Drastic Differences in Hardware

Aside from the obvious  improvement of visual fidelity, an improvement in hardware allows a lot more to be happening at once during any given gaming moment. The most prominent example I can think of now is the inclusion of real-time calculated physics is many (more like most) games today. This addition alone allows for a unique gaming experience, because nothing ever blows up/ricochets/falls the same way twice.

In addition to mere physics calculations, though, User Interfaces (in their backend) have become more complex. The result though, is the capability of a very intuitive (and usually pretty) graphical user interface. Gone now are the basic and unattractive boxes and button layouts of yester-years’ games. Enter fluid and logical interface. In fact, the newly updated Battle.net 2.0 is all one simulated space-age computer console. Clicking the players portrait intuitively allows users to change their portrait and profile information. Like all Microsoft Windows Operating Systems, the bottom right hand corner is where you can find your friends messenger. Where the old Battle.Net looked like a page out of the Geo-Cities era, Battle.Net 2.0 is an interface representative of HTML 5 and Web 3.0, The future is wow!

Voice Chat

Once you get over the fact that nobody wants to hear you sing or call everyone an n-word, you soon realize that voice chat allows a whole new level of communication between allies and enemies. Players can strategize, coordinate, shit-talk, and, in the most creative instances, eavesdrop their way to the perfect win.

Specific to Real Time Strategy gameplay, voice chat allows players to collaborate their build orders, alert players of incoming enemies, and and communicate information that would be lost in the time it took to be typed; all without interrupting the flow of the game, where mouse clicks and shortcut keys must be perfectly timed.

As both a cooperative and adversarial experience, and with so much diversity in its strategies, it’s only right that StarCraft 2 features voice chat for teams to coordinate the perfect unit combos, choke points, and alerts.  At this point in PC gaming, it would actually be an outrage if there was no voice communication.

Blizzards Success Since SC1

The original StarCraft is still the number one tournament-level real-time strategy game across the globe. How’s that for a success story? Starcraft 1 was one of the first RTS’ to feature not only two, but three completely unique races with their own play mechanics (protoss building warping, zerg creep restrictions, and terran mobile buildings), and is probably heralded as the only RTS of its type to have such a balanced formula.
Beyond SC1, Blizzard had a slew of undeniable successes that further secure their place in the halls of gaming glory. Look at the success of Warcraft 3 and it’s amazing user mods like TowerDefense and DOTA, and you can start to see how robust SC2’s map editor is going to be. 10 million subscribers later, World of Warcraft has more or less evolved into the Blizzard Mint. I’m pretty sure the company just prints it own money now.

All these things give Blizzard an opportunity to improve on their formula. Beyond obviously having more money to throw into development teams solely dedicated to social experience and campaign and multiplayer gameplay polish, Blizzard has built a reputation that their products are worth the wait. They’ve managed to earn the respect of gamers everywhere, that StarCraft 2 will be out “when it’s done”, and no one has uttered a word of impatience, only excitement.

Broadband Internet

Of all the changes that have happened in the last 11 or so years since the first Starcraft, the widespread adoption of broadband internet is probably the most significant. Like the printing press before it, the internet changed the way ideas were transmitted, allowing us to share data faster, across vaster distances than we had ever imagined possible before.

When the original Starcraft was released, broadband internet connections were available only to those lucky few with the resources to afford it. The rest of us had to muddle along on our dial up modems waiting ages for those naked pic/#$’s uhhhh, brahh, ummm never mind that…

The internet was beginning to pick up steam, dot coms were running wild and carefree through the streets and I was letting my tamagotchis starve to death to make matching clogs, but multiplayer and network gaming was almost non-existent. Playing games with your friends was still mostly a shoulder-to-shoulder thing, then….

Broadband came along and changed the game (no pun intended) in ways that people are going to be analyzing for decades to come by allowing greater amounts of data to pass over a network, making things like voice communication, higher resolution graphics and social networking platforms like Steam and the new Battle.net possible.

