What’s worse than playing video games all day?
by bacon on Jul.01, 2010, under PC, RTS
It’s watching someone else play all day.
I didn’t bother to pre-order StarCraft II and get the beta code since I don’t have a PC of good enough specs to play it at present. I’ll probably end up getting SC II at some point, think it release at the end of the month and that gives me at least a few weeks to scrounge a half decent gaming PC from part laying around at work.
Anyway, work sucks. I guess that’s a given. So I’ve taken to watching replays of StarCraft II games on YouTube, which is an astoundingly effective way to waste time at work.
Several months back, a friend introduced me to the fact that there is a Korean Pro Circuit for StarCraft. Huh? Yeah, people play it professionally, as in they make money doing it. Since it’s so popular over there, they have TV stations which carry the games and have commentators going nuts over these games like a guy on UniVision giving the play-by-play on Mexico vs Brazil in the World Cup final. That, my friends, is comedy.
The pro leagues haven’t picked up SC II yet, so right now it’s a bunch of young amateur replay broadcasters pumping out commentary on SC II video replays on YouTube. I figure I’m watching at least an hour or two of replays each day at my desk, and theoretically picking up some decent strategy for when I get to play it myself. Listening to these commentators trying to make like Howard Cosell is pretty funny. No way I could take any of this as seriously as they do. Worse, they tend to cast games by the same guys over and over again, and they seem to get a lot of the games from replay packs that the contenders post themselves, so it isn’t exactly a mystery as to who is going to win. Top that off with the wit an average 23 year old can bring to the table, listening to their bad puns gets kind of painful.
There are at least 4 guys that I’ve been following. At least decent.
http://www.youtube.com/HDstarcraft#g/u
http://www.youtube.com/HuskyStarcraft#g/u
http://www.youtube.com/StarCraftLegacy
http://www.youtube.com/BlizShouter
