Most missions take around 30 minutes to complete on Normal difficulty, so even if you beat each one the first time you play, and never go back for the secondary objectives, the game is 13 hours long. Lava that rises and lowers? Zombie-like enemies that only come out at night? Trains to attack while you avoid a roving death squad? Weapons to steal and then use against the enemy? These missions are much more involved and creative than most real-time strategy games, and that level of care and design doesn't happen quickly.
Each mission has at least one gimmick, one trick, or one new unit to introduce to the player. The single-player missions in StarCraft 2 are nowhere near as formulaic and repetitive as we're used to. The number of missions nearly matches the entirety of the first game, but that's only half the story. Did Blizzard think we wouldn't notice the missing missions? For shame! I'm off to rant angrily in the comment sections of popular online retailers! One gamer complained in our forum that he was able to beat the single-player campaign in a single sitting. StarCraft 2 only has 26 missions, according to the archives terminal on your ship's bridge. The original game featured 10 missions for each of the three races, for a total of 30.
Average starcraft 2 game length cracked#
The question is a good one: is StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty a hobbled experience, cracked into three parts in order to feed the chubby god of Activision's bottom line? We're still spending hours each day playing the game to get ready for the full review on Sunday, but we have thoughts on the matter we're ready to share now. Looking at Blizzard's history with shipping games, we feel safe assuming that it won't be a matter of months.
The Amazon ratings for StarCraft 2 have become a battlefield, with many rating the game based on features that gamers feel should have been included, or trashing the game because it's only one-third of the full release the Zerg and Protoss sections of the campaign will be released at some point in the future. The Internet, taken as a sort of buzzing collective, can be hard on games.