Prelude to the Launch - The Starcraft II Revolution

Sarah Kerrigan, the protagonist and (anti-)hero of Starcraft II - Heart of the Swarm

Tonight at midnight is the launch of Starcraft II - Heart of the Swarm, the second chapter in the Starcraft II series.

But in the months since I started this gaming blog, I never once talked about Starcraft II except in the context of some of the professional gaming events I've attended such as MLG 2012. So while I wait for the new game to be launched, I'll take this opportunity to talk about the game I've been playing the most over the past two and a half years.

Wings of Liberty

Wings of Liberty, the first of three chapters in Starcraft II

Why do I play this game so much even today? Three reasons:

• I love real-time strategy games, and Starcraft II is arguably the pinnacle of this gaming genre.
• Like chess, the strategies that are used in the multiplayer portion of Starcraft II continue to evolve.
• The rise of eSports.

Of course, the single-player campaign is pretty good as well, with some of the best cinematic cutscenes in all of gaming. Some of this animation is on-par with the quality of Hollywood blockbusters like Iron Man. In fact, the original teaser for Starcraft II looked a lot like the scene in Iron Man where Tony Start gets into his suit. The only thing is, the Starcraft II teaser video came out first:

(Watch this clip from 1:29 to see the similarities between this and Iron Man)

See the similarities?

As for the gameplay itself, it's as smooth yet enthralling as it could ever be. Take a group of marines and go clear out an area full of enemies. Position a siege tank just behind your front line and take comfort as the tank blasts anything that comes close to your base. You'll need that defense more often than you might imagine. Control a cloaked ghost agent and infiltrate a base, but watch out for the detectors patrolling the area. Drive a massive Thor battle walker and watch as you control an unstoppable force of destruction. Battle against other humans (Terrans) or against two races of aliens, one that is few in number but relies upon super-advanced technology (Protoss), the other ravenous, grotesque, and highly numerous (Zerg). And by the way, the very word "Zerg" has been coined into a gaming term:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zerg

zerg (third-person singular simple present zergs, present participle zerging, simple past and past participle zerged)

1. (slang, video games, strategy games) To attack an opponent with a large swarm of units before they have been able to build sufficient defences.

Example: "We have the advantage in numbers. Just zerg their base. They can't hold us all back."

Chess Without Turns

Dune II - The original real-time strategy game

Ever since Dune II and Command and Conquer, I was a fan of real-time strategy games. Part of it was because at the same time, first-person shooters such as Doom were becoming popular in online gaming, but I could never get used to them. With certain exceptions, these games would sometimes give me a headache.

So what makes real-time strategy gaming so enthralling? Imagine you're playing chess, but there are no turns. You have to move every single piece yourself (within the rules, of course), but you don't have to wait for your opponent to make his or her moves. Instead, you work FAST to try and capture your opponents pieces, or set up defensive positions before your opponent can capture yours. (I'm pretty sure there are web sites online where you can play chess without turns. It's actually not a new concept.)

At the same time, however, you also have to build up your army, and that means gathering resources, building production facilities, and defending both. That gives it a strategy element like Sid Meier's classic Civilization, but once again, there are no turns. It all happens real time.

Standard Terran vs. Terran match-up, which emphasizes positional play

All of this really appeals to me because I really prefer games that exercise good strategy over reflexes. But I also don't want to give up on the reflex portion of gaming because that's the part that brings real excitement. Plus how many "wars" are decided with each side taking turns? That's like a boxing match where one boxer throws a punch, then waits for his opponent to throw a punch. Come on, you have to have the real-time element in such games. (Of course, I also love turn-based strategy games, but that's another topic.)

An ever-evolving game

Terran Battlecruisers firing their signature Yamato Cannons

Beyond the basics, a great game has to have a factor of replayability. One could just play the single-player campaign over and over again, but that would get old real quick.

