Before I get into this "why Starcraft 2 sucks review", do me a quick favor. Let's customize our hotkeys in Starcraft 2. Come on, it'll be fun!
Ok so I'm logging into SC2 now, I click options, I click hotkeys, but wait. I can't seem to customize my hotkeys. This can't be right. It won't let me do it. Hmm, is it a bug? I checked the web and it seems other people are frustrated as well. I'm dumb founded. What game have you ever played that didn't let you customize your hotkeys? A little bit of research shows why the great folks at Blizzard don't want you to customize your hotkeys.
You gotta pay son!
You thought customizing your hotkeys would be free? Boy, are you stupid. For around $25.00 you can get this brand new keyboard that will allow you to customize your hotkeys. This is wrong, so wrong. This leads me to my next point of why starcraft 2 sucks.
Terran SCV
Building SCV's, one of the most important parts of Starcraft 2. But if it's so important why did Blizzard make it so difficult to do? Your command center only let's you queue up five at a time for production. But why? You need thirty SCV's to take full advantage of your resource fields The logical conclusion is to have your command center queue up and pump out thirty SCV's WITHOUT a mineral requirement.
But Blizzard wants you to keep going back to your command center throughout the entire game. They call this "skill", I call it a
WASTE OF TIME. I remind you that this is a
non-combat related activity. Why would you want to get good at this? If we were allowed to queue up a specified number of units we could then spend more time on
combat, scouting, harassing, warring, etc.
Some of you may argue that you don't want to continuously pump out SCV's, then don't. The important thing is for us to have the option to do so if we prefer. The game should encourage
combat not this mundane
non-combat related activity of having to constantly hotkey to your command center to build something.
Zerg Queen & Hatchery
I'll keep this one short. The Queen spawns larva onto the hatchery. Naturally you want to assign a queen to do this automatically. I searched and searched but did not find a way to auto assign spawn larva to the hatchery. Why? Why did they do this? This is a
non-combat related activity. Blizzard actually expects you to constantly hotkey to your queen to spawn larva. And get this, they actually call this skill! I remind you that this is a
non-combat activity. Why on earth would you want to get good at this? This truly sounds like a broken mechanic.
Quick Break
Hit the q key as fast as you can on your keyboard. I'll do the same. We'll see who can hit these keys faster. Ready? Wait, wait, that's pretty retarded isn't it? Then why are you playing Starcraft 2?
Keyboard Monkeys
It's a sad day in gaming when keyboard monkeying is considered skillful. The keyboard is meant to be a communicative device to your application. It's not supposed to be the primary form of entertainment unless you are playing a game that seeks to improve your keyboarding WPM skills.
Why is constantly hotkeying back to your base required? Why can't you setup more unique and custom build orders to minimize the amount of
non-combat related activity so you can then focus on the
fighting?
Upgrades
Why can't I simply queue up upgrades even when I don't have the resources? Oh I know, they want you to constantly come back and check up on your upgrade building. They call this skill. This is a
non-combat related activity. Why would you want to get good at this? You should be able to queue up upgrades WITHOUT having the minimum required mineral. It should be queue up and forget unless the building is destroyed.
Combat
It broke my heart. When you finally get through all the non-combat related bull and get to the combat, something magical happens. I've never seen such well made combat units. The actual combat takes skill. Mixing the right amount of units is very important as well as scouting and knowing what your enemy is doing. But alas, the combat is constantly hampered by the need for doing mundane non-combat related activity.
You can never truly enjoy a fight because the whole time you have to be babying your base through the extensive and excessive use of hotkeys. You'll never get to truly enjoy a battle because you are always at the mercy of your APM, the background bullshit that should of been properly queued up in the first place and forgotten (unless your buildings were destroyed).
"Oh sweet Starcraft 2 combat, how I wish I could enjoy you. How I wish I could have the freedom to scout, the freedom to launch tier three and tier four attacks. How I wish I could harass my enemy in peace with infestors. How I wish I didn't have to constantly hotkey back to my retarded base that is incapable of following custom build orders with the most retarded queue system found in any RTS game. "
Conclusion
Ritalin. I can't think of any other way unless you want to spend years trying to master a broken mechanic.
The combat is great in Starcraft 2 if you can bring yourself to do mundane babying of your base THE WHOLE TIME YOU'RE PLAYING. This kills the game. There are many times I wanted to lay out a complicated battle plan to utterly destroy my enemy by luring him to his death. But taking time to fight will actually cost you the game because the more elaborate, epic and beautiful your combat tactics the more time it takes away from the forced babying of your retarded base.
Listen, I don't mind base building, but if I have to baby that base every 1.5 seconds then forget it. It's not worth it.
REFUND
If this review has talked some sense into you, then shoot an email to Blizzard and ask for a refund. They will gladly give you one because they realize that this game isn't for everyone. Only the people who want to frustrate themselves with keyboard monkeying.
REVIEW
Score: 6.5/10
Good: Great combat, diverse units allow a multitude of unique and complicated strategies designed to take your enemy by surprise with total devastation.
Bad: Constant requirement of mundane babying of your main base due to a horrible build order system and broken queue system. Many mundane activities should be automated but aren't. Dated graphics and mediocre storyline. Blizzard should call Bioware and learn how to story write. Can't customize your hotkeys.
