Starcraft 2

So Blizzard finally unveiled what will (most likely) be the last trailer for Starcraft II before the game is released next Tuesday. I must say, the trailer looks pretty fucking awesome. I'm excited that I have the Collector's Edition locked down for me to pick up next week when it gets released on the 27th. There's plenty of action. For those who aren't familiar with the story thus far (taken directly from the Wikipedia page):

The game is split into three episodes, one for the player to command each race. In the first segment of the game, the player and Jim Raynor are attempting to control the colony of Mar Sara in the wake of the Protoss attack on other Terran worlds. After the Confederacy arrests Raynor for destroying Confederate property, despite the fact that it had been infested by the Zerg, the player joins Arcturus Mengsk and the Sons of Korhal. Raynor, who is freed by Mengsk's troops, also joins and frequently accompanies the player on missions. Mengsk then begins to use Confederate technology captured on Mar Sara to lure the Zerg to Confederate installations and further his own goals. After forcing Confederate general Edmund Duke to join him, Mengsk sacrifices his own second-in-command, Sarah Kerrigan, to ensure the destruction of the Confederacy by luring the Zerg to the Confederate capital Tarsonis. Raynor is outraged by Mengsk's true aims of obtaining power at any cost and deserts, taking with him a small army of the former colonial militia of Mar Sara. Mengsk reorganizes what remains of the Terran population into the Terran Dominion, crowning himself as emperor.

The second campaign reveals that Kerrigan was not killed by the Zerg, but rather is captured and infested in an effort to incorporate her psionic traits into the Zerg gene pool. She emerges with far more psionic powers and physical strength, her DNA completely altered. Meanwhile, the Protoss commander Tassadar discovers that the Zerg's cerebrates cannot be killed by conventional means, but that they can be harmed by the powers wielded by the heretical dark templar. Tassadar allies himself with the dark templar prelate Zeratul, who assassinates one of the Zerg's cerebrates in their hive clusters on Char. The cerebrate's death results in its forces running amok through the Zerg hives, but briefly links the minds of Zeratul and the Zerg Overmind, allowing the Overmind to learn the location of the Protoss homeworld Aiur, which it has been seeking for millennia. The Zerg promptly invade and despite heavy Protoss resistance, the Overmind is able to embed itself into the crust of the planet.

The final episode of the game sees Aldaris and the Protoss government branding Tassadar a traitor and a heretic for conspiring with the dark templar. The player initially serves Aldaris in defending Aiur from the Zerg invasion, but while on a mission to arrest Tassadar, the player joins him instead.A Protoss civil war erupts, pitting Tassadar, Zeratul, and their allies against the Protoss establishment. The dark templar prove their worth when they use their energies to slay two more of the Zerg cerebrates on Aiur, and the Conclave reconciles with them. Aided by Raynor's forces—who sided with Tassadar back on Char—the Protoss break through the Overmind's weakened defenses and destroy the Overmind's outer shell, but take heavy casualties in the process. Tassadar channels his own psionic energies in combination with those of the dark templar through the hull of his command ship and crashes it into the Overmind, sacrificing himself in order to destroy it.


Whew. Wall of text (or is it win?). So that is just the first game, if you want to read about Brood War, feel free to visit it's wikipedia page. I think what I'm going to do this weekend in preparation for the game is to actually go back and play all of the old games. Not that I'm going to be any better at them (protip: Strategy games are not the games I'm best at), but it will be interesting to go through the story mode again.


Look for Starcraft II on July 27th.