This week on the site, we want to celebrate some of the heroes of the PC gaming community. People who've devoted huge amounts of their free time to making something awesome for the rest of us to enjoy. Today we're talking to Mike Husky, whose commentary on competitive StarCraft 2 matches makes the bewildering action understandable, exciting and often funny for millions of gamers.
PC Gamer: Can you remember your first introduction to StarCraft? Where did you buy it – were you looking forward to it beforehand?
Husky: My very first introduction to StarCraft was when it had just come out and I was 10 or 11 years old. I was over at my friends house and he was playing it. At the time I was really big into the original Command and Conquer, so it was a natural step to try out the new RTS game on the market. Once I finally got my own copy about 6 months later I played it at least once a month for the next 12 years until the release of the SC2 beta.
PC Gamer: When did you first get drawn into the pro-gaming scene? What actually attracted you?
Husky: I had always known about the pro-gaming scene in Korea but did not follow it closely until about 3 years ago. I stumbled upon an English stream of pro-games from Korea called GOMTV, that was my very first introduction to the pro scene. Once I saw my first live cast I was completely hooked and tuned in at around 3am every week for the next year or so.
PC Gamer: Did you play heavily on Battle.net when the original StarCraft was still popular?
Husky: I did! I had an account with several thousand games on it that I would use to practice. I originally was not big into 1v1 but opted for more team play games as well as custom maps. Battle.net was amazing for its time.
PC Gamer: Why did you start shoutcasting – was it the SC2 beta that prompted you?
Husky: It just sort of happened one day. I was home from college for a couple of days and didn't really have anything else to do. I had seen the English commentary from inside Korea but was not aware that there was a community of English shoutcasters on YouTube. Once I started up I quickly found that there were others doing the same thing I was but I kept at it because I absolutely loved what I was doing. It quickly got to a point where I was uploading 100 videos a month and slowly began to grow much larger than I had anticipated. The announcement of SC2 didn't directly influence my decision to do shoutcasting, I had been a StarCraft fan all my life.
PC Gamer: What's your favourite SC2 beta match? Any must sees that you can recommend to our readers?
Husky: I think one of the best StarCraft 2 matches of the beta would be NonY vs Moonglade from our own HDH Invitational tournament (below). This game shows how much attention and multitasking StarCraft 2 takes at the very highest levels. There are hundreds of similarly epic games from the beta though :)
PC Gamer: What makes a good shoutcast?
Husky: This is really up to personal preference. Some people prefer a highly analytical and education form of casting to improve their game, while others prefer a more casual or energetic feel. I think it really shows in the quality of the cast if the person doing it loves what they are doing and really wants to help spread the popularity of StarCraft.
PC Gamer: What are you plans for tonight? Staying up all night to play, or going to a launch event?
Husky: I'm going to be attending a midnight release near Portland, Oregon. It isn't one of the official Blizzard events but I think it will still be a lot of fun. I have gone to this same place for all the Blizzard midnight releases. Once I get home I plan to hit the single player all night to test out the campaign before finally getting back into multiplayer.
PC Gamer: If you were going to give our readers one piece of advice for playing SC2 online – what would it be?
Husky: Have fun! No matter the skill level of the player there is a place for them on Battle.net. Blizzard has done a fantastic job of creating a unique match-making system to pair you against people of similar gaming experience. The days of getting constantly owned every day are now over so I highly encourage anyone that picks up StarCraft 2 to play at least one game online.
