StarCraft II

Format PC

Developer Blizzard Entertainment

Publisher Sierra

Genre Sim / Strategy

What were you doing in 1998? Chances are if you owned a PC you were playing StarCraft, a breakneck RTS from the creators of World of Warcraft.

On its release, StarCraft blew through the RTS genre like a cyclone, generating a fanatical fan base that still thrives to this very day, especially in South Korea.

The game's allure stemmed from the diversity of its three factions, each of which required a radically different approach to annihilate the enemy. Now, a decade on, these three warring races - the technologically advanced, cybernetically enhanced Protoss; the determined, conventional Terrans (humans); and the insectoid warrior Zerg - are set to clash once again in a battle for supremacy.

Journey with me now to a room rammed with networked machines and games journos at Blizzard's LA offices.Next to me sits a representative from a German StarCraft fan site, who sobs gently as he strokes the hairy hide of a 3D Ultralisk (a massive Zerg unit), a decade-long wet dream a reality.

For the next two days we've been given unrestricted access to the latest multiplayer build of StarCraft II. With Blizzard having already revealed the revamped Terran and Protoss races, we've been invited here for a world-exclusive reveal of the game's final race, the Zerg.

"StarCraft II is the best strategy game we've ever made," proclaims lead designer Dustin Browder as we twitch expectantly, waiting to be unleashed on the first multiplayer session of the day. "It's the most fun. It encourages you to think creatively, to try and be clever. We want to build on the philosophies of the original, to provide ease of use for new players and a big enough challenge for hardcore players. StarCraft has its own style, which is fast-paced RTS. StarCraft II is meant to bring that niche to the current generation."

As my German companion dives into a six-player free-for-all, buck teeth gnashing excitably, I rise from my seat to corner lead producer Chris Sigaty in an attempt to understand why we've waited a decade for the resurrection of this revered game.
"It was really a case of right place, right time," he explains.

"Once the Warcraft III products were finished, we talked about what to do next. Technology was in the right place for us to be able to put loads of units on screen, which is what we wanted if we ever made another StarCraft game. Timing was a factor though. We've had a lot of big titles in development that have required lots of resources, and it's been impossible to start working on another huge project until now."

Curiosity satisfied it's time for me to join the killing fields. Opting for the newly revealed and revamped Zerg, I enter the fray. Familiarity smacks me across the chops like a berserk, bucking fish. Drones are sent to collect Vespene gas and minerals (the game's resources), buildings are constructed and units assembled. Every click is key as I rush to build a force capable of striking at the enemy before they can threaten my holdings.

This is StarCraft just how I remember it: attack biased, packed with early rushes as each player seeks an early advantage. I lose myself in a mass of clicks and orders, never pausing, acting on instinct alone, ignoring the ingrained RTS urge to build defences as I force myself to concentrate solely on amassing a force built for the single purpose of destruction.

Minutes later I've churned out an army from countless Hatcheries (the Zerg's main construction building) - dozens, scores, myriads of units. I march them across the map in search of my enemies, only to wade headlong into an opponent's equally sizeable attack force. Unabated slaughter ensues, the screen a mass of scrapping aliens. But as the carnage unfolds, a second enemy storms my unguarded base and suddenly it's game over. Eight minutes, 17 seconds. That's StarCraft II multiplayer in a nutshell.

HIVE MIND
Keen to discover more about the Zerg's evolution since the original, I corner Browder and spit out a torrent of questions.

"The Zerg are a hyper-evolved organic race," he explains as I fire up a new game. "They're entirely biological and use their own bodies to attack enemies. They can burrow and hide, then ambush their foes. They're also fast builders and can rapidly move across the battlefield."

Zerg units mutate from larvae spawned at a Hatchery. Every 20 seconds a new larva is born. However, with no limit imposed on the number of Hatcheries you can construct, the Zerg can churn out a frightening number of units in seconds. "This mechanic makes the Zerg play uniquely," continues Browder. "They're much less predictable and more adaptable than the other two races."

While the Zerg's lightning-fast unit generation makes them a formidable fighting force, it's the faction's infestation units that truly set them apart from the Terrans and Protoss. The Corruptor is a squid-like air-to-air unit that turns enemy craft against their masters, while the Infestor brings your opponent's buildings under your control for a limited period of time.

Acting on Browder's advice, I spawn a legion of Corruptors and Infestors, then storm a nearby Terran base. What begins as an equally matched slugfest soon degenerates into a massacre as my Corruptors turn the fleet to my whims, while the infested barracks spew out marines loyal to my cause. Within seconds, a once well-defended stronghold is nothing more than a pile of rubble. Mwahaha!

With victory mine, Browder tells me that resources and observation posts (relics scattered throughout each map that push back the fog of war when captured) can also be infested with a unit called the Overlord. "The Overlord has two abilities," he begins. "One is an infestation ability that targets observation towers and crystals so that enemies can't use them until the infestations are destroyed. The other ability allows the Overlord to generate Creep, a terraforming ability that prevents your opponents from building on or using infested areas of the map."

