Be Excellent To Each Other

Wait, that's today? Finally? Am I being punk'd?

Okay, this has got me wanting to play SC again. As I previously owned a copy of SC, only lost the disc somewhere, can I legitimately d/l a copy to replace this?

Abundance of copies in Tesco. Weren't pricemarked, though. I didn't bother - don't have time to play it yet anyway.

I installed it and loaded it up, played through the first mission.

It really does seem to be Starcraft, again. (Please note this is a good thing.)

The pre-rendered cinematics are breathtaking, the ingame cutscenes are rendered in realtime with a pretty darned impressive 3D engine.

The game itself looks super-lovely (happily it defaulted everything to 'Ultra' for me).

Far too early to comment on the gameplay for me, and I'm raiding tonight so won't be playing it again today.

I could imagine the battle.net stuff irking a bit if you've not already got an account, but of course I already have one via WoW.

No need for the disc in the drive for it to run, and interestingly it stores your account server side, so you can log onto any PC that has the game installed and it'll have all your progress correctly recorded.

EDIT - I did notice a 'play as guest' option, as I understand you have to be online for the initial activation and launch, but thereafter, by all accounts you can at least play without any internet connection as guest at least, and I'd suspect it'll have a local cached copy of the proper account too. Nothing too onerous by all accounts.

Bah.

Everything else: Yay.

Ooh. I wonder if that works between PC and Mac too, and if you can install both at once? That'd be aces.

BIIIIIIIIIIG install... still waiting. Set up Battlenet account while I'm waiting. Similar set up to steam really. Now I've registered SC2 I can log in and download the full game from wherever I am. Pretty sweet.

Not long to go now.

SQUEEE!

Iz PATCHING!!1

Battlenet, then...

If I want Starcraft 2, do I have to register for some shit or other before I can play it online?

Oh my it's glorious!

(I did the absolute minimum on raid night, helped get the one boss down we were after, and then called it.)

It's just Starcraft again, but with everything dialled up to 11, it's almost how you imagined the carnage in your head whilst playing the original game because PCs back then just weren't up to it.

Obviously I'm still not that far in, and I'm indecently excited about the prospects of what massive land and air battles are going to look and feel like later on, even just locking down a base and sending out an army of marines with medics in tow is awesome.

The music and sound are even more full on than they were before, the story and dialogue are both great and cheesy at the same time, the engine-driven cutscenes look sort of like Doom 3 on maximum everything (i.e. still not going to give Crysis any missed sleep but damn nice all the same), but lo and behold, it's Starcraft, the finest RTS ever - in modern loveliness.

And yes, clicking on the units until they get annoyed still makes me laugh.

EDIT - Oh yes it seems to have bucket load of cheevos, if you like that sort of thing

'Digity?'

Oh the quiet, quiet shame.

Hmm. I shall probably be buying this in a week or so when I have money then. Crumbola!

Fuck me this is GOOOOOD!

If you liked Star Craft just buy it.

Running with a few settings on low (running it on my MacBook Pro) its still bloody lovely. Its Star Craft with ZING baby!

Firebats are

When you just stop and look around there are soooo many nice touches.

What... the fuck? They want £44.99 for the digital version? LOLs. Definitely getting a physical copy.

Yup. Go go Amazon

So tempted. Need to revise. Exams are over in a month. ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Did I mention how cool the Firebats are again?

Quiet, Zardoz! I heard you were sending me your copy anyway. Where is it?

You can have it. Did I mention you don't need the disc once installed?

You'll have to pay me £39.99 for the Battlenet code though.

You should see it all in motion. Beeeaaauuuutifuuuuuul.

The voice overs and cut scenes are awesome too.

It's made my cock bigger aswell.

Shit! Actually there are two 14 day/7 hour play (whichever is up first) friend codes. You want one? Anyone else?

Yes please.

Sold. I'll text you the code tonight mate.

Getting perilously close to 'BEST GAME EVER!' status for me now, especially with the cheevos making every level as challenging as you want it to be.

And yes Zardoz, the Firebats are indeed massively cool.

I have two guest codes myself, any BEEXers fancy a go at THE GAME THAT COULD NEVER HAPPEN ON A FUCKING 360 OR A FUCKING PS3, please let me know.

This is Alex Mengsk, fighting console stupidity, across the confederation.

I'll have one if you don't mind, chap.

Think I might get this soon as my bond comes back then. Hopefully shan't be long - a mere few days! What do you think of it, Zardoz?

Also, I'm usually crap at RTS multiplayer - I get all het up and start shaking and missing things, which is curious, as I'm largely very serene and quite good at online shooters. Hmm.

You really are a colossal twat, aren't you?

Gotta work your micro.

I didn't know that Mark Heap's son was a dedicated RTS gamer. His dad must be proud.

Not sure there is any need for this. :?

Bloody lovely, playwise it's the same as the original. Looking forward to getting to grips with the new units. The artwork, presentation, well everything really is so highly polished. Glad they took their time over it.

I had to buy it really, loved the original so much. There's a lot of sound effects and voice overs that bring back a HUGE grin. The story continues on from where the last one ended (all in the manual thankfully) too, which is nice.

Did you ever play the first one, Pete?

There was no need for his original statement either (quite aside from how dubious I am about its veracity). I don't think I really need to remind people what happened last time he went off on one like that.

I have played the original, but only the first three or four levels. It was a long time ago, I can't remember why I only got so far in. I recall having fun though.

New one looks shiny, but the screenshots look immensely confusing - so much going on! But I trust ye opinion (God knows why) and so anticipate having a look.

Ta for the guest invite, Atrocity, but downloading that will be a bit of a pain, and as I'll probably wind up buying it anyway I prefer to install from disc.

I would like a friend code for this when I'm back from America next week please.

Mine are gone now, Doc.

Code incoming now Doc, one left for whoever wants it

Oh do come on, the fact that I signed myself off as Mengsk (the loony megalomaniac arch-betrayer of the original game), along with the confederation reference, didn't make it clear I was being deliberately OTT tongue-in-cheek?

Still, I've been called worse things on the internet than a colossal twat.

Did anyone ever save that animated gif of you and bumming? That was awesome.

I really want to try this but then I remember that I am absolutely rubbish at RTS games. Too much going on for my feeble mind to cope with.

I did ask earlier, if you've one left, and don't hate me

Ne'er played the original game. Waiting for this to come down to my usual price bracket before buying, too.

I've no real interest in the game, but thought I'd pass on a potentially important heads up I saw on a gaming news site:

Sent.

All gone now! Thank you drive through.

I don't understand, how does this bypass the standard temperature sensitive fan controller on all graphics cards to then go and fry them? (And even then, the GPU should just throttle itself if it gets too hot.)

It's probably nonsense.

Although these graphics cards do seem somewhat flaky and liable to blow up at any minute. It wouldn't surprise me if a particularly intensive game causes it to heat up a bit more than usual and push it over the edge.

. Except without the probably.

Code received - thanks AE!

Excellent. Thanks a lot, chap.

I HAS IT!

IM ABOUT TO PLAY IT SOME MOAR!