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Starcraft 2 Review: The RTS King is Back

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Blizzard released the first Starcraft 12 years ago, and since then it's been the most-played RTS game in the world. It created the professional strategy gaming circuit almost single-handedly, and has been on top well past a decade despite its dated graphics and technology. Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Supreme Commander, all of these games have risen and plateaued or fallen in the shadow of Starcraft's dominance. Starcraft 2 has been in development for over 3 years, and the entire gaming world has been waiting to see if Blizzard's sequel could come remotely close to the success of the original.

After playing the game for a few weeks, I can safely say that, barring a miracle or a catastrophe, there's a very good chance we'll be playing Starcraft 2 well into the next decade. For any other series this would be gross hyperbole, but for Starcraft this is simply a confirmation of the series' already well-established quality and longevity.

The basic gameplay has changed very little from the first game. There are still the three factions: the Terrans, the Protoss, and the Zerg. The Terrans still have SCVs that build and factories that can lift up and fly, the Protoss still have probes that can quickly set up warps for new buildings and pylons that power them, and the Zerg still mutate from larvae into anything you need, sprawling along the icky creep in the process. It's basically status quo from the first game.

The units have shifted slightly, but once again the core mechanics are the same. There's still the different tiers of units, starting with Marines/Zealots/Zerglings and moving up through the ranks to Battlecruisers/Carriers/Ultralisks. A handful of new and unique units add some much-needed flavor and plenty of new startegy to the game, though. On the Terran side, Raiders and Marauders provide fast-moving, obstacle-jumping scouts and rocket-launching foot soldiers while the transforming Viking can fly around and take out aerial targets, then land and rain bullets on buildings. For the Protoss, the much-loved Dragoons have been replaced by the all-purpose Stalkers and ground-unit-devastating Immortals, and a massive Mothership can be summoned to wreak havoc on the enemy. There's just enough variety to make the gameplay mechanics feel fresh but not alienate the die-hard Starcraft players.

Starcraft 2 looks excellent, handling dozens upon dozens of 3D units on-screen at once with little slowdown and putting on some impressive light shows during successful base rushes. Like the gameplay, the graphics look familiar to the point that Starcraft 2 could easily feel more like a high-definition remake than a sequel. Of course, if Blizzard made the game look too different, it would have upset the hardcore players. Despite the similar graphic design, Starcraft 2 looks very modern, with the new graphics sitting at or above Command & Conquer 4 and Supreme Commander 2.

Now, let's address the elephant in the room: the single-player campaign. The Terran-only single-player campaign. I was worried when I heard that Blizzard would parcel out the Starcraft 2 story across 3 releases, devoting one to each race. After playing through the 30-odd-mission Terran campaign, my fears have been replaced by a sense of gaming satisfaction. Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty offers a full-fledged single-player campaign every bit as long, complex, and satisfying as the first Starcraft's entire storyline. Yes, it's entirely from the Terran point of view and it doesn't completely wrap up the Starcraft 2 story, but it's worthy of the standalone release it received.

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