CDs to DVDs to DLCs

A lot has changed in gaming in the decade or so since the first Starcraft, not the least of which is the way we get them into our homes.

We’ve already touched on the fact that games have grown exponentially more complex since the old days but that complexity would mean nothing without a way to disseminate it to the public at large.

First up we have the hallowed Compact Disc. Revolutionary in a number of ways, CD’s did a lot of things right: they eliminated the need for moving parts in storage media and blew storage capacity and transfer speeds into the stratosphere compared to its predecessor the Floppy Disc. We went from 1.44MB’s to 640MB’s of space available to cram our games into which is a more than  a do-dillion percent increase*! So CD’s were  great but something even better was right around the corner.

Next came DVD’s. These bad boys are still pretty prevalent today because of their versatility as an information storage medium as well the thing our movies are pressed on. DVD’s upped the ante in terms of storage space and speed again, offering first 4.7 then Dual Layer 8.7GB versions. Developers were given a bigger and bigger canvas on which to create which in conjunction with hardware improvements have more or less lead to the state of affairs we have today.

The final change was doing away with conventional media altogether, using that broadband thing and bigger cheaper hard drives in people’s computers to get games from point A to point B. Downloadable content or DLC allows the user to purchase a game online and download it directly to their computers. Services such as Direct-2-Drive, Steam and Battle.net offer such products, but DLC is not just changing how much space developers have to ship a game on, its changing the industry itself. By offering cloud gaming, users can purchase a license for a game, and have access to it on any computer of their choice by simply downloading it. Expansion packs and micro-transactions are completely changing the way some developers make their games by offering smaller cheaper content after a games release rather than just waiting for a full fledged sequel. Indie developers can get their content out to a larger audience that was impossible to reach in the past, allowing a greater amount of original and creative games to get the recognition and commercial success they deserve. I think DLC is going to become more and more popular, but that’s not to say that conventional media is going the way of the Do-Do. We are going to see them coexist for at least the next 10 years or so based on my non-existent research and my non-existent experience in the field.

Competitive Gaming, Ladder Improvements, League Placement

eSports is probably not a term you are familiar with if you live in North America, but in South Korea and some parts of Europe, competitive gaming or eSports is big business. Think of it as a professional sports league for gaming and at the top of the list of popularity in the RTS genre is Starcraft, and its been that way for about a decade.

South Korea is a Starcraft mecca. If you are really good at Starcraft over there, your not just popular, you’re a celebrity, a phenomenon. Starcraft players are trained and recruited just like professional athletes in North America for six figure contracts, fame and more sexy asian shiksas than you can shake a Dark Archon at. With Starcraft 2, Blizzard has enslaved the people of that great nation into at least another ten years of dead eyed devotion to seeing who rises to the top of the leaderboards and to whom they should dedicate their fanatic love towards. The original Starcraft lasted this long and basically created an industry for itself, with the improvements to the sequel and the deep customization and tactics afforded with the new units and powers, I think its safe to say, Korea, you boned!

Leaderboards and scoring has been updated as well in Starcraft 2, giving players a more accurate system of rewards based on your skill level and the skill level of your opponent. For example, if you are facing an opponent with whom you are evenly matched, you might get the standard amount of points for the win. If you are less likely to win a match, but overcome the odds and do, you will be rewarded with bonus points for your trouble. For me however the biggest change has come in the way of the new League system.

What Blizzard has done with Starcraft 2 is made it accessible to the novice player, as well as the dedicated player that doesn’t feel like getting dominated every round by freakin X-Man-like players from Korea with robotic arms from the future. You are placed in leagues based on your skill level which ensures that you play opponents that you have a chance of beating making it less likely to get steamrolled and more likely to draw in new players to the genre. I have to tell you guys, I love Starcraft, but I’ve never really been any good at it, so having a way to make my obvious shitty gaming skills counterbalanced so that I can wallow in my own little pond away from the big sharks is a welcome addition to the game for me.

