Starcraft II

http://starcraft2.com/

From the people who brought you Starcraft, Warcraft 1-3, Diablo 1&2, and World of Warcraft comes the latest and probably greatest RTS of all time.

Starcraft II features many bonuses over its predecessor. First of all, the new full 3D experience and a variety of engines make the game more lively, as you blow up aircraft and they crumble to pieces onto the ground. The new artistic style is also a great change, as everything looks and feels different, in a good way. Even your HUD controls popping up is pretty awesome. The side panel of shortcuts is now a 4x4 grid instead of a 3x3, and it appears you can select quite a bit more than 12 units at the same time.

Of course, all three races are back, though there's no mention of any new ones as of yet, and all are still playable. However, the game will be released in three parts. The main Starcraft II disk will be the Terran Campaign, which will be the "initial release." All three races will be playable in multiplayer, but only the Terrans will have a storyline. As time goes on, the Zerg and Protoss will be popping up, in that order, as expansions. Similar to how Brood War doubled Starcraft's storyline and added content, the Zerg and Protoss campaigns will be much the same. With this new assortment, there's no telling if the standard Blizzard Expansion will happen to Starcraft II or not. Then again, this IS Blizzard, so it'd be easier to expect it to happen.

The Terran have seen some massive improvements. The balanced race of Starcraft is back and features some old favorites, but mostly new toys. The standard Marine and Siege tanks are back, but the Siege tank seems to have some close-range ability now in Siege mode. The SCVs have, of course, returned, and so have most of the buildings. The buildings appear similar, but they come with a lot of new abilities. The Supply Depots can now be lowered into the ground, allowing them to be built as toggleable barriers to hide ranged units behind. The Command Center can now be transformed into an alternate form (I think it was called something like the Planetary Defender) which pops a cannon out on top that blasts any foes to bits pretty quickly. Best of all, new attachments are available for the buildings, including one that gives the Barracks 2 build queues instead of a single build queue. As if were your birthday, they then tell you that the attachments are now interchangeable between buildings, meaning you can be popping out Battlecruisers at double speed. The 'Cruisers themselves now can be upgraded with a Yomata Cannon or a Plasma Array. Each upgrade is chosen on a Cruiser-by-Cruiser basis, allowing you to have a mixed fleet. The Yomata Cannon is just as it was in Starcraft, though the animation is a lot nicer and the charge time is shorter, but the Plasma Array rains down fire upon ground troops, making short work of Marines or Zerg swarms. The Terran now feature a Robotech style fighter that can switch between air and ground unit, a small raider-type unit, a Banshee (replacement for the Wraith), and a few more new units that do their jobs well. However, the Terran now have a new trump card. The Thor unit is a machine so massive that it cannot be built in a Factory. Instead, an SCV has to build it as if it were a building. This hulk has massive firepower and can switch to a special bombardment mode that can wipe out heavy units and buildings in seconds. Last but not least, the Ghost returns with a few new toys as well. The Ghost now has a Snipe ability that allows it to take out units like Zealots, Marines, and other Ghosts in one shot. It also now has the capability to bring down carriers with units in them as well as mark a Nuke. The new nuke marker is far more noticeable, but it also comes with a countdown timer built in (once you see it you'll know).

The Zerg have been kept under wraps for the most part. The creatures we have seen, though, are pretty vicious. The Zergling is back, and has lost its old bug feel to gain a new one more similar to that of a roach. The new animations make the zergling swarms just look disgusting as they writhe across the landscape, making no ground visible. They also now have the ability to morph into Banelings, which are essentially what Infested Terran were, except they don't set each other off and they don't need Terran around to do so, not to mention you'll always have spare zerglings to get rid of. The Queen may be seen in a few videos, but no real news has come out on her yet. Another one seen in the videos is the Ultralisk. As if it weren't devastating enough, it's now bigger and looks as tough as it is, instead of looking like a cockroach mixed with an elephant. If that weren't enough, they now, apparently, have the ability to burrow. That should say enough by itself. The Mutalisk has returned with its Glave Wurm, and looks pretty similar to what it once did. Now, however, it has some new forms to morph into, some of which look rather menacing, but no news as to what they are yet. The Hydralisk has returned, and it seems as if they've received a power boost to their spine shot, making them more useful than they once were. Not much else news in way of Zerg, but the Nydus Canal has now been replaced with the Nydus Worm/Wurm which can sprout in places that have no Creep, which fixes the strategic bug of the Canal. Other than all that, the Zerg still seem to have that air about them of "Anything will die if you throw enough troops at them."

