Back in May, I was privileged to attend Blizzard's World Wide Invitational event in Seoul, Korea where the long-awaited StarCraft II was finally unveiled. Even as I got caught up in the excitement of the announcement, though, there were still a few niggling doubts that came up as I watched the demonstration. I wondered how Blizzard would manage to deepen the strategy without losing the near-perfect balance and ease-of use that epitomizes the original StarCraft. How could they make a deeper and more involving game while still maintaining the same number of units and an interface as simple and uncluttered as the original? Finally, with all the expectations built up over 10 years, could the new game live up to the dreams that fans of the original had for it?

My hands-on time with StarCraft II at BlizzCon has answered at least a few of those questions. The first thing I noticed as I started the game was just how much the new game looks and feels like the original. The interface is almost completely identical, although the unit selection limit is gone. Selected units still show up as portraits in the interface although the portraits are now in full 3D. Finally, units still have witty and interesting things to say when players click on them. While many of these were placeholder sound files from the original game, more than a few of the new units had speech. Transforming Terran Vikings, for example, will say "Transform and roll out!" when clicked on and clicking too many times on the Terran Marine will have him say "I vote we frag our new commander!"


The game is graphically similar to the original as well. That's not to say it isn't beautiful. It is. Unit animations, building construction cycles and combat are absolutely gorgeous and 10 years of graphic improvement and being able to display the world in 3D has brought a level of detail to the world that's just stunning. Lighting effects give units on both sides a sort of neon glow and little details jump out at the player wherever they look. The Terran merc hangout, for example, is a bar with a holographic display of a dancing Night Elf on it. The new Vespene gas refinery has an animated arm that pulls out a barrel and places it into a feeder tube whenever an SCV enters the facility. The camera is also zoomable, though the farthest zoom level is still rather close which mimics the claustrophobic feel of the original. For all the technological improvements, though, the art style remains consistent. It's impossible to look at StarCraft II running on a screen and not immediately recognize it as StarCraft.

It wasn't until I started actually playing, though, that many of my doubts evaporated. The game still feels and controls like StarCraft, (and based on my multiplayer experience, is still as vulnerable to rushes as StarCraft) but the strategic "feel" of the game has altered quite a bit. Even the littlest things have a huge impact. The decision to remove the 12-unit control cap, for example, cuts down on the need for small, specialized squads. While I didn't have time to get as deeply into the strategy as I would have liked, I quickly started working out larger mixed-unit squads that would have a large number of a particular unit as a core with a mix of a few other types as support. It seems like removing the cap and allowing players to create task forces rather than surgical squads will give more tactical flexibility.