Blizzard Entertainment has finally caved in to the inevitable, and in a bid to preempt military action by a rabid South Korean fanbase have announce that Starcraft II is far enough into development for a web launch.
Back in the stone age when the original Starcraft came out, my coworkers and I would stay late after work for multiplayer games, eschewing Battlenet and its uber-teenagers. I never cared for the Protoss and their rather impressive end-game abilities, preferring to get the fight started relatively early on. Sometimes this resulted in accusations of “Zerg Rush” cheapness, but really it’s just part of the game; I could never mount a credible defense against a well-built carrier force.
I look forward to seeing what they’re doing with the Terran and Zerg units. Blizzard apparently wants to trickle new information out on a per-faction basis, starting with my least favorite. I can wait, though.
I am stoked!
The actual demo they played made some of the new options look pretty nice. There’s still a bit of a rock-papers-scissors dynamic to the game, but that’s part of what made the original game (and Brood War) so good in the first place.
From the looks of the Protoss Mothership, I’ll still be wanting to make my stand before my opponent gets a solid chance to finish out his tech tree.