How Social Networking has Shaped Battle.net

If you’re still not sick of talking to real people, Blizzard has added the Real ID functionality to the new Battle.net. At first, I thought all Real ID offered was the ability to see your friends list showing their actual name instead of an alias, but as it turns out there’s a lot more going on than I originally knew about.

First off, you are going to be able to communicate across different games in real time, so lets say for instance that you are playing SC2 and you wanna try your hand at some of the Co-op vs AI modes and we need a buddy to come along. Lo and behold your friend Laszlo Panaflex is online in WoW, so you ask him if he wants in on your little crusade! Not too shabby.

In addition to communicating with friends across different games, you’ll be able to see not only what games they are playing but more specifically what modes they are playing in. That means you’ll know not to bother Laszlo when he’s knee deep in, uh, WoW monsters (I don’t play WoW, sorry and know not to get all up in his shit.

Throw in the ability to “broadcast” a short message to your friends (i.e. tweet) whenever they log in and be able to connect with facebook friends as well and you’ve got yourself a pretty good social networking machine to pile on top of all the others you already use!
And there you have it, our take on the biggest changes to Starcraft and Blizzard since the release of the first over a decade ago and kudos for making it to the end of this unusually long article. If you guys have any other takes on this subject, feel free to sound off in the comments section below.

*Not an actual number. The actual percentage increase is probably really easy to calculate but I’m a busy man, and the time it has taken me to write this blurb has eliminated the possibility of me trying to figure it out.

Starcraft 2 is soon among us…  in approximately 50 minutes to a bit more precise. This is a game that many PC gamers have been awaiting for quite some time. It’s the ‘Next’ of many things. It’s the next big title from Blizzard (then again, which of their titles aren’t big?), some might say it’s the next step for real time strategies … well hell, it’s the next Starcraft. That’s all you need to worry about.

For the older gamers out there, Starcraft was (and maybe still is) a staple LAN game. Though LAN is gone, there’s still some preparation required for Starcraft 2. The list above is a bit exaggerated… neither Amrit nor myself own a UPS.

The album was bittersweet, as it proceeded Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, the pair’s double album release, which was essentially two solo albums packaged together. And to many fans, it signaled the decline of Outkast. It appeared they were getting soft, or at least, failing at being experimental. It was relatively quiet on the Outkast front. They released a handful of un-notable singles, and both Big Boi and Andre 3000 were seen working with other artists, separately. It began to seem that the band really was breaking up. Fast forward several years later to 2010, when then the duo leaked a single, Lookin 4 Ya. This song featured rapping parts from both Big Boi and Andre 3000, accompanied by a smooth hook featuring the vagina-wetting voice of Sleepy Brown, most known for appearing on ‘The Way You Move’, Big Boi’s key single from Speakerboxxx. The single was a throwback to old school ‘Kast, and proved instantly that the team had not lost their edge and, if anything, were hard at work on something new.

Enter Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty, Big Boi’s first solo album release. The album art features a Big Boi logo in the recognizable shape of Outkast’s famous crown logo, reminding listeners this isn’t an abandon of Outkast music. If anything, ‘Kast fans should see this as a team release. Dre 3K might not be present lyrically or on all tracks of production, but the sound is undeniably Outkast. The tracks are peppered with skits in between, depicting life in West Savannah, Georgia, where players fast-talk dirty south hoes, and where crackhead hustlers jive talk the police. Where many band-turned-solo acts tend to move forward and forget their roots, Big Boi keeps this album Decatur by shouting out to Outkast, Goodie Mob, and the Dungeon Family.

