Baseball Prospectus Introduces SIERA: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. – Yeah, this is in-depth, heavy sabermetric reading. Only recommended for advanced stat nerds. It’s about a new pitching statistic that apparently more accurately predicts Johan Santana’s greatness compared to FIP, so I obviously approve of it.

Jose Reyes v. Barry Larkin – I’ve been down on Reyes for a while now, but this post on Amazin’ Avenue attempts to show that perhaps I’m being a bit stupid.

Starcraft II: Some Thoughts on the Beta – I wish this were me linking to my own post.

The Top of Our Game – A short post on the absurdity of media coverage of politics today — mainly its focus on image and perception.

Glenn Beck Declares War – Not really, but he’s still insane. Or a genius. Or both.

Arnold Schwarzeneggar Has A Question For His Golf Partner: “When Was Your Last Blowjob?” – Awesome. He runs the most populous state in the Union.

An Open Letter to “Lost” Fanatics – This is beautiful. I can’t wait until it’s over and everyone is dissatisfied with the ending. I’m not bitter about how Battlestar Galactica wrapped up at all. Nope.

Tiger Woods Announces Return To Sex – Cocktail waitresses around the world are wet in anticipation.

Emails were apparently sent out today for the closed Starcraft 2 beta. I did not receive an email. This is bullshit.

What do I need to do? I signed up for the beta day one (I think), I uploaded my computer specs, and I registered my Starcraft Battle Chest and my Warcraft III and Frozen Throne keys. Did I need my Diablo and Diablo II keys? Would that have gotten me in? Do I blame my dad for throwing out a shitload of PC game cases I had piled up that included those two games? Do I have him to blame for extending my wait to experience the game I’ve been anticipating for a dozen years? Just tell me. TELL ME. WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!?

I guess I can give up Starcraft II for Lent now, though. Unless of course I get an email in a later wave — then all is forgiven. And Starcraft II is chosen over God.

Diablo II came out 8 years ago at the turn of the century. With the addition of its expansion pack Lord of Destruction in 2001, it became the most addictive game ever before the existence of WoW. But I believe it still holds the title for most people killed in internet cafe marathons — and the victims didn’t even need to pay a monthly fee. I’m going admit here and now that I shamefully never actually played Diablo II with LoD.

My D2 experience is almost solely limited to a summer where I broke my left thumb, leaving a mouse-click fest such as D2 as my only gaming choice. Not that it was something I resented — it was obviously addictive and fun as hell — but I may never have sunk that many hours into it otherwise. Nevertheless, I didn’t even finish the game, because of the worst gaming mistake of my life. I dropped the wand I had built my entire necromancer character around in town so I could pick up some other stuff or whatever. I don’t remember the specifics of why I fucked up so bad. Needless to say, I saved and exited while my wand lied on the ground. It was gone. I had just opened up the portal to Act IV, nearing the very end of the game, when I fucked it all up. This occurrence just so happened to sync perfectly with my cast getting removed, and I pretty much never picked up the game again.

Since then, the only similar game I’ve played is Titan Quest, and while playing that I’ve often thought to myself, “Why the fuck am I even playing this game?” I just run around, killing dudes by clicking on them, picking up the shit they drop, making a portal to go back to town when my inventory is full, trading everything for gold, and then rinse and repeat. So do I even want Diablo III? It’s going to be the same core gameplay, as this is Blizzard we’re talking about. They’ve released videos and the graphics don’t exactly impress. Do I really want to sink hours of time into just trying to get increasingly progressive loot? I guess it’d be more fun with other people, but isn’t that just what WoW is? And fuck WoW.

On the other hand, Starcraft is quite possibly my favorite PC game of all-time. The day I got my mom to buy me the Starcraft Battle Chest at Price Club (now known as Costco), was one of the most glorious days of my life. This was almost 10 years ago. I didn’t even know what the game was, but it sure looked cool. When I got home to play it, I had a game that blew away C&C:Red Alert and Age of Empires. Sure, I loved those two RTS games, but this was the combination of every cool sci-fi thing ever! Actually, I take that back a little bit — Red Alert was still awesome. Just the three totally different, yet balanced, factions of Terran, Zerg, and Protoss was an incredible feat to me. Not to mention the cutscenes were badass and the Battle.net multiplayer was both fun and simple as hell to use.

I repeat: This was TEN YEARS AGO. A decade. Starcraft is arguably still the most balanced RTS ever created. Actually, thinking about it, I’m not even sure if it’s debatable, considering the massive of amount of Koreans that still play competitively. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less archaic. The unit path-finding is beyond godawful, the A.I. is a cheating bastard, and it’s 10 YEARS OLD. I played the game in middle school; I am now a college graduate and I don’t have my hands on a sequel. I need it. Millions of people across the world need it. Red Alert 3 won’t satisfy our urge. Dawn of War II – no matter how awesome it may look — won’t satiate either. We need our Blizzard overlords to fill the hole in our lives. We need to kill lings and hydras without mercy in 3D and in a resolution higher than 640×480.

Starcraft II is just needed more than Diablo III. If you feel differently, vote to make me feel wrong. If you agree, vote so the Diablo fans know why their game is coming after ours.

I was going to embed the poll in this post, but I think a better idea would be to place it on the sidebar so no matter what post you’re looking at, it’s there. I want as many people as possible to vote. This is important stuff we’re doing. So look at the top right of my blog. And vote. Or die.

And it still may be a year away.

And that will only be one-third of the single-player campaign.

Wait, WHAT?

No doubt the biggest news to come out of this year’s Blizzcon is that the only campaign that will ship with Starcraft II is the Terran campaign. No Zerg, no Protoss. You’re going to need to learn how to utilize the new units for those two races by playing comp stomps or getting owned by Koreans. Although, there are rumors of tutorial missions for each race.

So expect Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm in 2010, and Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void in 2011 at the EARLIEST. You’ll have to make due with what better be an absolutely epic Terran campaign and full multiplayer in the meantime (or Diablo III might actually be out by then). The pessimistic consensus seems to be Holiday 2009 for the first part of the trilogy – Wings of Liberty. I’m sure Blizzard knows to make sure that Terran campaign is mind-blowingly awesome, so people are willing to shell out for two more single-player-only expansions.

I just can’t believe how long this damn game is taking. World of Warcraft has really taken over at Blizzard. It’s only natural to make sure your CASH COW OF HISTORICAL PROPORTIONS is first priority. Almost 11 million monthly subscribers. They should be giving Starcraft II away for free. I really wanted to bitch more about this trilogy bullshit, but it would only end in me eating crow when I bought each part on release date and loved every second.

In order to make the wait that much more unbearable, here are four YouTube videos of two matches played at Blizzcon. I hope you don’t get blue balls like I did from not being able to see the conclusion of the second game. I wanted to see massive destruction go down.

Match 1 – Part 1

Match 1 – Part 2

Match 2 – Part 1

Match 2 – Part 2

Yeah, I can’t believe I watched all of those either. The following cinematic washed that shame out of my mouth, though.

2 minutes of the Starcraft II Intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQoBnKa-e4E

I need a new PC for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohgj9WDXSRo

It’s pretty crappy quality, but I don’t care. It’ll take forever to download the HD version with Blizzard’s worthless torrent client, once that is posted. Unlike the game that was just released today, this is truly the game of the year (even though it will almost definitely not be released this year).

Also, some impressions from serious Koreans HERE.