and I chose Tychus. This mission reminded my of the great DOW series and overall it was awesome.The last mission however did not seem all that special i was able to build a battle cruiser and a pack of anti air defences and i just waited.

When they designed that actual campaign they knew that there were going to be two other games, so they acted acrodinglly. The last cinematic is rather disapointing seeing how you have to wait for the next game to see how it turned out, bot from what i understood form the movie, Jim kills Tychus because he betrayed him and he takes Kerrigan (tuned almost human) away into the light ...

Waiting for the next game in the series ...

I also played some multyplayer games ... SC 2 still got it right, no doubt about it :).

I was just reading another negative Sc2 review, and the user that wrote it said that the story is like that of a sitcom... So i was just wondering what sitcom was he refering to. If anybody get's the change to read this, please leave your suggestion as a comment. I'll try to do a little digging and come back with an answer.

Since my blog is looking more and more like a StarCraft 2 blog, I will try to make this my final entry about SC2 review and scores.

A lot of critiques claim that SC2 did not try to benefit from the recent improvements brought to the RTS gener by succesfull games that emerged in the last few years. Don't get me wrong if Blizzard would have found another formaula for SC2 I would have been even more enthusiastic about it, but thigs are not that simple. first of all a people that had to learn the new mechanis would have been disapointed, and would have said that SC should have used the already winningformula they had. Second blizzard would have risked alot in a new game system that might have been bad, or at least weker than the original.

in any case the improvements people are talking about, just don't fit in the current gameplay. Most of them refer to a transition between pure RTS to RPG elements, that imposee a greater degree of micromanagement. I will make a brief argument for why each feature was not included in SC2:

• cover mecanis give an unfair advantage for ranged units against melee units such as zerglings and zealots. In terms of cover you can use high groud and spotters to gain an advantage and keep your units safe.
• picking up weapons and custimizing them for each unit or group of units is useless when in the next attack you might lose all of your personalized units. Also micromanagement could make such a feature difficult to use, especially when your are under attack or you want to rush someone.
• skipping gathering minerals and base developmet (as most game tend to skip this step) is sutable for games where a handfull of hero-like units go around the map killing stuff, gathering items or powerups and fighting against a fixed numer of units what cannot overrun them. Also gathering and base construction set the pace at which you are able to attack your opponets, while the direct approach might lead to various balancging issues (see Warhammer, C&C and especially Company of Heroes latest instalments).
• massing great armies of a single type of unit, or several types is always a bad strategy in SC (1 and 2) since the opponet might have some units that are able to anihilatte your forces in no time. This is where strategy (the S in RTS) comes into play. In other games like C&C and Warhammer the great numer of some meant a sure win most of the time (except for some units in C&C Generals). In SC the combination of units you use ensures a win not their numbers.
• power points, or resource points used in most games just make you turtle all over the map or move your unit from one point to the other to protect them. It's about the same with SC so not a real difference or imporvement in recent games.
• also most of the RTS games (especially SupCom and COH) have major issues with pathfinding and AI (both friendly and enemy), even when it comes to taking cover or managing larger armies.

No other changes come to mind so i''l just stop here.

On the other side, SC still has some features that rearelly appear in other RTS games , and if they appear they are not well implemented. Just to name a few:

• stealth units and permanent stealth units.
• pilon or creep dependent base development.
• movable bases and structures.
• field medics.
• units that burrow.
• builder turning into bulding.
• terain height visibility (and related strategies).
• actual units balancing.

As a mini-pre-review i would like to say a few words about SC2.

Before I start I would like to say that tha fact that SC2 is a sequel to, probably, the best RTS of all times makes it really difficult not to search for the tiniest mistake, glich or imperfection when playing the game. I will try to be as objective as possbile, but I'm not sure this is possible.

First of all the game took a long time to install, compared to other games of the same size (12 GB). In this time a female voice presented te story of SC universe, just in case you had forgotten or are new to it. The B.NET account was easy to create but i had some problems with the password and i had to recover it before it could log in for the first time.

The game starts with the face of Jim as a loading screen and, this also takes a little more thant other games. BTW I have a pretty good PC (7.3 on Windows 7 rating).

And we are off. I browsed the main menu a little, looking at: achievment, multiplayer options, settings and a began the tutorials. Even though I am not new to SC i decided to see if there were improvements that i might miss. The tutorials are short and pretty straight forward. I noticed a few improvements just from the tutorials:

• when you enque actions (with SHIFT) they are visualy represented on the screen, which is a plus when you want to have a precise control over the actions of various grups of enemies. For example you want your tanks to take out templars while some other units storm the defences.
• the numer of qued units is represented when you roll over the pointer over a structure.
• you can set rally poit with right click for any production structure.

