UVic Study for Video Game Assessment

Due to having brother who took the initiative of signing up for the Starcraft 2 Beta, He had an email come in last month with a new key to give to a friend or family member. Being the gracious and kind person he is, he gave it to me and as a result I have been playing it every day since. In case you dont know Starcraft II is, the successor to one of the most acclaimed computer games of all time. It is a science fiction RTS (Real Time Strategy) game where you choose one of 3 races and compete against other people online to see which can amass an army the fastest and defeat the other. The game has been so completely balanced over the years that no race has any complete advantage over another.

It is so damn well known in South Korea, its pretty much their national sport. At one point, they had 3 television channels all playing professional matches of Starcraft with commentary. Now, you may think that having television channels and professional teams is silly and totally overblown, but the amount of time, practice and dedication the the game is absolutely astounding. Some pro's in Korea have been playing for as long as the game has been out and see 6 figure sums come to them yearly.
Now the sequel is being made, and for the past 2 or 3 months it has been in the Beta testing phase. Out of over a million people who have played this game are all reaching to get their hands on the beta and perhaps an 8th of them have been getting their calls answered. This time around, there are new units for each of the 3 races and a substantial graphical upgrade. Just remember that back 12 years ago, we had barely gotten 3d graphics out in video games. Even by todays standards it looks fantastic though. From what i have seen and experienced in the beta, the same can be said for balance and the game will definitely be getting allot of sales on the first day.

So as to not bore you further by droning on in detail about boring specifics, ill show you starcraft itself. Below, we have the youtube channels of two people who are very good players in addition to excellent commentators. Games they show are for the most part very high rank matches and are usually packed with tons of action and sneaky tactics. I'll probably bring more information on starcraft later, like custom maps and more detail of mechanics. Thanks for reading. GL HF

http://www.youtube.com/user/HDstarcraft
http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft