Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

One of the first games I ever played on the computer (Windows 95 feels like a lifetime ago) was Warcraft 2 Battlenet edition, (something that my parents were slightly pissed off with at the time) Warcraft 2 was a fanastic game, and was probably the reason I got into real time strategy games so much....that and I developed the train of thought to make people do things for me because I know best.

Starcraft 2 is a realtime strategy game in a similar vein to Command and Conquer and Warcraft (Well warcraft is a Blizzard game what do you expect?), which means that your role is that of a general, emperor or angry man with good people skills.

In the story campaign for Wings of Liberity you take the position of Jim Raynor, leader of Raynor's Raiders, a group of freedom fighters who are trying to usurp the leader of the Terran empire, I like to think of them like the Browncoats from Firefly for about 2 minutes, and then I get misty eyed.

So, the controls are fairly simple for any command and conquer or warcraft veteran, you can move the camera using camera using the W.A.S.D. keys, or moving the mouse cursor to the side of the screen, hotkeys take a while to get used to because of the different buildings and soldiers you get and you can zoom in to see the action up close and personal.

Starcraft feels very polished and well developed and all 3 races are well balanced and each has their own unique playing style (see ZERG RUSH!) each with its own personality and little details I.E. the mech drivers who look like metal heads and sound like Arnie.

The Campaign takes place years after the original Starcraft, with the Zerg disappearing into relative obscurity and the Protoss doing their own thing which leaves Raynor to try and overthrow Arcturus Mensk because of their belief that the Dominion is just as bad as the old government that they helped overthrow, pretty much 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'.

You play as Jim Raynor.
This hunk of manliness

Kerrigan makes her reappearance as the Queen of Blades for the Zerg during one of the early missions which leades Raynor to try and kill her because of what she has done, and you also get to see into Raynor's personality in terms of how he has reacted to all the things that have happened in the first starcraft and all the resulting occurances.

That is to say: Badly.

There isn't much I can say about the plot that won't contain spoilers, but it is a very worthwhile game and will undoubtedly give RTS fans hours of joy playing, I know I always end up coming back to it when I'm on the train or have some free time.

Although having to make a Battlenet username and password as soon as you install the game and having to tell the game that you want to play on your own without the internet on does get tedious after a while if you're like me and don't really like human beings

Final Statement Reviews

Pros
-Very slick and streamlined control system and interface
-The graphics are very nice even on lower settings.
-Very good characters and above average storyline

Cons
-Battlenet pisses me off
-Levels can get samey, but that can be said of any RTS game
-Some characters can be a little over the top 
-BATTLENET!!!!

If you liked this game you might also like

Command and Conquer, pick one any one, personally I recommend Red Alert 2
Warcraft 3
Sins of a Solar Empire