StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

Years ago, the Protoss homeworld of Aiur was lost to the Zerg. Many of the Protoss survived by escaping into space and seeking refuge on Shakuras, refuge world of the Dark Templar, before fighting in the Brood War. However, the mighty warrior Artanis dreams of retaking his home and to this end has gathered the Golden Armada, the greatest fleet in Protoss history, to launch the invasion of Aiur. But the invasion is a trap baited by the Fallen One, Amon of the Xel'Naga, and only with the wisdom and assistance of Zeratul can Artanis and his forces escape, regroup and strike back.

Legacy of the Void is the third and final part of the StarCraft II saga, begun in Wings of Liberty (2010) and continued in Heart of the Swarm (2013). It's taken a very, very long time to get here. The original StarCraft was released in 1998, its expansion Brood War a year later and StarCraft II was formally announced in the spring of 2007. The fact it's taken almost nine years since that announcement to get the game completely out is faintly ridiculous, and has certainly sapped some of the excitement and momentum from the franchise.

But the game is out now and has several roles to fill: it needs to be a satisfying single-player game with a strong storyline that ties up plot elements that begun eighteen years ago in the original StarCraft. It needs to have exciting multiplayer that builds on the successful design established in the previous two games. And it needs to see out the franchise - as any StarCraft III is likely many, many years away - in style.

Its success in these fields is highly debatable. On the story front, Legacy of the Void is easily the weakest link in the StarCraft II saga. Its characters are pompous and unrelatable, the dialogue is overwritten, cliched and awful and none of the characters with the sole exception of Alarak (helped by superb voice acting from John de Lancie) have much of a discernible personality. It doesn't help that the game is very unfocused. The previous titles benefited from having a strong, personal through-line that helped anchor the massive battles and carnage around them: Wings of Liberty was focused on Jim Raynor's mission to redeem Kerrigan; Heart of the Swam focused on Kerrigan seeking out vengeance on Arcturus Mengsk. Legacy of the Void doesn't have that. Instead, the story is that the Protoss have to defeat Amon and don't know how to do that, so flit around from crisis to crisis until, inevitably, a plot twist reveals the Fallen One's hidden weakness, at which point you have to try to kill him in the face. It doesn't help that Amon is cut from the exact same cloth as Sargeras and the Burning Legion of WarCraft lore, an unknowable cosmic mega-foe who wants to kill everyone because why not? As an antagonist, he lacks the bite or personal edge that Arcturus Mengsk or Kerrigan herself had in previous games. It also doesn't help that the game is focused on the Protoss, but then in the three-part finale to the game we suddenly get a major return from characters like Kerrigan and Raynor, during which the Protoss are shunted off to the side and don't get much resolution. It's an awkward structural issue that Blizzard don't really know how to handle, although it does allow them to bookend the StarCraft II story by ending where it began.

So much for the story, what about the individual missions? Well, the gameplay is as strong as ever. The Protoss may be my favourite StarCraft race and they also seem to have been least modified from the original games, so in terms of actually playing the game I felt more at home with them than I had with the other two species. However, they may also be the most overpowered race in the game (this will be fiercely debated by other StarCraft players, but I stand by it) with their formerly formidable Archon/Carrier combo now being joined by units such as Void Rays, Stalkers and Immortals to make them almost completely unstoppable once you've moved a modest distance down the tech tree. The Protoss are immense fun to play and their missions are very well-designed with some genuinely thought-provoking strategic challenges. However, RTS veterans won't find much to slow them down here. With the exception of maybe the final epilogue mission and the final main campaign mission, nothing here is remotely on the order of difficulty of the original StarCraft missions, let alone the nightmare of Brood War's last few missions. But certainly in the moment the game is fun to play, either in single-player or the typically frenetic multiplayer modes.

The gameplay is also limited by the curious decision to control your access to units. So you can build Void Rays or Arbiters, but not both, which feels arbitrary. You also can't field-test the different variants on the battlefield like you could with Heart of the Swarm, which feels like a regressive step.

As an overall experience, Legacy of the Void (***½) certainly has impressive production values. It's polished to a fine sheen, there are monumental numbers of in-engine cut scenes (although only a tiny handful of the pre-rendered, beyond-movie-quality CG cinematics that Blizzard are best known for) and the game clocks in at around 15 hours in length, which isn't bad for a stand-alone expansion. The gameplay is solid, a very nice iteration over the standard StarCraft experience, but the storyline, writing and characterisation are all seriously subpar. You have fun playing the missions, but the game provides insufficient context or motivation to make you care a huge amount. The result is a game that is intermittently brilliant, rather less intermittently tedious and overall vaguely disappointing compared to what came before it. It's certainly a worthwhile purchase for fans of the franchise, but newcomers will be lost and it's a game that has fallen far short of its potential. The game is available now on PC (UK, USA).

Blizzard hint that they are remaking their classic games for modern audiences

Blizzard Entertainment have posted some job vacancies indicating that they are working on remakes of some of their most popular older titles. It appears that Diablo II, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the original StarCraft are all being updated to work better on modern machines.

There's already a popular mod that puts the StarCraft and Brood War missions into the StarCraft II engine. Blizzard may be looking at doing similar and official.

It's an interesting announcement because the problem isn't really compatibility: all of Blizzard's games can be made to work on modern PCs and Macs without too many problems, a tribute to their robust programming and how well they've kept their games updated over the better part of twenty years. The problem appears to be one more of overcoming technical limitations. The gameplay of the original StarCraft is sublime (and in fact in terms of mission design and concise storytelling, it remains superior to StarCraft II) but the fact you can only build five units at a time, you can't auto-order new resource gathers to gather new resources as they are produced and you are stuck to big, blocky pixels with no way of changing resolution is now rather irritating. It'd also be nice to see the cut scenes from the games revamped and updated.

How comprehensive the remakes are going to be remains unclear. They could be simply spruced up versions of the originals, with better interfaces and the ability to change resolutions, or they could be full-scale remakes in the engines of their sequels.

More news is expected at this year's BlizzCon, which runs over the coming weekend. Blizzard are also expected to release the first full trailer for the WarCraft movie; having a revamped version of WarCraft III for when the film comes out will likely be a nice piece of marketing (WarCraft I and II being such older and more primitive games that they would require much more thorough reworkings to be brought up to modern standards).

UPDATE: Blizzard have indicated that their plan is to simply update the games to work more reliably on Windows 7, 8 and particularly 10, as Microsoft is planning on withdrawing support for older versions of DirectX in the next few years. They'll also be addressing bugs and exploits from the multiplayer versions of those games.

STARCRAFT II: LEGACY OF THE VOID release date announced

Blizzard have announced the release date for Legacy of the Void, the second expansion to StarCraft II.

Legacy of the Void will be released on 10 November, just two months from now, and will conclude the StarCraft II story. More to the point, with Blizzard's interest in single-player games apparently waning and no more StarCraft material planned, it is possible that this game will conclude the entire StarCraft saga, at least for many years to come.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, focusing on the Terrans, was released in 2010 and was a solid game, if a bit uninspired compared to the excellent original StarCraft (1998) and its expansion Brood War. The first expansion, Heart of the Swarm, centred on the Zerg species and was released in 2013. It was a stronger game, although fans were incredulous at Blizzard taking almost three years to release the game. Legacy of the Void now arrives a further two and a half years down the line, still using the same engine and many of the same assets as the original game released in 2010. It is safe to be said that Blizzard's release schedule here has been pretty disappointing, even by their slow standards.

Hopefully Legacy of the Void will bring an element of closure to the StarCraft storyline, because if not it will certainly be a long, long time before we see any continuation to the story.

Blizzard unveil trailers for STARCRAFT II: LEGACY OF THE VOID and new IP OVERWATCH

Blizzard have released a cinematic trailer for Legacy of the Void, the second and final expansion to StarCraft II.

Picking up after the events of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and the first expansion, Heart of the Swarm, Legacy of the Void is focused on the Protoss species as they launch a full-scale assault on their former homeworld of Aiur. The planet was lost to the Zerg in the original StarCraft and the Protoss have been planning to retake it every since. The game will focus on Executor Artanis, one of the heroes of the original StarCraft expansion, Brood War, and on his flagship, the Spear of Adun, which will form the hub area between game missions.

As is usual with Blizzard, no release date has been set. However, with the game set to enter beta shortly, a 2015 release is possible.

Meanwhile, Blizzard have also announced their new game Overwatch. This is the first new IP that Blizzard have created in seventeen years and focuses on super-powered heroes and villains fighting on a futuristic Earth. The game will be a team-based FPS and bears more than a slight resemblance to Valve's Team Fortress 2. It looks like the game is drawing on assets and lore created for Blizzard's cancelled MMO shooter, Titan.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

The dreaded Queen of Blades, the leader of the Zerg, is no more. Sarah Kerrigan has been freed from the Swarm and is now human once again...but consumed by the need to avenge herself on Arcturus Mengsk, Emperor of the Terran Dominion, the man who betrayed her and left her for dead. When Mengsk's troops raid the facility Kerrigan is recuperating in, she finds herself alone and without any allies. Kerrigan needs an army to bring down her enemy and the leaderless Zerg Swarms may be the key to victory, if she can resist becoming part of the Swarm once more.

Heart of the Swarm is the rather tardy second instalment of the StarCraft II series of games, arriving an eyebrow-raising three years after its predecessor, Wings of Liberty. Considering the game uses the exact same engine as its predecessor (some minor upgrades aside) and apparently follows a story arc laid down by the guys at Blizzard almost a decade ago, the reason for the delay initially appears puzzling. The answer, of course, lies in the franchise's multiplayer angle. Blizzard have introduced new units with this expansion and have spent months and months painstakingly testing every iteration of the changes, dumping some new units and bringing in others, to make sure they don't upset the multiplayer balance. Given that StarCraft II's multiplayer scene is worth millions of dollars, this is unsurprising, but it does leave those of us primarily interested in the game's single-player storyline hanging in the wind for quite a long time.

Still, the game is here, and to a certain degree it's StarCraft as normal. You have a base, you collect resources, you build units and you fight the enemy for territory (control of additional resources areas where you can establish secondary bases) and ultimately try to destroy them. The gameplay is held together by a storyline, in this case one about vengeance and evolution. Kerrigan is out to kill Mengsk and end a feud between the two that began fifteen years ago in the original StarCraft. Blizzard cleverly raise this story - a subplot in the overall scheme of things - to prominence in Heart of the Swarm and push the big-picture storyline about the return of the alien Xel'Naga firmly into the background for the next game to worry about. Giving Heart of the Swarm its own direction and a storyline that does come to a definitive conclusion helps it avoid the 'middle title' syndrome that trilogies often suffer from. Heart of the Swarm also feels like it might be treading over the same ground as the original title's Brood War expansion, which also focused on Kerrigan uniting the Swarm under her control. Heart of the Swarm contextualises this in a different way, however, to avoid repeating concepts already visited in the series.

The campaign structure is quite interesting. There are five sub-campaigns, four of them taking place on planets and a fifth in deep space, each consisting of several missions. Between missions Kerrigan is based on board her spacecraft, a Zerg Leviathan (replacing the Terran battlecruiser Hyperion from Wings of Liberty), and can seek advice from her underlings, upgrade units and enhance her own powers and abilities through a levelling system. The unit-upgrade section is the most amusing, as Zerg mutation specialist Abathur (the Zerg equivalent of a slightly befuddled scientist) portentously reveals how he's going to improve the Zerg species, usually provoking a sarcastic response from Kerrigan. Given that the Zerg are the most alien and weirdest of StarCraft's three races, Blizzard draw a nice line here between making sure they stay that way whilst also humanising them enough to give them identifiable personalities. The surprise reappearance of a previous major character thought dead also helps give the game some more identifiable personalities.

The writing is as dreadfully cheesy as it was in Wings of Liberty, although the theme of a need for vengeance so powerful it overcomes one's humanity is a bit more interesting than the muddled and overlong campaign of the previous game. Heart of the Swarm is significantly shorter in terms of proper missions than its predecessor (clocking in at 20 compared to 29, almost a third shorter) but makes up for the shortfall with optional training missions showing how potential Zerg mutations will be used on the battlefield. Though entertaining, these mini-missions do feel like an attempt to pad out the length to make players feel they are getting their money's worth, and none will take longer than five minutes to complete.

On the battlefield, things are similar to Wings of Liberty. As with Liberty, the game tries to avoid too many build base-build army-kill everything missions, instead peppering some more creative objectives into the game. This is helped by the deployment of Kerrigan herself, a powerful unit with numerous powers (which are upgraded throughout the game). Kerrigan can turn the tide of a battle single-handed, but can't win everything by herself, so deploying additional troops is always necessary. Heart of the Swarm avoids the dull slog some of Wings of Liberty's missions descended into, but sometimes goes too far the other way by making things too much of a walkover. Certainly Swarm benefits from occasionally being whacked up to 'hard' mode on occasion.

On the minus side, there is obviously going to be another long wait for the conclusion of the story in Legacy of the Void, and certainly in the UK the pricing of this expansion set is off-putting: £30 - the cost of a full-price, complete game - for an expansion with a third less content than the previous game? Heart of the Swarm does just about justify it through monumental production values, a decent length (about 10-11 hours in total) and a more entertaining campaign than Wings of Liberty, not to mention the multiplayer enhancements. Also on the minus side, though for an expansion much less of an issue, the game has still resolutely failed to take on board any of the major RTS innovations of the last fifteen years. Proper 3D line of sight, cover and destructible scenery and battlefields are still nowhere to be seen, and the camera is still suspended uncomfortably close to your units and the battlefield even on the higher resolutions. Given that Wings of Liberty was looking outdated in 2010, Heart of the Swarm is looking positively geriatric in the impending face of Company of Heroes 2 and Total War: Rome 2. For fans of the franchise, however, this will no matter one whit.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (****½) is ultimately a more satisfying and enjoyable game than Wings of Liberty. The writing is still poor on an individual level, but the story is more focused and has a definitive and satisfying ending, compared to Wings of Liberty's cliffhanger. The result is a game that improves on its forebear and makes for a satisfying addition to the franchise, though one that not likely to win over anyone not already a fan. The game is available now on the PC (UK, USA).

Trailers: ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE & SC2: HEART OF THE SWARM

Bethesda and Blizzard have released trailers for their upcoming games The Elder Scrolls Online and StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Both trailers are unfortunately just CGI 'flavour' trailers rather than showing any gameplay.

First up is The Elder Scrolls Online, which takes the Elder Scrolls universe into the MMORPG realm. Set a thousand years before the events of Skyrim, the game will feature the entire continent of Tamriel (including locations already familiar to players of Skyrim and Oblivion) and will focus on a three-way war for control of the continent:

Second is StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. The long-awaited expansion to StarCraft 2 itself, Heart of the Swarm focuses on the Zerg species and adds RPG elements to the strategy game. The trailer features most of the opening cinematic to the game, apparently:

No release date has been set for The Elder Scrolls Online, whilst StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm will be released on PC on 13 March.

STARCRAFT 2: HEART OF THE SWARM gets a release date

Heart of the Swarm, the first of two expansions for StarCraft II, has had its release date confirmed. The Zerg will attack in force on 12 March 2013.

Staggeringly, this is almost three years after the release date of StarCraft II itself, which seems rather extreme for an expansion. The game will feature at least 20 new missions, with the storyline picking up some two years after the events of Wings of Liberty. The focus of the game will be on the character of Kerrigan and her attempts to regain control of the Zerg following her defeat at the end of StarCraft II itself.

Blizzard had previously claimed that Heart of the Swarm would be 'expansion pack-priced', which in the UK is about £19.99. However, the price currently listed for the title is £32.99, or about £3 more expensive than the typical cost of a full-price game in the UK. Blizzard have so far not explained the rather excessive discrepancy.

Blizzard's new MMO gets a name, plus plans for next few years revealed

Blizzard's Chinese office has leaked a production slate showing Blizzard's projects for the next four years. Heads have already rolled at the office over this, and Blizzard have confirmed that the schedule is genuine, although the dates are not set in stone.

Q4 2011
Diablo 3

Q4 2011
StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Swam

Q2 2012
World of WarCraft: Expansion 4

Q1 2013
StarCraft 2: Heart of the Void

Q2 2013
Diablo 3: Expansion 1

Q4 2013
World of WarCraft: Expansion 5

Q4 2013
Titan

Q4 2014
Diablo 3: Expansion 2


The most intriguing title on the list is Titan, Blizzard's new MMO game (though not necessarily an MMORPG). Titan has been in development for a few years already, and if it sticks to its late 2013 release (which it probably won't, this being Blizzard) it will be Blizzard's first original title in more than fifteen years. Blizzard said years ago that their next MMO would be a new franchise not linked to any existing title, so Titan isn't a code word for Worlds of StarCraft or Diablo Online either.

The slate also confirms that Diablo III will have two expansions and that World of WarCraft will have two additional expansions, taking it up to its tenth anniversary. However, it does seem to be extremely optimistic over getting Sam Raimi's planned World of WarCraft movie out in 2013 when the project still seems to be in development hell.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Four years have passed since the Brood War. The Koprulu Sector is struggling to rebuild from the cataclysmic conflict that left the Terran Dominion and Protoss Empire weakened and Kerrigan in uncontested control of the Zerg as its Queen of Blades. The Terran Emperor, Arcturus Mengsk, finds his rule being contested by the rebel Jim Raynor, his former ally who turned against him when Mengsk betrayed Kerrigan to the Zerg.



Raynor's low-level rebellion is taken up a notch when he is joined by an old friend, Tychus Findlay, and the Zerg unexpectedly return to launch a series of raids on human worlds. As Raynor furthers the cause of Mengsk's downfall, he also receives an unexpected 'gift' from his old Protoss ally, Zeratul, and learns that a much greater threat is lurking on the horizon...