WHO'S QUEEN?
Perhaps the most notable change in how the Zerg play is the revised role played by the Queen, a giant, scuttling killer that looks like a distant cousin to the mother from Aliens.

"We've evolved the Queen into the ultimate base defender," explains Dustin. "As your base technology evolves, you can evolve your Queen. She gets bigger and more powerful, and can even bring your buildings to life to defend your base. She can also heal a building instantly for several hundred hit points and quickly tunnel around areas infested with Creep."

The Queen has now become one of the game's most impressive units, a truly formidable warrior capable of tearing through enemy ranks as though they're made of wet toilet paper. She can also lay eggs throughout your base, which then hatch into kamikaze base defenders whenever a foe approaches.

If the Zerg had one weakness in the original game it was their lack of a tough, scrapper unit, a shortfall that Blizzard is keen to rectify here with a ground-attack arachnid warrior called the Roach. Sporting some seriously rapid regeneration abilities that make the Hulk look like a slow healer, a massed pack of high-level Roaches can cut through a sizeable enemy force and come out virtually unscathed.

As well as the newcomers, the Zerg also welcome back a number of familiar units, including the Lurker, Hydralisk, Mutalisk and pesky Zerglings that remain the perfect weapon for quick strike attacks on undefended enemy bases.

Also making a return are the towering mammoth-like Ultralisks, which inflict devastating amounts of area damage with their massive tusks. They also have the ability to burrow, enabling them to pop up from below the ground and launch surprise attacks against passing packs of enemies.

With Browder called away to answer questions at another table and my German companion now hooked up to an oxygen tank to help control his excitement at the new wing configuration of a Terran aerial unit, I dive into a succession of multiplayer games, each as unrelenting as the next. But with each game ending in either a dominant win or a crushing defeat, a gnawing doubt begins to scrape its molars down the back of my brain.

If the original StarCraft's multiplayer games had one shortfall, it was the sense that there was a set formula for victory; an optimum order in which to construct buildings and units that simply couldn't be countered if built quickly enough. With StarCraft II's multiplayer games seeming to head down a similar route, I asked Sigaty about this design choice.

"StarCraft II is a fast game, a mean game, it's all about attack," he explained. "We tried to add in tougher base defences, but it stopped people rushing. They just hid behind their base and no one attacked for a very long time. Whenever the game defences get too strong the game suffers.

"If you're not as good as someone else you're going to lose, just like in any other sport. If you try to hit a baseball thrown by a professional pitcher, you won't have a good time and in the same way if you play a professional StarCraft player you will get trounced."

With much balancing still ahead, and with the implementation of a collection of player aides that could help level the playing field for newcomers (check out the Learn Don't Burn boxout for more) it's more than possible that my niggling concerns will become moot by the time the game ships. Here's hoping.

While the reveal of the Zerg may be the main focus of this event, I haven't travelled all this way to ignore the game's other two races either, by the way.

The Terrans are the game's most instantly recognisable faction, sporting a collection of marines, tanks, buggies and cruisers that are spewed forth from barracks and weapons factories. Perhaps the least modified of the three races, the Terrans also possess some of the game's most visually impressive units, including the lumbering Thor attack walker and nuclear strikes that can be called in by covert ops units.

Better still, Terran buildings can be flown to new locations, though they are highly vulnerable while trundling to their new destination. A well-balanced faction with the game's best defence capabilities, the Terrans are shaping up to be the ideal entry point for any StarCraft beginner.

Conversely, the Protoss have undergone some major changes - most notably their ability to warp in new units anywhere where there's a power pylon (including within enemy bases if you manage to construct one there) and their array of powerful aerial units.

The Protoss also possess the game's only super unit, the Mothership. Vulnerable if sent into battle alone, but devastating when backed up by a fleet, this humongous cruiser can suck enemy units into a vortex of destruction and wipe out an entire army with a single attack.

Other Protoss highlights include powerful cloaked killers called Templars,
a shielded three-legged walker with a powerful death ray called the Colossus and a massive battleship that sends out myriad fighters to pepper enemy units.

GUNNING FOR GLORY
As the two-day playtest comes to an end, I reflect on just how rare it is to be given so much hands-on time with a game at this stage of its development. It's testament to Blizzard's confidence in its product that we've been given such unfettered access to it. Still at pre-alpha stage, StarCraft II not only has the makings of another classic Blizzard RTS, it's already more stable than many finished games, with bugs virtually nonexistent.

With an open-ended single-player game also in the offing (head to the Choose Your Own Conquest panel for more info), and with the already sublime collection of factions being built upon with impressive imagination, StarCraft could be about to mount a triumphant return a decade after it first took the RTS genre by storm.

Perhaps you've never played the original, but if Blizzard continues along its current development path, then I'm willing to wager you'll be playing the sequel when it finally hits the shelves.

As for when that will be. Well, when it's done of course. After all, this is Blizzard we're talking about...

Martin Korda