Starcraft II (Trilogy Announcement)

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20603

Mmm... I don't know I feel about this one. It's all going to depend on their pricing plan for the second two installments of the Starcraft II trilogy, the amount of multiplayer content they provide on top of the Zerg and Protoss single-player campaigns in those releases, and Blizzard's continued guarantee that Battle.net remains a free service. Not only that, but it's going to make for some wiggy game titles, like the Half-Life 2: Episode games or Star Wars: Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Molester - and those goofy titles just annoy the hell out of me.

Thankfully, Blizzard has assured gamers that the multiplayer will not be changed or scaled down for the game's initial release. That's good news - 'cause the loss of a full multiplayer client would have created a full blown diplomatic incident with South Korea, making our relations with North Korea seem quite chummy in comparison. And as good as the single-player was in the first Starcraft, it was the multiplayer that made it a classic and kept it on people's hard drives for ten years. The same, I'm sure, will go for Starcraft II, with or without the expansion packs.

Personally, I'd rather wait the additional year Blizzard said it would take to make Starcraft II as one complete title and pay less for it, instead of dropping another - and this is just guessing here - 80-100 bucks to see how the story ends. But I look at it this way: this game was going to have expansion packs, and Blizzard has always given players their money's worth with their games. Right now, I'm cautiously optimistic, though still a bit irked to know this game is going to lighten my wallet considerably more than I previously expected. The real make or break for me is whether they can actually get the first installment out in 2009 and, more importantly, release the next two installments on a yearly basis after that.

And speaking of getting the next installment out in a year or less, where the hell is Half-Life 2: Episode 3? And how do you make an episode 1, 2, and 3 for a game that already exists? Damn you, Valve and Blizzard, for delaying your games repeatedly and always making them worth the wait, to say nothing of your silly game titles.