A line of anxious gamers snakes around the booth at the Leipzig Games Convention, eager to get their hands on StarCraft II. The playable demo allows players to jump into the shoes (or tentacles) of any of the three races: Protoss, Terran, or Zerg. Two things jumped out at us as we sat down and fired up the game. First, Blizzard has seriously upped the graphical fidelity of the franchise without sacrificing the split-second breakneck pacing of the original. Disgusting insect fetuses gurbled around inside semi-transparent membranes as Zerg creatures mutated into buildings while the creep around them shimmered and glimmered in oozy glory. Satisfying explosions rocked across vehicles under fire, and sparks flew where bullets sheared metal. This was spectacular stuff.

Secondly, we learned that our StarCraft skillz are seriously rusty. Even though the basic build orders are the similar to the original game's, it was obvious as we fumbled to get our base up and running that we weren't going to be competing in the international StarCraft circuit anytime soon. Fortunately for scrubs like us, the game has a built-in one-page tech tree for each race that shows you exactly what buildings lead to what and what prerequisites you need for each unit. It was pretty clear that StarCraft II is going to hold a lot of appeal for both new fans and old.

With that idea in mind, we sat down to chat briefly with Frank Pearce, Blizzard's Executive VP of Product Development, and PR rep Bob Colayco about where the game is and what fans (of any skill level!) can expect.



GameSpy: Can I dig out any more details from you about the game's backstory? What can players expect from the single-player campaign this time around?
Bob Colayco, Public Relations: [Things start off] about four to seven years after the events of the first game. We bring back a lot of the same characters from the original games -- Jim Raynor and Kerrigan -- you know, what they are up to. We showed off some of the single-player already -- Jim Raynor is trying to come up again from being on rock bottom, he's put together a group of mercenaries going around doing jobs for money. But he's still harboring a lot of bitterness. And that's just one of the story arcs -- there's going to be a lot of returning characters and a lot of new characters, too, like Tychius Findlay, an old friend of Jim Raynor's. He's the marine, actually, from the intro video.

GameSpy: Just the three races, right? No surprises planned?
Frank Pearce, Executive VP of Product Development: No, we're not working on a fourth race.

Bob Colayco: Three playable races. That's our story and we're sticking to it!