StarCraft II Closed Beta Impressions – Part 1 - News

by Craig S , posted on 18 February 2010 / 4,540 Views

The Beta has been live now for just a few short hours, and I’ve just managed to download, install, log in and play my very first StarCraft 2 match on behalf of VGChartz. What I thought I’d do is quickly talk through the new look Battle.net ahead of the more detailed impressions that I'll post for each race when I’ve got a few matches under my belt.

As you might expect with a Beta, you’re highly limited in what you have access to. However, a lot of the content that will eventually be accessible come release is on show, albeit currently blanked out and inaccessible. So you can already tell, just from these blanked out features and the ones we do have access to, how much of an improvement this new-look Battle.net is going to be over the old interface for the original StarCraft.

For starters, everything is so much more streamlined than before. Movement between all of the menu screens is seamless, the interface looks and feels less industrial and more technological, there are so many more options and it’s all very user-friendly.

In the screenshot above is my main profile page, and it's from here you have access to all of the content on offer. You select your main user name, which is what everyone else will see, as well as a secondary title in order to distinguish you from others who may share the same name. There are also a number of different StarCraft unit pictures for you to access and use as avatars, and there's no doubt ample opportunity for an achievement and ranking system (not available in the Beta) to allow for more avatar options to be unlocked.

From your main profile page it's easy to get into a ranked match, and the new league and ladder system (on show in the screenshot above) adds a much-needed automated matchmaking system to the franchise, all based on rank. I'll let you know how well that works out in practice once I've built up a large enough match history for the matchmaking system to work effectively.

Playing my first match was easy enough using the built-in matchmaking system. It's a simple matter of choosing your preferred game type (1v1, 2v2 etc.), race (Protoss, Zerg, Terran or Random), appropriate League, and then starting the search. It took just 1 minute for it to pair me off against someone, and we automatically went straight into the game after a brief loading screen. The match was completely lag free I'm glad to report.

The post-match screen is similar to the original one. However, there is one new addition in particular which caught my eye - a complete breakdown of the build order of both you and your opponent. This is a fantastic addition. If, like me, you would often read up on strategies and rough build order guides for the original StarCraft, then this should come in handy for perfecting your gameplay.

The final thing I want to touch upon is the overhaul of the replay system. The very fact that there was such a feature in the original StarCraft was great in and of itself. However, it was far from perfect - the replay directory was a pain to access and could quickly become a clogged up mess, relying as it did on the user to properly name and order them. Subsequent patches also had a nasty habit of corrupting pre-patch replays.

Now, as you can see from the first screenshot, the game files and orders replays for you automatically, and there are plenty of filter options to allow you to easily locate a specific replay you might be looking for. This replay system looks set to be a massive improvement over the first.

The replays themselves also offer significantly more features and options. For example, the amount of statistics you can now track is a dream come true for more serious StarCraft players, or those just curious to marvel at the abilities of professional players once you can start downloading their replays. Everything from APM (Actions Per Minute) to precise unit breakdowns is on show.

That's it for my brief introduction to the new look StarCraft 2 Battle.net. More detailed impressions will follow in the coming days and weeks as I get to test things out in greater depth, so be sure to keep an eye out for those if you enjoyed reading this one.

20 Comments

TheTruthHurts! (on 18 February 2010)

Your so lucky, I have been praying for a code.....alas....no go. Enjoy and please continue with all the juicy info.

My most anticipated game of the year.

The Ghost of RubangB (on 18 February 2010)

Congratulations on winning your first match! I hope I don't get creamed. I just beat all 6 original StarCraft campaigns to get ready for this. I'll probably have impressions ready next week after I play a ton of random matches and get in the swing.

willy0275 (on 18 February 2010)

Well, if I didn't have a mortgage to pay off, I'd leave my job and play this full time for a year!

White-Riderz (on 18 February 2010)

Goodbye life, Hello Starcraft 2!
Gunna be a fat dent in future university marks..

MirrorWorld (on 18 February 2010)

Sweetness, I can only hope my crappy comp is good enough to play this lol

huaxiong90 (on 18 February 2010)

I'm going to skip a whole semester to play this game. :-D

naznatips (on 18 February 2010)

You lucky bastard. I wanted that beta code.

Smeags (on 18 February 2010)

My life for the horde!

No wait...

En Taro Adun, Executor!

There we go! Can't wait for this to come out. ^_^

c0rd (on 18 February 2010)

No NDA, well... Blizzard does have confidence the game will fucking own, no matter what is shown.

This shit better come out soon. I'll be pissed if my comp can't handle it (I'm kinda scared of large matches).

Globox (on 18 February 2010)

wish i could play this...

r505Matt (on 18 February 2010)

@routsounmanman,

Seconded haha.

routsounmanman (on 18 February 2010)

This is gonna eat up huge amounts off my social life >_>

Delay? Please? :-P

hunter_alien (on 18 February 2010)

Just out of curiosity, how many games did you have to play untill you got the Victory screen? :-P JK

Sounds nice, its starcraft as we know it, tough Im still not sold with the 3 different game thing :|