Blizzard Wants All Your Money

Oh sure, they have the most popular MMO of all time. What else can they do to siphon money out of gamer's pockets? How about a long awaited sequel to the greatest RTS of all time?

So, Starcraft 2. Everyone and their retarded kid brother has commented on this by now, though, so I'm late to the party but, what the hell?

I actually caught wind of it early Saturday morning but I just couldn't find the time to set down more than a few scrambled thoughts and since then I've been waiting for a bit more information to come down the pipe. Like, for instance, a release date. There isn't one yet and given how Blizzard's worked in the past, I can only assume it's set for 2010 and will be pushed back to 2012 or later.

Nothing doing, though, so my initial impression that the game's not much more than a 3-D overhaul of the original game with some new mechanics and features layered on top, not unlike what the Brood Wars expansion did to the original game. Of course, since the original game was balanced to a razor's edge and about as close to RTS perfection as can be, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Tinkering with the formula got us things like Heroes in Warcraft III. I can live without that and actually good innovations in favor of updating a classic. Face it, the game's going to sell like mad either way, but the question is whether we'll still be playing it in 10 years time or not. Decisions like sticking to the game's original trio of races are, I think, a promising sign.

The race that's been the most detailed is the Protoss which makes me happy since, if I preferred any race, it was the Protoss (These days I'd probably go for the Zerg but, at the time, I liked to turtle and tech up and the slow, heavy, but powerful Protoss were right up my alley.). But the big thing they're doing with handful of units and abilities I've heard about is placing a heavy emphasis on movement. With the teleporting Stalkers and the swift closing of the Zealots, the promise of tactical uses for Phase Prisms and Warp Gates, along with things like the Terrans' Reapers (The Zerg have a unit that's about rapid deployment, too, but I forget exactly what it is.) who'll be able to jumppack between levels, it seems like there's going to be a premium on movement and rapid response. That dropping your troops where the enemy isn't expecting them will be a major strategy. Since being trapped by static defenses were one of, for me anyway, the big drawbacks of the Protoss that's a welcome twist, I think. It might be nothing but if it's a major design feature then it should make for quick paced games and maybe even a high degree of “swing” if you're willing to roll the dice. Sounds good so far.

Looks good so far, anyway, and I'll be keeping my eye on it.