This is waht i notice form the tutorials.

Off to the campaign. The first two or three missions are just a small introduction in the game mechanis just in case you skipped the tutorials. Still they are great if you want them to be. If you take your time you can see dogs that run around and bark, cows that get in the way and from time to time a civilian that has something to say. The world feels alive and I starts to suck you in. The first units you can use the Marines and the Medics look really sweet and run really smooth.

After the first three missions I noticed the following enhancements:

• you can have selection groups of any size.
• addons to Baracks allow you to build two units at the same time.
• medics are smarted now, since they stop to heal even when you use "atack move" order.
• pathfiding is better (even if in SC1 it was also great).
• Supply Depots can be made flat so that units can walk over them.

Aside from the gameplay enhancements, the story and cutscenes look awesome. There is a feeling that the graphics are a bit dated but, the movies, and the inside of the bar are just awesome. The point and click stages between mission give life to characters and make you want to know more about them. The voice acting is just awesome and this will continue throughout the campaign as more and more characters join your team.

Off to the next 7 misssion and the goodies the campaign has to offer. You get to cruise with a Battle Cruiser, and to visit the bridge, the armory, the lab and the cantina. The same point and click segments keep you going through all of them after each mission to see what the characters have to say about you and your progress. These segments are not static as from time to time, unclickable caracter move from one side to the other... yeah there is also a dancig blood elf hologram in the cantina :).

When you play a mission you can follow a secondary objective that will win you reasearch poin on the prottos and zerg tech tree. With each level you gain in these reasearch tree you can chose on of two posible upgrades which are pretty cool and encoure you to finish each secondary objective. After each mission you also earn credits which you can spend on upgrades for your buildings and units. You can hire groups of mercenaris , which you can deploy ingame for a certain amount of resources. With each mission you unlock a unit, and after that mission you can build it in the game and upgrade if from the armory.

I almost forgot but there is a different news transmision you can acess in the cantina after each mission, which is somewhat funny. I notice that the news are similar: the presentor says something the previous mission you did, the pretty girls says that in fact people like Jimmy, and than the presentor cuts her off and says Jimmy is an evil a**h*le.

More enhancements to gameplay:

• the factory has an addon that allows to units to be built at hte same time.
• jump-pack infantery is awesome.
• upgrades are cool and somewhat change the gameplay, even if just by a little.
• you begin to notice that there are rocks blocking some paths and that they represent a strong element in your strategy
• pathfinding for larger armis is almost perfect, but i did spot some minor flaws.

I notice that the Goliaths looks a little less cool than they should :). The Siege Tanks are still prime and the firebats seem to be more effective than in SC1. The mission where you play Zeratul is interesiting and fun, and gives a preview of the Protoss campaing that will arrive... when it's ready . Overall the missions feel good and can keep you in front of the monitor for hours before you notice it is about time to sleep :).

Other things that I enjoyed are the achivements you can unlock. If you finish any mission with secondary objectives, you get an achivement, if you do some stuff on normal another and finally some more stuff on hard you get another. Some people, including will definitlly play this campaign three times :).

Big spoiler for those that didn't get to the prottos mission: "Zeratul vs Zerg + Kerrigan cutscene" rocks.

I will be back with more...

"Oh, no! Sc2 doesn;t have LAN! The horror ... the horror...." Welcome to the 21 century.... you have just discovered the INTERNET. I think this says it all. Everybody knows that SC2 would have been pirated mostly for the multyplayer. In your face piracy! RELOADED said: "If you like the game, BUY IT".

It is to expensive. It cost 60 dollars. I live in Romania and we are really , really poor. Yet, i had 2 years to save 60 dollars to buy this game... I guess Romania is very lucky compared to US, UK, FR etc. where people can't save 60 dollars in two years... On the other hand a lot of games that you play on a Sunday morning and then you finish them or uninstall them cost ... guess what ... just about the same.