If you’ve ever given Speakerboxx and Idlewild a full listen, you’ll clearly see the evolution of Big Boi’s artistic direction. The man has a love of beats in the minor keys, that have almost a gothic vibe to them. Tracks on this album, like ‘Night Night’ and ‘Tangerine‘ are reminiscent of ‘War’ (from Speakerboxxx). There’s almost something to be feared in these tracks, which embody something almost evil feeling, though the lyrical subject matter is classic Outkast fare (It’s bedtime/Tuck yourself in/I can tell that you’re terrified/Check my records/You will see that I’m verified/I terrorize/Now you’re terrified). The first track beyond the intro, ‘Daddy Fat Sax‘, is an epic confidence track, sampling previous Outkast tracks (‘X-plosion’ f/ B-Real), and is perfectly expressive of Big Boi’s character as an artist. You can even tell Idlewild has influenced Big Boi in tracks like ‘Be Still‘, which features a chorus by Janelle Monae, who was also featured in Idlewild’s ‘Call the Law‘. And ‘The Train Pt. 2‘  is a follow up to ‘The Train‘ from Idlewild, produced by Organized Noize, of which Sleepy Brown is a part.

It’s actually pretty hard to put a finger on what makes this album so catchy. The production has a distinct dirty south feel, but would have been wasted in the hands of a less-capable rapper. Big Boi brings a confidence that is not created by money or girls or flashy clothes. He raps about all of those things, but underneath those things, you know you are listening to the life and times of Big Boi, aka Antwon Patton, aka Daddy Fat Sax, aka Sir Lucious Leftfoot. Big Boi stands out as an artist primarily because he applies his life experience to the microphone, and even in the popular singles like ‘Shutterbug‘ and ‘Shine Blockas‘ have that unique flavour that can only be found on Outkast tracks.

On a personal level, the most notable track for me is ‘You Ain’t No DJ’, which completely embodies the radical, extraterrestrial instrumental that Andre 3000’s been known to produce. The track sounds almost demented, a digital bell loop repeating in what can only be described as a developing insanity. But there is something so damn catchy, I can’t help to hunch my shoulders over, pull my fingers out their holster, and do the crooked booty.

This album is absolutely solid. Not only is it a great solo album, but it has a maturity that is best appreciated by having listened to Outkast’s previous albums. It gives new Big Boi fans an incredible introduction, and old Outkast fans what they’ve been wanting to hear for a long time.

“Is Starcraft 2 a day one purchase for you?”

1) Yep? Can’t Wait!

2) Eh, Ill get it eventually.

3) Nah, not for me.

4) Pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition while wearing my Blizzcon 2010 t-shirt.

And the results are number 3 in the lead with 43% of the votes, and numbers 1 and 2 tied with 26% respectively!! I don’t know about you guys but this really floored me. I thought that the 1up community would be all over Starcraft 2, but apparently almost half of them don’t give a shit at all and the rest could care less about getting it on release day!

I’m not saying that people should or shouldn’t be into this release but I just had to make it known that this HUGE gaming website and cultural hub was coming up with these numbers for a game I thought would be at the forefront of many many more gamer’s radars.

Ok in the spirit of this post I’d like to ask this question to our readers:

On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being very excited) how excited are you for the release of Starcraft 2? Leave your answer in the comment box below.

Onward Blizzard soldiers!

p.s. Blizzard Rulezzzzz!

******************UPDATE*****************

As of 11:45pm July 7 The beta is working! Happy gaming fellows!

*****************UPDATE AGAIN July 9 2010 8:35pm**********

I took a couple screenshots of some of the new menus that have been released in the second phase of the beta, check em out below:

*****************UPDATE AGAIN July 20 2010**********

Ok folks looks like the beta has officially ended and access to the mulitplayer and coop games has ended Silver lining is that the game is now just about a week away from release!

The beta had a good run, maybe it will go full zombie Jesus on us and come back from the dead for a couple hours before the release of the game for shits and giggles, cause that would be alright by me.

Futurama in Lego Form!!

Welcome ... to the World of Tomorrow!!!

For the update I had to erase all the media on the phone so its not like there is a lot of slowdown because of short space, if that is even a problem for phones.

Grah. This is super annoying. I hope they didn’t do this on purpose so that people with older iPhones would feel the need to switch ever more so. I’m sure thats not the case, but if I was a conspiracy theorist, I would probably have to groove on that for a little while.

