A game of summer.
Starcraft II was the most anticipated game of the summer. So after the dust has settled, what exactly about the game creates the fervor? Well, a variety of things, but to cover them all would take much longer than a review can really handle. So to generalize, culture, legacy, and polish. All of the Blizzard franchises, in one way or another, now have an associated style built into them. World of Warcraft sees the fantasy machismo inspired from its Warhammer roots, and the same is true for Starcraft, inspired from Warhammer 40k. But these games now have their own culture as well, one that has been built from literally decades of play in their respective universes. The result is a level polish that has come to define Blizzard games as they have grown, and that is an advantage that Blizzard was once in a unique position to take advantage of, being that their popular franchises focused on online play. The reality though is that as these franchises grow, they also become more restrictive.
In order to create a franchise, there is a certain amount of risk-taking involved in the initial journey. But Starcraft II is no longer at that vital tipping point. Indeed, what Starcraft II is, more than anything else, is safe. Safe because it does not radically alter, safe because it is everything it purports to be, and safe because the community is getting what they want. The result is that the game itself is a fun, high-powered thrill ride, seeping with testosterone and bro-dudes at every corner. The result is a refined bro-dude who meets all the standards of any western and sci-fi cliche that one might be able to think of, distilled into your eyeballs and mouse clicks. And all of that is radically safe. Blizzard knows their audience.
Is the game everything I want? No, certainly not, but it most definitely is what the community wants. Which at the juncture we have long since passed on the road that is Starcraft's heydey, is perfectly fine. After all, to criticize the gameplay of Starcraft II as being unrefined is unfair and untrue. Because the gameplay here has been subtlely refined for years, but it has been refined with a certain audience in mind, one that has been playing the game for decades, one which has certain expectations about the game. That audience is actually not American, but Korean. The cultural significance in America and its relation to Starcraft is miniscule, when looking abroad. So miniscule, that Blizzard went to Korea on the opening day for Starcraft II. They know where to look for their audience, and their audience is no longer American alone.
That is both part of the culture, and part of the legacy. The gaming environment for PC games in the United States has been in a constant state of flux ever since the introduction of consoles. Yet in Korea, the PC has maintained a solid presence and even now the game industry there is dominated by online play. The console never found a market, largely due to animosity between Japan and Korea, a deeply embedded feeling that is, to this day, complicated. Starcraft and its sequel were embraced however, amongst the cramming hagwon students and college kids, escaping to PC-baangs to explore an imagined universe. It is not terribly surprising that what Starcraft II offers is a game that is superbly similar and yet different enough so as to be accessible to that market while still maintaining a solid presence in the States. Blizzard has worked at the issue of presence for decades, and still focuses on issues of balance, access, and culpability.
The review would not really be complete without at least mentioning the Real ID fiasco and how it relates to the online universe, and the liability that Blizzard portends to want from its install base. Real ID is an ongoing attempt to make all users presente their real name while accessing various features of Blizzard's various interfaces. It has become a large part of their legacy, despite the brief declaration and subsequent retraction of implementation on the forums. What Blizzard has wanted for a long time is, from a realistic standpoint, the same access to their users that Steam has. The ability to gain insight into purchasing habits is likely far more important than any potential personal information gleaned from a person's real name. Yet at the same time, there is the matter of the community constantly weighed against that. What we saw, in reality, was an online nuclear bomb. Something which could have stood to change the way in which business was run on the internet forever, and likely not in the positive manner Blizzard foresaw.
The dissolution of privacy has remained a major problem in an increasingly internet-connected world (and I say that because the idea that our world is actually "interconnected" is something I believe to be breaking down as a result of the internet, rather than built up). Blizzard, and to be honest, most users, don't seem aware of how much information is readily available on them already, and that's the present reality of online users in general. They are not an informed audience about the real presence that they have in the online world, and that's become an increasingly real problem, related to everything from drugs to rape to other forms of violence and corruption. Here is a place where the user can and should take action to become informed about, well, themselves, in an online world. Blizzard certainly stirred the hive when Real ID became a possibility, yet it will, at some point, become the rule and not the exception, if a fundamental cultural change does not occur.
Read ID and privacy issues aside, there are probably a lot of questions about how the game plays, or whether or not it's a "good" game. Well, that's largely based on how one might judge a game. From the perspective of being a summer blockbuster, it's the action movie you've always wanted. But the writing here is, I hope, intentionally bad. The writing is made to meet that machismo expectation that I was referring to earlier, and it never gets beyond that. To be honest though, to get back to the thesis of the piece, that's also what is expected. Starcraft II is largely about meeting expectations set by the community, a community with a penchant for enjoying one-liners, tropes, and memes. The story is never really the point, the story is a setup. A set piece to play set pieces. Which is what most Blizzard games are about, the point is not so much what's around the game but the game itself, and the game is refined to carry on the legacy of the Starcraft franchise.
One of the things that I doubt will get much attention is the background music. Because, well, it's background music. It's supposed to be there. Yet it adds a depth of feeling to the game that will probably go unnoticed. Somehow, Sweet Home Alabama fits the game like a glove. The pieces are deceptively simple, and they're great at getting in your head. I found myself humming them from time to time, and a piece is actually stuck in my head as I write this. All of them are slow and methodical, with a dark, almost sepia tone to them. While all Blizzard soundtracks tend to have some sense of foreboding within them, even amongst their myriad of composers, Glen Stafford seems to capture metallic space themes exceptionally well.
And that's what Starcraft II is all about. A gritty space theme. It captures that, and a real-time strategy game, perfectly well. The game captivates the sold audience, and Blizzard will, in the future, continue to resell the franchise. The company has become corporate, and they sell a certain kind of image that is, while not terribly compelling, certainly juicy enough that everyone wants some. Blizzard sells cheeseburgers, good and greasy, but expecting more than that might be unfair. Wanting their international community to also want what I want, is definitely unfair. Blizzard likely realizes what they're selling, and you can't take what's premier on the menu and change it too much as a result of the audience garnered. The game is, as a result, practical, and safe.