Jim Raynor does not fly coach.
The general understanding among nerds of the world is that Starcraft II will in fact make a worthy successor to the original. Certainly, there are some naysayers – most notably in the world of professional eSports and the one games journalist who hated the original Half-Life. That guy can’t do anything right.
Overall, however, the game looks poised to stomp faces and open wallets across the globe, which is really where the true measure of success lies. Sure, the squawking minority can scream and yell about APM, game speeds and the fact that the thing doesn’t play like an exact clone of the original, but it’s the casual gamers, the ones who only know that “blowing things up in space is neat”, that are going to drive Blizzard’s sales.
Blizzard is cool with that.
In an effort to further increase its already “I’m 200 pounds overweight and I’m still hungry”-sized slice of the money pie, Blizzard recently went ahead with plans to hold a big to-do in the form of a tournament at the Air Korea hangar in, not surprisingly, Korea.
In addition to the star-studded event, Blizzard also got all corporate and partnered with Air Korea to have two planes detailed with a big-ass image of the game’s great Terran hero, Jim Raynor. While it appears that they’ve removed the habitual cigarette from his mouth – we heard he was trying to cut back – his massive body armor, coupled with the Terran Battlecruisers streaking in from over his head and the giant Starcraft II logo on the body of the plane do a pretty good job of getting the message across.
The two planes, as well as four limousine buses (think a regular Limo but in bus form, plus the addition of possible stripper poles. Oh yeah. Classy.) have been decked out in Starcraft II digs, and will be proudly shuttling people around for the next six months.
Of note here is the fact that Korean Air is savvy enough to get on this band wagon, a trend which is just starting to catch on, and not always for the betterment of society. Recently, we noticed that our local 7-11 was giving away in-game rewards for things like Farmville and Mafia Wars whenever a Slurpee was purchased, and frankly that made us angry, mostly because those games are stupid, and those advertising dollars could be better spent elsewhere.
Fortunately, Starcraft II is not stupid, and we’re totally on board with this advertising. Also on board is Pepsi, whose logo occupies a place on the tail of the Starcraft II plane.
We can see the crossover now.
A Gauss rifle wielding Raynor, Pepsi in hand, comes bursting into a hive of Zerg, who freeze, bottles of Coca-Cola dropped from their dripping mandibles. With a loud gulp, Raynor drains the can, then crushes it on the front of his armor and throws it at the lead Zerg. “Ah!” He exclaims, even as he brings his rifle to bear. “Refreshing!” he yells into the camera, as Zerg body parts fly past him to crash against the wall and ceiling. Starwipe. Fade to black.
Pepsi. Zerg don’t like it. Fight on!
Blizzard is making the right choices here – trying to keep the profile of the game as high as possible as the wait for the release date slips into the “weeks” rather than “months” category. They’ve got a worthy sequel, one capable of taking up the crown and doing the legacy proud.
They’ve also got the potential to prop up a pitiful excuse for the true master of the RTS expanse, a King who wears his crown only by tradition, sucks his thumb on the throne and can’t figure out why people keep bowing every time he says something mind-bendingly asinine.
It’s in your hands now, Blizzard.
Please, err on the side of caution.
