StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

aka: Medusa, SC2:WoL
Moby ID: 47486
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Victory looks different. Yes, the United Earth Directorate is no more and the Overmind has finally been destroyed. The Terran world Tarsonis now lies in ruins, as does the Protoss homeworld of Aiur. The Queen of Blades, formerly known as Sarah Kerrigan, is still out there and Arcturus Mengsk's administration turns out to be even more dangerous than the Confederacy. No wonder that four years after the events of StarCraft: Brood War, Jim Raynor is trying to drown his sorrows with booze while helping the rebels on Mar Sara in the fight against Mengsk's Dominion. The trot changes, however, when one day Tychus Findley, imprisoned for life by the Dominion, shows up proposing a deal. Soon after that, Backwater Station is overrun by the Zerg, who are now the dominant species in the Koprulu Sector, revealing an invasion of the Terran systems. So, Raynor retreats to his flagship, the battlecruiser Hyperion, and once again enters the fight for survival - and the search for his beloved Kerrigan.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the first part in the StarCraft II trilogy. As such, most of the 29 missions of the single-player campaign have the player fight on the Terran side. There are, however, a few missions where the Protoss Zeratul gets to tell parts of his side of the story, with the player controlling him and his Protoss friends. Most of the missions feature different and changing objectives but are, at their core, all about real-time strategy, with the player more often than not having to build up his base from scratch, collect the two resources, produce and upgrade an army and fight the usual suspects: other Terrans, Zerg, and Protoss. The gameplay is pretty straightforward RTS, using a rock-paper-scissors system in combat between the three very different races, with each unit vulnerable to several other units and vice versa.

As the campaign progresses, the player automatically gains access to new units, which he can then upgrade in the Armory of the Hyperion in exchange for money, also earned throughout the missions. Each unit and some of the buildings can be upgraded two times, unlocking new abilities for the unit. The stimpack for the Marines, for example, which allows them to do more damage for a short amount of time at the expense of some health. In addition, there's the Laboratory on the Hyperion. Here, the scientists research Zerg and Protoss DNA, which the player collects during missions by fulfilling bonus objectives. These range from simply gathering samples from dead Zerg to killing a hulking Brutalisk. After each five tiers of the DNA double helix, the player can choose between two possible upgrades in each research tree, allowing him, for example, to either automate the collection of Vespine Gas or build two SCVs at once. Once both research trees have been completed, each additional DNA artifact is sold for a sum of credits.

The third deck on the Hyperion is the bridge. Here, the player chooses one from up to three missions as his next assignment, has the ability to replay both the in-game cutscenes and the rendered sequences, and replay old missions, e.g. on a higher difficulty level to earn additional achievements or to discover the consequences of different choices as the branching plot unfolds.

The fourth deck is the Cantina. Here, the player can look at trophies earned for completing a story strand (e.g. all missions given by Tychus), watch the news, hire mercenaries (who will then become available in all upcoming missions in exchange for resources) or play a round of "The Lost Viking". The latter is a full-blown vertical-scrolling shooter like Raptor: Call of the Shadows, built with the included Starcraft Galaxy Editor and featuring many elements of the main game.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty also offers an extensive multiplayer mode which differs greatly from the single-player experience. The player can play as any of the three races but the available units differ in part from the ones available to him in the campaign. The Terran Medic, for example, has been cut - only the flying Medivac can be built. Nine challenges are available to test the abilities of the player to e.g. know which units are best against others or how to survive the infamous Zerg rush. In addition, after entering the multiplayer, the player has to play several practice rounds during which the game judges his skill and throws him in one of the five leagues (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond) and activates the match-making feature. Here, or in custom games, he can fight against up to eight players on 61 maps, some of which are specially made beginner's versions of other maps to prevent early rushes. The maps are divided into several categories based on gameplay type, like coop, simple free-for-all or team matches, and the number of players; eight being the largest number of players a map can hold. Bots are available to fill up open slots and additional achievements are waiting to be earned in order to unlock new avatar pictures or troop banners.

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Credits (Windows version)

4,280 People (3,862 developers, 418 thanks) · View all

Game Design
  • Blizzard Entertainment
Executive Producer
Design Director
Story Director
Art Director
In-Game Cinematics Art Director
Lead Designer
Lead Producer
Lead Programmers
Lead Technical Artist
Lead Writers
Art Leads
Artists
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 92% (based on 67 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 78 ratings with 2 reviews)

Want to actually buy this game? Wish I could.

