Evening Reading

I finally did it. After 9 years, I finally forced myself to play through the StarCraft Terran campaign. This is a halmark for me, because I've never played an RTS game for more than a few missions. I simply can't stand them.

Anyway, I was both pleasantly surprised and disappointed at the same time. I liked the story and the style of the game--lots of personality and fantastic artwork. The animation is still entertaining after all these years, which is really awesome.

I did not, however, care for the micro-management heavy gameplay. For a game that's supposed to involve "strategy", way too much emphasis is placed on special abilities. To be effective, you really need to be babysitting your Ghosts and Science Vessels to be locking down and shielding units. While the concept is cool, the execution is just annoying. 10 things are happening on screen simultaneously, and you're expected to pick your special units out and tell them what to shoot? Come on guys, would it be that difficult to have them intelligently auto-target their special abilities?

Now, I know the hardcore people want that extra degree of control and they don't want the game to "play itself," but I think I prefer a game that's more about putting your units in the right place at the right time, and less about ninja-managing them.

Too bad I don't like Supreme Commander, either, because it takes too long to play a mission. Otherwise, that's a great RTS game. Maybe RTS just isn't for me :(