yo it's pretty good
I was only 4 years old when the original StarCraft came out. While I didn't play it right there and then, I watched my brothers go completely ape shit over it. And then when I did get to play it for myself, I understood what they were going nuts about. Blizzard crafted a strategy game at such a level that hadn't been made before; one that struck a competitive balance between the 3 radically different races, a highly in-depth map editor for it's time, and a story and universe that was genuinely interesting. So when StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty got announced I was pretty excited, since I would now be able to go ape shit with my brothers. And we did.
And it was well worth it.
The biggest credit I will give to Blizzard is that they made StarCraft 2 a pure StarCraft continuation. They didn't take out whole bases and replace them with big walker-mobile base things, they didn't add any hero units that possess RPG-like levelling, none of that. This is the gameplay RIPPED from StarCraft, with the fixes and additions that you would want and expect. My favorite improvement is the auto-gathering from the workers. You can just set the rally point to the minerals or gas, and the workers will split themselves up on their own to avoid micro-management. Very handy.
The story mode of SC2 takes place 4 years after the events of the Brood War expansion, and this first game in the SC2 saga (I guess that's what it's called?) focuses on the Terran faction. Even though pretty much all of the missions are played using the Terrans, there is a smaller Protoss campaign. The story follows Jim “This is Jimmy” Raynor and his old friend Tychus Findlay as they try to liberate the Terran people from Arcturus Mengsk, the self proclaimed Emperor of the Terran Dominion. Along the way, Kerrigan shows up with the Zerg and and messes stuff up.
Most of the cutscenes are done in-engine, with a bit of the very high quality Blizzard trademark animations. In between missions, you can talk to many of the crew members to get back-story, and to progress the main story. This part is presented in a Wing Commander style, where you click around environment to interact; this was probably my favourite part of the game, because of my love for the Wing Commander franchise.
All of the missions in SC2 are unique; there is not one mission that is simply, “go destroy the enemies base.” Some of these truly make you feel like the bad ass commander Jim Raynor is. An example that comes to mind is when the sun in the solar system of the planet you're about to go visit just becomes a lot more powerful and is about to go nova. When you touch down onto the planet, you have to keep moving your base every few minutes because there is a GIANT WALL OF FLAME burning everything in it's path.
Many of the bonus objectives in the missions pay off with research points, which you can use in the laboratory of the ship. There is a Zerg research tree, and a Protoss research tree. Every 5 points (you get around 3 every mission) you get to choose between 2 different bonuses. Be it a massive aircraft carrier that can carry your whole entire army, or a building add-on that rolls both the tech lab and reactor add-ons into one, the choice is yours to make. Among these research points, you also earn credits from just completing the mission. You can spend these in the armory, where the upgrades for each unit or building are the ones you would find in the tech labs in multiplayer, but they carry over mission to mission.
While the campaign of SC2 won't prepare you for multiplayer, the challenge mode might give you a better understanding of how you keep getting your ass handed to you. The challenges will force you to properly place the units that will counter the oncoming units, use only hot keys, expand your army while blocking the enemies oncoming units, and many more. In each of these you can earn medals, which in turn get you achievements.
All of SC2 is wrapped around the new Battle.net 2.0. Social interaction is literally everywhere; you get little notifications when friends come online, whenever they chat to you ingame it comes up right in the regular chat and responding to them is easy, you can view very detailed profiles of users, and can host parties with your friends for easier access to games. All of the games achievements are rolled into B.net as well, and many of them earn you portraits or decals for your units.
The competitive aspect of SC2 is vastly improved from the first one. Not so much in the gameplay sense (you're still amassing an army and destroying the other dude), but rather in the way it is structured. No longer will you be presented with a huge list of games to join, in which most of your opponents are seasoned veterans that tear you to shreds. At the beginning you play through 5 placement matches which will determine your position in either of the 5 leagues: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, or diamond. These go up according to skill, so you'll only be playing with people of your skill level (at least 90% of the time). In your division of 100, you'll earn points for wins and move up the ladder, and hopefully progress to the next league. Oh, and there's custom maps too for when you need to take a break from the build ordering, which are now even more crazy because the new map maker is nuts.
StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is a game that I am very excited to play more of. The replayability of the campaign because of the achievements, competing for the best time in the challenges, testing out your new build order, and messing around with friends on the custom maps will make me coming back to SC2 for a very long time. This is the best RTS in years.
