Tim Sevenhuysen.com My ardent exploit to make the world slightly less tranquil.

StarCraft 2

StarCraft 2!

It took me three days to beat the campaign on Hard, and I just finished my placement matches for 1v1 online, going 4-1 and ending up in a Gold league. I expect to get bumped down to a Silver league before too long.

The campaign was excellent. It helps to know that they're planning to release two more campaigns--one for Protoss and one for Zerg--so that I didn't expect any kind of major resolution at the end of this game. The story was pretty good; the characters were strong, though they definitely play up the whole "space cowboy" atmosphere a lot and riff on tough guy stereotypes. It's obvious they were going for a B-movie sci-fi feel, and they pull it off well, even if it's fairly over the top at some points.

The pre-rendered cutscenes are up to Blizzard's usual level of quality, and I love how much work they put into all the little conversations you can have with the various people on your ship between missions, as well as all the upgrade and research trees for army customization. It really fleshes the campaign out and makes it feel more full and immersive. The missions themselves are really varied; I can't remember a single mission that involved just building a base and killing all the enemies, not without a significant twist, at least.

I highly recommend you go out and get yourself a copy and play through it. I played on Hard and found the last few missions somewhat challenging, but if you don't have that much RTS experience there are Normal and Casual settings, too, so you should be able to make your way through it.

Leave a comment if you want to play online sometime.