I would like to preface this review by saying that I am an adult fan of the cartoon this movie is based on and have a greater admiration for the source material and these characters than the average movie watcher off the street does. Bear this in mind during your reading of this review.

Instead of reviewing the movie immediately, I wanted to say a few words about Avatar the Last Airbender the television show as it is near and dear to me and was not accurately portrayed in the M. Night Shyamalan film.

The creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko set out to create a childrens show that set itself apart from the rest of the Saturday morning cartoon fare by creating a world rich in character and based on the myths and traditions of Central and East Asia. They did this by imagining complex and flawed characters, fantastic and exotic settings and landscapes and grounded it in the Chinese Martial Arts teachings.

The world of Avatar: TLA (I’m going to call it Avatar: TLA from now on since I can’t type “The Last Airbender” every time) is separated into 4 nations: Earth, Water, Air and Fire. Each of these nations drawing inspiration from a different Chinese fighting form that relates to their particular element. Earthbenders use Hung Gar for its powerful stance and strong attacks, Airbenders use Ba Gua or the use of quick directional changes and circular movements to generate power and so on. These decisions were not made lightly and you can tell a great deal of thought and care went into their selection.

The characters in Avatar: TLA are the crowning jewel in their creator’s crown however. Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Uncle Iroh, Azula, Bumi, Ty Lee, Mai the list of characters can stretch on for a long time, but what really impresses when you watch the show is how attached you get to all of them.

Aang is the focus of the show as the Avatar and you feel for him so much at the tremendous loss of his people that he has endured. The weight of the world is on the shoulders of a child who starts his journey spiritually and physically lost and that feeling shines through.

The Gaang. Pre Toph.

Zuko the exiled prince of the Fire Nation is one of the best examples of what made this show amazing. At the beginning we see him as a simple enemy for Aang to overcome. All he wants is to get his honour back, and the only way he can do that is to capture the last hope for peace in the world and he’ll go to any length to achieve that goal. As the show progresses though it’s like a curtain is slowly drawn back to reveal the true depth and mastery that the show creators have in character creation. Zuko is his mother’s son. He feels compassion and empathy in a home that see them as weakness. He admires and desperately seeks the approval of a father whose callous ambition for absolute power has dissolved any semblance of humanity he may have once had.

"That Mai girl is pretty hot! Can I have her messenger hawk address?"

One of my favorite Zuko episodes is called “Zuko Alone”. We follow him as he wanders across the Earth Kingdom, trying to survive on the generosity and kindness of the people he might have to conquer and enslave someday, and it is here we see the true nature of his character. He befriends a small boy and his family and have to defend them from some seedy characters, all the while we get flashbacks of him as a child in the Fire Nation Palace and insights into the events that lead to his melancholy disposition. It is here that we learn that he was not always so, but instead was a happy and well adjusted youngster who had a loving mother. We also see the impact that losing her had on him. But Zuko would not have become the amazing character he did without help from his Uncle Iroh.

What can I say about Iroh? I’m afraid that trying to sum him up in this review would not do him justice. Simply put, Iroh is amazing. Period. Not only is he ridiculously funny with his irrational tea love and smelly bunions, but he also imparts sage wisdom to his nephew and is a firebending master that if he wanted to could settle any fight with force, but would only do so as a last resort. The episode “Tales of Ba Sing Se” showed us the Iroh that we had all grown to love and respect and made him all the more amazing by the fact that he had lost his son in the war and still felt the pain of that loss but remained the rock his nephew needed during his journey anyway. The episode was given greater significance as a tribute to the voice actor who played Iroh, Mako Iwamatsu. He had recently passed away after completion of the episode.

It was in my pocket the whole time!

Avatar: TLA was an amazing show because the world was so densely packed with such wonderful and memorable characters that could make you laugh, cry and think. Whether it was Foaming Mouth Guy, or Cabbage Man, Sparky Sparky Boom Man, Yue, Chong the Hippy Song Guy or any number of small and large characters, the world of Avatar: TLA feelt like it had existed for a long time before we even knew about it.

