This seems like a very positive thing... if the military can understand that games are useful for education, perhaps other governmental organizations like schools will start to utilize them.
Why do you expect multiplayer payment and a cost of $100 US?
Nothing's been released about pricing for SC2 and the whole "paying for Battle.net multiplayer" has been totally blown out of proportion.
You're obviously upset that games you enjoyed from Blizzard in the past - SC1, Diablo 1/2 - are going to be used to *gasp* make money (how dare they those greedy businesspeople!?), and you've jumped onto the Blizzard-hate bandwagon. Get over your bias, look at it objectively, and stop acting like you're entitled to a game you haven't paid for yet in the precise form you desire. Blizzard continues to make games that a wide audience enjoys, and not the same audience that Nintendo's courting.
If you're playing a horror game and trying to avoid being scared, why don't you just buy an action or puzzle game?
To really get the most out of the horror genre you need to turn out the other lights in your room, play at night, and be alone in your room/apartment/house. Electronic audiovisual effects get much more scary when there is no external reality to easily focus on.
It's not hard to envision a game where sound plays key importance in your survival, either... Killer7 comes to mind, where the enemies remain invisible until you scan them, with the only clue to their existence being that maniacal laughter. It's pretty scary to walk into the room (on rails, mind) and to hear a laugh extremely close by. If you didn't notice, Schofield says that enemies are trying to get to you in clever ways and that sounds tend to give away their movements to some degree. So, yes, sound will be important. And those cans rolling for no reason will be all the more creepy when you know that 6 rolling cans ago something had bumped into it and proceeded to leap onto your face and eat you faster than you could react to the visual cues.
I disagree with your assessment. While the individual campaigns may easily require less art and utilization of gameplay mechanics, they could also easily traverse a wide variety of environments and spend more time on clever gameplay and fewer levels on "This level gives you an introduction to this brand spanking new building/unit, use that to win!". The overall purchase will also contain more levels than SC1 + Brood Wars. At the same time, most people probably spent more of their time in the multiplayer for StarCraft than they ever did in the solo campaigns, and the initial purchase still delivers all three races for online play.
Kudos to Blizzard on the prompt response, if nothing else they know where their money comes from and how to avoid losing their playerbase.
It's all about simulating emotional scenarios: Randy Smith concludes his series of columns about the challenge of making games that aren't fun to play.
Network now...
PatternJuggler's Comments
Someone's super-negative today.
This seems like a very positive thing... if the military can understand that games are useful for education, perhaps other governmental organizations like schools will start to utilize them.
Also - real video? Night Trap anyone?
Why do you expect multiplayer payment and a cost of $100 US?
Nothing's been released about pricing for SC2 and the whole "paying for Battle.net multiplayer" has been totally blown out of proportion.
You're obviously upset that games you enjoyed from Blizzard in the past - SC1, Diablo 1/2 - are going to be used to *gasp* make money (how dare they those greedy businesspeople!?), and you've jumped onto the Blizzard-hate bandwagon. Get over your bias, look at it objectively, and stop acting like you're entitled to a game you haven't paid for yet in the precise form you desire. Blizzard continues to make games that a wide audience enjoys, and not the same audience that Nintendo's courting.
If you're playing a horror game and trying to avoid being scared, why don't you just buy an action or puzzle game?
To really get the most out of the horror genre you need to turn out the other lights in your room, play at night, and be alone in your room/apartment/house. Electronic audiovisual effects get much more scary when there is no external reality to easily focus on.
It's not hard to envision a game where sound plays key importance in your survival, either... Killer7 comes to mind, where the enemies remain invisible until you scan them, with the only clue to their existence being that maniacal laughter. It's pretty scary to walk into the room (on rails, mind) and to hear a laugh extremely close by. If you didn't notice, Schofield says that enemies are trying to get to you in clever ways and that sounds tend to give away their movements to some degree. So, yes, sound will be important. And those cans rolling for no reason will be all the more creepy when you know that 6 rolling cans ago something had bumped into it and proceeded to leap onto your face and eat you faster than you could react to the visual cues.
I disagree with your assessment. While the individual campaigns may easily require less art and utilization of gameplay mechanics, they could also easily traverse a wide variety of environments and spend more time on clever gameplay and fewer levels on "This level gives you an introduction to this brand spanking new building/unit, use that to win!". The overall purchase will also contain more levels than SC1 + Brood Wars. At the same time, most people probably spent more of their time in the multiplayer for StarCraft than they ever did in the solo campaigns, and the initial purchase still delivers all three races for online play.
Kudos to Blizzard on the prompt response, if nothing else they know where their money comes from and how to avoid losing their playerbase.
All PatternJuggler's Comments