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I may not have given StarCraft a 10, or even a 9, but before you hurt me know this. StarCraft is one of my favorite games of all time. Blizzard owes me a lot of sleep because of this game and all the nights I stayed up playing it. This game has pretty much everything you could want in an RTS. It has 3 races when at the time it came out RTS's usually only had 2. These 3 races are vastly different from each other and require completely different strategies when playing them. There is a large variety of unites and pre made maps, not to mention a program to make your own custom maps. A program that gives so much freedom over the game that many many people has used it to make very unique maps with very unique experiences. Even if you are just playing the game the way it was meant to played online, it is still exciting and fun. That's another plus for this game, free online play. Play with anyone else online, any time as long as you want. Besides just the vast amount that can be done multiplayer, the one player campaign on both the original and the expansion is very very good. The plot is original, interesting and exciting. Not only that but the levels are very well designed.
Now, getting to why I marked this game down to 8.95. I believe their are a few minor balance issues, mainly with the Terran race. I think the Terran race is short changed when it comes defensive structures. The Zerg can build their defensive structures fast by just creating a bunch of their main worker unit and then having them all turn into the defensive structures they want. No offensive units have to be made. Protoss can build their defensive structures with just one worker initiating the warp spot for each photon cannon to warp in and once again no offensive units are required to make them. The Terran however, have to build bunkers as their main defense structure. They also have to train infantry units to put in them. Each infantry unit has to be made individually from a barracks and each bunker has to have a worker stay at the building until it is done being made. I also think their are a few unit AI problems in the game, I believe it is partly do to the fact that there isn't a formation/group feature. The units don't move and think together even when you command several at a time. Each unit takes that command individually and just tries to fulfill it without thinking with the other units that are coming with it. This can lead to jams in tight spaces and units that get stuck in one spot so long that they forget their order and just stand their until you notice them and realize they have just been sitting there for passed half an hour. I've launched a major attack of units and found only about half of them got to the attack destination. |
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Giants is a victim of a bunch of glitches that were found right after it's release. Along with a lot of great reviews though, there are more than a few reviewers flaming this game with things like "it tries to hard to be funny" or "the multiple game styles don't blend as well as they should". The people who wrote those reviews need to 1. learn something about British humor 2. try themselves to combine a third person action shooter, an RTS and a giant monster game that has a great 1 player campaign and has awesome multiplayer, and see if they can come up with something even half as good. Giants isn't anywhere near perfect, but it is a hilarious game, with great game play, and lots of originality. In multiplayer the game is balanced if there are about two Mecc players for every Sea Reaper player, and probably one to two Kabuto players for about 10-20 Mecc and Sea Reaper players. The Meccs rely on their technology and numbers, Sea Reapers rely on their bows and magic, and have more health. The Kabuto rely on nothing but their massive size, health and power. When all three races are playing against each other in multiplayer it's like two cities warring, with Godzilla size monsters parading around. The game may not be perfect but no other game I know of has managed to do what it has. |
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It is hard to find anything wrong with this game. Nothing is overdone because the gameplay changed throughout the whole game, yet the whole game has consistently familiar aspects throughout it. It is a FPS but yet it is so much more. Part of the reason the game works so well is because it was built on a revolutionary game engine made specifically for it called Source. The source engine is known for its extremely realistic in game physics. Almost every aspect of the game revolves around those physics. The way things get pushed lightly, fall, launched, spun, or blasted. Have you ever had a game give you an intense action moment and then an area where you had to use everyday physics to get through, and make it fun? It can be anything from putting cinder blocks on a see-saw so it has enough weight on one side to hold you up, to using a mechanism with a car attached to it to smash enemies. The two vehicles you use in the game are also very important and very fun parts of the game. This game has it all, if you're not smashing giant ant-lions with a sand rail vehicle, your probably launching heavy objects like toilets at your foes with the gravity gun. |
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More games coming soon! |
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