Avatar: TLA was one of my favorite shows on television and it pains me to think that it is associated with the movie that I saw a couple days ago.

(Ok here’s where the movie review starts)

The Last Airbender directed by M. Night Shyamalan is his latest attempt at staying relevant in the movie industry after a number of flops such as “The Happening” “the Village” and “The Lady in the Water”. M. Night wrote and directed this movie and his inability to tell a story coherently and convincingly has pushed past the point of politeness. Someone’s gotta tell this guy to stop. Just stop M. Night.

Hhhhhmm. Ok. I went into this movie with expectations low, yet cautiously optimistic based on the strength of the source material. Boy oh boy was I let down. This movie was awful writing sandwiched between painfully bad acting and low rent special effects. The director attempted to cram into an hour and a half what the show took an entire season to do. It felt rushed from start to finish. We would start off with the scene in the arctic when Aang was discovered and then we would cut to another scene “Southern Air Temple” and from there some other stuff would happen, then voila, we’re in the “North Pole”. The film feels like a palsy patient on crystal meth, hop skipping and jumping around like crazy.

The entire movie is bogged down by a script that seems like it was written by a sleepy twelve year old. There were times during the movie where Katara would say a line and the audience would laugh. Outright laugh! That would be OK if the line was for comedic effect but it was supposed to be DRAMATIC! Why Shyamalan thinks he can write is beyond me. The dialogue serves only to get the story across, seemingly as quickly as possible and without the artistic and creative flare that we had come to expect from the show. Sokka, Katara’s brother is a huge sentimental favorite for the fans of the series thanks to his love of the meat and sarcasm but in the movie all we get is, “I don’t think that’s a good idea Katara” and “Katara! I’m all wet!”. At least they got the boomerang right.

What do you mean I can't fit an entire season into 1.5 hours?

The lead actor Noah Ringer who plays Aang, is just awful. Seriously did anyone bother to find out if this kid could act before they put him in this movie? His lines sound like they are being read off of cue cards, with the appropriate pauses for the cards to be switched. Personally I’ve never been in a play or movie, but I always thought that if I had to, I could pull it off. This kid made me realize that there is a lot you need to know to be an actor, things that regular people just don’t think of and that if I tried, I’d look like an idiot. That’s what he did for me in this movie. He provided that service at least. You will never have to be subjected to my terrible acting on any screen or stage anywhere. Thank you Noah Ringer.

Before the movie even came out there was quite a bit of controversy over the selection of the actors over the fact that they were casting white actors to play Asian characters and I admit I didn’t think too much of it before, but I have to admit it makes the movie somewhat preposterous when you see a village of people who look Inuit and the lead characters Sokka and Katara white as the snow beneath their feet. For me, this weird juxtaposition served only to take me out of the experience further.

Two of these things are not like the others

The last thing that I really did not appreciate was the fact that they changed the pronunciation of the characters names: Aang was pronounced Ong and Iroh was pronounced E-roh. WHY? What possible purpose did it serve to do this? All it did was make me angry, angry at the fact that not only did they make my beloved Avatar into a shitty movie, but they couldn’t even get details like the characters names right?? Did anyone even watch the show? But the sad thing is that the show’s creators Mike and Bryan were both involved in this production, which boggles my mind. I don’t think they would have willingly or knowingly let this garbage bear the name of their baby, but if they did, well then I just gotta say WTF guys. WTF.

In closing, The Last Airbender is a horrible movie deserving of its 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It translates none of the wonder and imagination of the cartoon and should be taken out behind the chemical shed and shot. M. Night you are a master at Failbending ( thanks for that one Eric)

(Sorry to have wasted your time if you clicked the jump… I’ll don’t think I’ll be able to make it worth your while ………… it’s a pretty shitty title for a video game…it’s a shitty title for anything, really.)