Hi Everyone, I’ve been hearing a lot of doubters saying that Starcraft 2 won’t be as good as the original, and even a few people say that they wont play it all together.

Here’s something for the nay sayers to chew on, and for the SC vets to bring up some old memories :D

Watch the Video Here

Discuss your opinion Here

So with nice warm weather in Canada SCU brings to YOU the ^——– RotwC.

That’s right the ROTWC. Pronounced “Rot-WUUCK” the contest allows people to submit their replays Here. The winning replay will be posted on the front page and the user will receive a custom title. More info in the Courtyard.

After observing screen shots from Blizzard and other fansites, I noticed a common trend. Starcraft 2 is very colorful, and the question I then asked myself was this: Is Starcraft 2 too colorful?. An argument could be made that they are simply mimicking the art style from the original SC, which featured hand-drawn sprites. It is very difficult to accomplish the same art style while working in a 3D environment. A (more…)

Albert “Gentho” Berriz has written a wonderful article about the current situation of competitive gaming. The article is entitled “Starcraft: Foreign Warriors”. Not only is this a great article about competitive gaming, but Starcraft University makes an appearance in it as well!

An excerpt from the article:

Chad “Goon” Tracy has been operating a community website called Starcraft University for the past six years. His website is dedicated to helping newcomers to the Starcraft community develop as gamers. Chad credits Starcraft itself for the sustained traffic his website receives. “It’s the pure love of the game. I mean, this game has so many strategic options that it is almost impossible to completely conquer every aspect of the game…

Read the full article here.

Discuss this article here.

Blizzard has recently added a new unit page to its site. This unit is a classic unit that all Protoss have come to love: the Observer!

Excerpt from Blizzard.com:

These small drones are employed to survey vast wasteland areas or observe and record battles for study within the protoss archives. Their complex sensor array leaves little energy for defenses, but they can detect cloaked or concealed enemies with ease. This ability makes observers invaluable auxiliary units on the battlefield.

You can read more about this unit as well as watch it in action here!

Blizzcon introduced the first time that people could get their hands on the Starcraft 2 demo. The devs also showed off some additional footage and gave people a live demonstration of how the game will act and function. You can view the live demonstration of Starcraft 2 here.

Blizzard recently released word that they were making Starcraft 2. With this announcement came many videos demonstrations, screen shots, and explanations giving insight into one of the most influential video game titles in history.

Unfortunately, no release date has been set but from the look of things, they have been at this for quite some time. The game looks extremely polished as well as having a new and improved physics engine.

Check out

http://www.starcraft2.com

for the latest screen shots and information straight from the source, including a video demonstration of the Protoss race.

Gamespot has grouped together some interesting videos including a Blizzard round table Q&A discussion about SC:2.

This video and more can be found here.

If the downloads are too big, or your looking for more videos, you can always trust Youtube for reliable videos, check them out here.

And as always, Teamliquid.net provides up-to-date coverage of Starcraft happenings as well as Starcraft 2! An overview of the game, units, and videos can be found here.

After you are finished checking all of this wonderful information out, feel free to stop back by our forums and discuss it here!

I recently picked up this relatively new title from Obsidian, and I have to say, the game has exceeded my expectations. For those of you who don’t know, Neverwinter Nights 2 is a game based on the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 ruleset. It isn’t an exact translation, but it is pretty close, and does a pretty good job of staying as true to the rules as possible. Obsidian is new to the block though, they kinda took over the Bioware line of games. So basically, they have a lot to live up to, Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights 1, for example. Anyway, I was pleasantly suprised by this game, as it took the things I loved about Baldur’s Gate and the things I loved about Neverwinter Nights and came to a happy medium.
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Wolf Game 2 Prep is taking place right now in the other games forum. the thread can be found here and the rules can be found here be sure to check it out, and if we play again, sign up!

Rise of Legends is the recently (within the past year) released sequel to the popular Rise of Nations. Big Huge Games and Microsoft collaborated to create a playable, enjoyable RTS game. This game is set in a fantasy world, with three races competing for supremacy. First, there is Vinci. They are the most human-like race, known for their inventive genius (named after Leonardo Da Vinci). Second, the Cuotl race. They are a very high-tech, yet somehow strangely natural, race of powerful cyborgs. Third, Alin. Alin is a zerg-like race with a large amount of low hitpoint units that you can happily fling at your opponent, much to his chagrin.

Gameplay: (7). I was pleasantly surprised that the game runs very smoothly. Compared to the newly released RTS game, Paraworld, it is like being on cloud nine. This game offers a plethora of user-friendly options such as completely customizable hotkeys for nearly everything you can think of, making it easy to adapt to your personal playstyle. There is very little delay in units reponses; micro plays a key role in each and every game of RoL. However, as you can surely guess, compared with our beloved Starcraft and Warcraft III, this game only gets a 7 out of a 10 point scale for playability.

Graphics: (8). If you have a $3,000 alienware computer with a killer graphics card, feel free to turn your graphics all the way up and lean back in your chair as you watch a beautiful movie. This game was very well made, with graphic quality far exceeding that of Age of Empires III or Paraworld. The engine used to make this game seems different from the one used to make Warcraft, making them somewhat difficult to compare in this department, but do note that Warcraft III graphics do not have much on RoL.

Online Competition: (3). This is the true downfall of RoL. At any given time during the day, you will find between only 20-150 people logged on to the Gamespy-hosted server. Gamespy does a relatively poor job as the server, contributing to the low player volume on this well-made RTS game. However, there is a decent sized cult following for this game, made up of some decent gamers, so there is competition to be had. Bottom line is, BNet would smack down Gamespy 3-0 in a best of five series. What would we do without Blizzard?

If you are tired of Starcraft (is this possible?) and Warcraft III, this game should be on the top of your list for new games to try. Below are some links for those interested in checking out the RoL scene or purchasing the game.

GameReplays.org - Main Community Site
RiseofLegends.com - Official RoL site
GameStop - Purchase game from GameStop