Once you get into the Protoss, it becomes obvious that someone's playing favorites. As if things weren't going to be cool enough, everything that glows on the Protoss - the Archon's aura, the Zealot's psi-blades, the Pylon's crystal - is now the team's color instead of a pre-set color. Now that we're through with the least cool thing, let's start on the rest. First off, the Protoss can now warp anyone into a Pylon powered area. That's right, instant teleportation to ANYWHERE your pylon power reaches. As if to make things worse, the new Phase Prism, a Protoss ship, can convert itself at any time into a temporary Pylon, meaning it can create warp-zones for the Protoss at the press of a key/button/click of mouse/etc. As we move along, the Zealots are back, and they can now dash. If you've ever played Too Human, you'd know what kind of dashing I'm talking about. Did I mention it's automatic? That's right, the powerhouse of the basic unit can now lunge in and beat down their assailants faster than ever. This is horrendous to me, as a Zerg player. Next up comes the Immortal. The name kind of says it all. They are one what has become of the Dragoons, and they have a special kind of shield. Unlike the normal shield, it only powers up when the Immortal is hit by a heavy attack, and it will then block most of that damage. This means that a single Immortal is a decent threat to a cluster of Siege tanks. This is a Bad Thing. However, the shield doesn't activate for smaller attacks, meaning a zergling swarm can take one out quite nicely. To oppose this, the Dark Templar side of the Protoss has developed the Stalker, their version of the Dragoon/Immortal. Like the Immortal, the Stalker stands more upright than the Dragoon, and fires from that higher body. However, the four legs are still there. The Stalker features a smaller burst cannon than the Immortal, and is more fit for the smaller units. They also have the blink ability, which allows them to teleport short distances to overcome terrain or thwart escape attempts. Moving right along, the Corsair has been replaced by the Phoenix, which is a nice air fighter. It also has the ability to overload its engines and thereby deal massive damage to nearby units, though afterward it's immobile for a few seconds. The Dark Templar return in all their glory. They have no real new features, but they feature a new look. In this new look, they carry a two-sided scythe that looks pretty wicked. However, if you like the old look better, you can choose that, too. I guess someone at Blizzard was having mixed feelings about replacing them (especially since Zeratul is still in the old style). The Archon and Dark Archon have both been replaced by the Twilight Archon (not based on the movie). This powerhouse is reminiscent of the Archon itself, though it can be made from any combination of Dark and normal Templar. They have legs now, and walk very threateningly up to anyone and go all Palpatine on them, though Palpatine's not as quick about it. As previously mentioned, you can have green, purple, yellow, red, blue, and any other color they'll feature for your Archon's aura. As if the Protoss needed more massively devastating units...they now have a total of 4. The Colossus is a ground troop that is so friggin' tall that it can be hit by both ground and air troops. It features two massive lasers that it can sweep around and murder small ground troops with or focus on larger targets and destroy them instead. To make matters worse, this gargantuan can walk UP cliff faces. It can also walk down, but it's almost immune to terrain problems. The Warp Ray is another new unit. It's a flying unit that starts off shooting one beam. Then Two. Then three. Each beam focuses in on a crystal which directs the energy to a single target. As each beam comes in, the damage is significantly increased. Ignoring the obvious Star Wars ripoff, this weapon can be used to quickly take out bases and heavy units such as Thors, Battlecruisers, Siege Tanks, and Ultralisks. It's pretty useless against Hydralisks and Marines due to its time required to power up, but it has its power points. Don't worry your little heads, the Protoss Trump Card is back. The Carrier features few enhancements, the only one being its look, but, really, improving the Carrier just wouldn't be fair. The Carrier has, however, been outdone. The Mothership is a unit so powerful that any given team of Protoss can only make 1. However, this 1 can create a Time Bomb field which slows projectiles flying towards it. It can actually use this to sit in front of a line of Missile Turrets and not get touched. After the field wears off, the projectiles just fall to the ground harmlessly. There's also the Planet Cracker ability for the Mothership. When this is used, an array of lasers projects down onto the ground, and the mothership begins to spin as it utterly destroys anything below it. It can move around like this, and give a feel reminiscent of Destroy All Humans. The Mothership can also create a cloaking field similar to that of the Arbiter from Starcraft. However, this field works for buildings, too. As if the Mothership needed a little more to convince you, it also has a mega-attack against air troops. The mothership can create a black hole that sucks in air troops. Yeah...overkill.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm looking forward to the alleged release later this year, though we probably won't see it 'til 2010 or later. Though the Protoss look real mean right now, the Zerg's force has yet to be revealed, and the Terran have only begun to show their strength. I've not looked around yet to see how much it's going to cost, but you can currently reserve a copy at GameStop and some other dealers. You may also be able to scour the internet for some fan listings of Starcraft II units that are compiled knowledge from all the demo videos, which can be found on the Starcraft II site (see the top of this post).