Blizzard is making three games instead of one to get us to pay more .... of course a game with 10 mission for each faction and story that didn't get to show anything would be much better. Cinematics? So overrated, better to have one in the beginnig and just some text between missions ... they took so much time to make the cinematics and singleplayer... and it is just not interesinting. I guess all the lore, stories, comicbooks can't get people interested ... And yes the SC1 story was so lame that it shouldn't be continued ... just kidding. As it happnes the story and lore are awesome ... a friend of mine made a short resume of the story in SC1 and presented it in the literature ****.. The teacher read it and said that this was the best Sci-Fi story she has ever read... yet some people complain that the story and single player are weak... and uninsipred. Some even compared the missions to Red Alert 2 ... isn't that cute... but, seriously RA2?

Some people just forgot the editor! In case you missed it, the is an uber cool editor which allows for a lot of cool stuff, like third person action with SC2 and NPCS ... and other cool stuff.... In case you were thinking "I don't have the time to mess with the editor" think about the fact that others have the time and the will to make cool maps for you to enjoy.

Finally, realizing i sound like a fan-boy after just three post i just want to say that giving an "abysmal" score to a game just because you didn't think it through is just not fair. Why do people feel the need to give bad scores to nice games? It makes me think that these people had huge expectations from a game that was pretty straight forward with what was offering. It's like these people,fell in love with a prostitute, that promised them eternal love and french fries every day,then got abandoned and have now swore eternal vengence. It's just a game people, a game that a team spent years making and now you are just pi**ing on their work just because you have some lame pretext to hate it.

-- End of Part 3

Another thing that seems to make some people really angry is the fact Starcraft 2 is a "trend setter" and that other games will try to try to imitate it. It may come as a "real shock" to some people to find out that, when a game is played for 12 years it is already a trend. Even so, if SC2 will set a new trend is it really a bad thing, if the game is really good? Further more, if SC2 is about to lunch a new trend does it deserve a bad score for being likable ? What is wrong with some people ?i

Since this a major aspect i consider in games, i will dedicate a longer paragraph to Artificial Intelligence and Balancing. A lot of wierd people have began to compare SC2 to various STRATEGY games that are known for a RETARDED AI and / or their obvious imbalances in the units. Since SupCom immediately comes to mind when it comes to a very weak AI and C&C comes to mind when it comes to imbalances(anyone remeber Air General ?!?) it does not seem fair to compare SC2 with those games. The game took so long to make just because they wanted to make it really balanced and have the AI be ... well not retarded.

A handful of people complained that SC2 matches are to short (30 to 60 minutes) and that this is very bad. Anyone heard of DOTA? It was really nice to play games that lasted, well 30-60 minutes. If a match takes less than 20-30 minutes it is very easy frustrating to the losers, and boring ot the winners. If a match takes more than 60 minutes it becomes boring and annyoing (since most of the times this means at least one player was able to "turtle" and is now just doing nothing, but holding on). So, how should a match take? Should it be "6-hour long Supcom games on those gigantic 81x81 maps" (quote from darkaej SC2 review) ? How many people would play matches that take so long? How many people can afford not to go to work, wash or sleep just to play a match that takes 6 hours ?

Note: in the same review I quoted it is said that SC2 feels so much like SC1... thumbs up for Blizzard :P.

-- End of Part 2

So, unless you have been living under a rock for the last few days, you probably know by now that Starcrft 2 has just been released. Since I totally got owned by the dudes I preordered from (I get the game on 28 July) I followed GS reviews and scores all day long.

I noticed that a lot of people gave SC2 the "prime score", so I guess that game is actually good. Which brings me to the people that gave it a bad score...

Before i get into this, that let me tell you that I actually visited around 80 profiles of people that didn't like Starcraft and notice that most of them had not played the game or where just angry on others things, that really didn't have nothing to do with the actual game.

Let's start with the fact that a vast majority have been giving bad scores because SC2 took to long to make. What is wrong with this people? It so happen that most of the games released until now that got at least decent scores (includin from the people that pwnd SC2) had issues because they were rushed. These games lost a lot in terms of campaign length, sound effects, voice acting, various bugs and glitches or some lack of functionality just because they were rushed! Yet, they got decent scores. What is missing in SC2?

The second thing most angry people say is that SC2 feels like SC1 with better graphics. It comes natural for me to ask: "What does this mean? What was Blizzard supposed to do?". Since SC2 is a sequel isn't it normal for it to feel like part one, only better ? Isn't it normal to keep the multiplayer that won the 11 mil. fans the way it was. Isn't it normal to keep a continuity in terms of game mechanics and units? What is wrong with people saying this things? Does C&C change radically from one installment to the other? Wasn't theirs last installment (Tiberian Twilight) criticized because they changed to much and should have just stuck with the winning formula they already had ?

-- End of Part 1