The Good
It has the excellent gameplay of the original Star Craft: choose one of the well-balanced factions, build up your base, gather vespene gas, build additional pylons, attack the enemy, be victorious or die. And all that in a beautiful environment.

The graphics look stunning. Every unit type can be distinguished well from the others. Some buildings look rather similar, though.

What makes it even more fun than the original is the speed. Everything goes much faster! You no longer need to wait forever to get all techs researched or to build up a descend army.

And the story! It continues the one of Brood Wars and it makes it worth playing the single player campaign, even if you're the multiplayer type of guy. In theory, at least. See below.

The Bad
It's advertised as a full game, but that's not what it is. It's just the Terran campaign, Zerg and Protos will be delivered later - at full price, of course. And don't say "the Terran campaign alone is so long". Developing the game must have taken much more time than creating the campaign, so that's no excuse.

Oh, and you have to pay extra for all the "downloadable premium content". Sure. After you registered your game, stored your savegames online, be online all the time and let Activision mirror your harddrive. Thanks.

Okay, at least I can gather my friends, we all install the game and play. Nope. The spawn function is gone, absolutely everybody has to own a copy. Fine, so everybody gets a copy, we meet, order pizza and start are ready to get going. Still no. Why, you ask? Because there is no LAN function. It's just no there! So you need like half a dozen internet connections at one place. Brilliant, just brilliant.

Sad. But I will be able to play against my buddies from Brazil and Australia, right? Right? Wrong! There's an entirely pointless region code. A region code! I don't believe it!

They ruined the multiplayer function of a game that was a highly anticipated multiplayer game. Yes, they really did.

The Bottom Line
Don't buy this game. Oh, wait, you can't buy it, you can only rent it online, because it's a full-price browser game, so forget what I just said. And forget this game as well.

Windows · by Katharian Berg (17) · 2011

It is about time!

The Good
After ten years almost every thing about this game is to like. Updated graphics, UI, gameplay - story even, this masterpiece has it all, and to top it all off it's (the storyline) is not even done with!-There's two more acts coming.

The Bad
The main thing to dislike about StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is the DRM, basically you cannot play if you do not have an internet connection and that's not just for multiplayer that's the single player part of the game as well, and even if you log in while online and lose your connection the Achievement system is then taken down so whatever level or mission you are in -you lose any chance you had getting that tough achievement. Another major feature to well dislike is that there are certain units in the single player campaign that can not be used In the online multiplayer games.

The Bottom Line
StarCraft 2:Wings of Liberty is a great opening act to the new trilogy, it updates the old game with new everything and gives both veterans and rookies a thrilling experience and with only a few faults this title will defiantly keep you coming back to your PC.

Windows · by Saint Azrael (1) · 2013

Trivia

References

Blizzard games have always been known for referencing to various songs, films and other games in the unit quotes. In StarCraft II, references expanded to cutscenes, as Tychus Findlay mentions that he was being transported to New Folsom Prison. This refers to Johnny Cash's song Folsom Prison Blues. In addition, the cafeteria has a game machine with a variation of Space Invaders named after Blizzard's 1992 The Lost Vikings that features StarCraft II aircraft.

Awards

  • Spike Video Game Awards
    • 2010 - Best PC Game
    • 2010 - Best Performance by a Human Female (for Tricia Helfer's voice work for Kerrigan)
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • 2010 - Best PC Strategy Game (Readers' Voting)
  • IGN
    • 2010 - 5th in the Top 25 Modern PC Games
    • 2010 - 17th in the Top 100 Videogame Villains (for Kerrigan)
  • GameSpot
    • 2010 - All-Time Greatest Game Villain (Readers' Voting) (for Kerrigan) - After being selected by the GameSpot staff as one of the 54 villains to make it directly into the First Round, she defeated Gruntilda in the First Round, earning 77.9% of the votes, the Pac-Man Ghosts in the Second Round (57.8%), Sweet Tooth in the Last Sixteen (67.1%), Bowser in the Quarterfinals (51.8%), The Joker in the Semifinals (55.2%) and Darth Vader in the Final (60%).
  • PC Gamer
    • 2011 - 9th in the Top 100 Best PC Games of All Time
  • Game Industry News
    • 2010 PC Game of Year (As voted on by readers)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sicarius.

Additional contributors: Zeppin, Big John WV, Patrick Bregger, Cavalary, Plok, Juan Miguel Gamotia, Evolyzer.

Game added August 12, 2010. Last modified January 18, 2024.