Which brings me to the multiplayer aspect of the game, and Starcraft II is first and foremost a game that is meant to be played against other people. And it's really easy to simply log into the game and jump into a ladder match where the matchmaking system pairs you up against players of similar skill. That ensures that for the most part, people of all skill levels can have fun matching wits and strategies against others.

Usually what happens in real-time strategy games, however, is that people will find one or two dominant strategies, then abuse them to no end. (Fans of the original Command and Conquer will remember the recon bike rush, and fans of its follow-on, C&C Red Alert, can recall the oh-so-joyous days of the heavy tank rush.) This pretty much kills the fun in any multiplayer game, as you end up either having to emulate said dominant strategies or lose to those who already do.

However, that hasn't happened in Starcraft II. The game developers watch how the match-ups between the three races go, then tweak the game in order to either correct some game imbalance or break-up an overused strategy.

But that's not the only force of change at play here. People like me who played Starcraft II since its release in August of 2010 can tell you that the strategies used today in multiplayer competition are a lot different than what they used to be. Some of that is the result of the developers tweaking and patching the game, but some of that is also due to the online gaming community that continually develops and shares new strategies. I can't tell you how many Starcraft II strategy videos, game replays, and analyses I have watched. (But maybe my wife can.)

Protoss Mothership and its Vortex ability

That is the reason why the game, although 2.5 years old already, continues to offer fresh challenges for me. Which brings me to the final reason why I love this game, and the driving force behind the game's continued growth and evolution

eSports - The rise of video games as spectator sports

The live audience at MLG

How has video gaming become a spectator sport? And why is Starcraft II among the top eSports events?

I'll answer the first question with one word: YouTube.

Before YouTube, there was almost no TV shows that featured actual video gaming. (The closest were Saturday morning cartoons based on video games.) Sure, Korea had two cable channels devoted to video games even as far back as 2002, but not in America. As for watching shoutcasts of game replays, we would have go through a quirky process that I won't explain here.

But with the rise of YouTube, fans themselves can upload video game replays and cast them with their own voiceovers narrating the game play-by-play. And that's exactly what happened even before Starcraft II was released. The game was going through a very long beta-testing phase, and during that time fans of the game even in its pre-release state were posting replays of matches.

Two of the most prolific casters were Husky and Day9:

Mike "Husky" Lamond and Sean "Day[9]" Plott

These two are prominent members of the eSports community now, and they're even hosting the pre-launch event for Heart of the Swarm as I type this:

The main Heart of the Swarm launch event, Irvine Spectrum Center, Orange County, California

But they got their start by being ultra-active fans. Husky uploaded a ton of videos every week and gained such a following that he now has almost 750,000 subscribers. Day9 got his rise in much the same way, uploading in-depth strategy videos almost daily, and he gained over 300,000 subscribers. (True story, I once wore an eSports T-shirt, and some random girl asked me where I got it. Turns out she was a fan of Day9.)

Thanks to those two and a whole community of casters, fans, and social networkers, eSports has risen dramatically over the past several years, and Starcraft II was the main vehicle for its rise.

Now it's common to see crowds like this in major eSports events like MLG, GSL, or Iron Squid. By the way, the Iron Squid tournament in Paris, France, opened up with an epic orchestra:

Iron Squid 2. Watch the first 9 minutes for an epic orchestral overture!

Barcraft

A typical Barcraft event

By the way, there are even sports bars across America that have started broadcasting eSports events like Starcraft II tournaments. These are known as Barcraft. The one I go to occasionally is Mad Dog In the Fog in the San Francisco Mission District:

Korea vs. Foreigners

Lin Yo Hwan, a.k.a. Boxer, a legend in the Starcraft II pro-gamer scene

One more note: Starcraft II is so popular in Korea, and Korean professional gamers have been so dominant in the eSports scene, that in the Starcraft II community, the label "foreigner" refers to non-Koreans.

And since I'm Korean-American, I think it's my blood to enjoy Starcraft II.

That pretty much sums up my love of Starcraft II. Now onto the next chapter!!! FOR THE SWARM!!!