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the sequel to the 1998 game StarCraft and its expansion, Brood War. The game has been released twelve years after its predecessor, during which time StarCraft has gone on to become the biggest-selling strategy computer game of all time and, bizarrely, become a national sport in South Korea, where multiplayer matches are televised and its top players are minor celebrities. It would be fair to say the game has a lot hopes and expectations riding on it.

StarCraft II is very much a game of three parts. The multiplayer, which is fast, furious and satisfying, is one part of this. However, that part does not develop far beyond what was achieved with StarCraft. There's some new units and a much more flexible interface, but broadly it's a shiny 3D make-over of the old game. It's the single-player part of the game which has received the most changes from the original.

For a start, almost the entire game is devoted to the Terran faction alone, save a four-mission side-story where you control Protoss forces. You play Jim Raynor, continuing on his quest to destroy the Dominion whilst being haunted by guilt over his failure to save Sarah Kerrigan from the Zerg in the first game. Rather than simply following a pre-set list of missions, the single-player game is much more oriented around player choices. Depending on circumstances, the game has a between-mission, RPG-like section set on one of three different locations (in a bar on Mar Sara for the first few missions, then on the battlecruiser Hyperion for most of the rest of the game, and then 'somewhere else' for the last few missions). In this section you can catch up on news reports, talk to crewmembers and allies, research new upgrades for your units, purchase new abilities and hire mercenaries. You can also play a mini-game called Lost Viking (a vertically-scrolling shoot 'em-up), listen to the jukebox or indeed just chill out in the bar.

When it comes time for the next battle, you are given a list of several different missions you can tackle (usually three at a time). You can approach the missions in any order you wish, but you get different research points (unlocking new units and abilities) and new unit deployments depending on the mission you take. A player eagerly wanting to get his hands on Siege Tanks will take a different route through the game than someone anxiously wanting to research Tech Reactors (allowing buildings to construct two units simultaneously and unlocking all of their upgrades), for example. There are also some minor storyline and dialogue changes based on what missions you do. You can also steam straight through to get to the final mission and simply choose not to do a whole bunch of missions, but I heavily recommend against this. For the final mission you really do need every unit and every upgrade you can get your hands on.

As a bonus, you also have access to a Protoss 'memory crystal' which allows you to relive Zeratul's investigations into the revelations of Brood War, giving you control of Protoss forces for several missions (the last of which is, impressively, an apocalyptic vision of the fate of the entire sector). This section is also optional, but does set-up storyline points that I suspect will become much more important in the two planned expansions, Heart of the Swarm (focusing on the Zerg) and Legacy of the Void (focusing on the Protoss).

As a single-player experience, the game does not spare any expense. The between-missions RPG stuff is excellently done, with it being possible to spend 10-15 minutes between missions simply talking to everyone, upgrading and researching new gear and ruminating over what mission to tackle next. These sequences are accompanied by in-engine cut scenes which further the story and characterisation, and really take the original StarCraft's most notable achievement (satisfyingly telling an epic but character-based story in a strategy game environment) to the next level. It's very impressive, despite the often cheesy dialogue.

The game itself does not stray too far from the original, although of course the graphics are much nicer and shinier. There's a whole metric ton of interface improvements which I suspect will make playing the original game without them a lot harder, such as the ability to build infantry and have them report immediately to a bunker, or train new SCVs and have them sent straight into mining without the need for extra micro-management. The 'guard' mode from the original game is now much-improved and allows you to send SCVs and medics with your attack force. They'll (mostly) stay out of the enemy's line of fire but remain close enough to repair and heal on the fly as needed. Individual mission design is varied but highly entertaining, ranging from a Firefly-influenced mission where you have to intercept a bunch of futuristic trains and nick some stuff from them to what a lot of people are already talking about as the game's high point: a 'zombie' or Pitch Black-inspired level where you have to go out and work during the day but then retire behind fortifications at night when you are swamped by light-sensitive enemy forces. In fact, every mission has at least one little difference to set it apart from others, resulting in a constantly varied, sometimes surprising gameplay experience.


The unit roster is larger than the original game's, allowing much more flexibility. Relying on just one unit was possible, if a little dangerous, in the original game but is a much less viable strategy here. Unfortunately, the larger roster means that the differences between some units is slight, and some units tend to be disregarded and never used as a result.

The game builds over the course of its length to an apocalyptic final set of missions which are impressive in their epic scope. However, the game unexpectedly ends in a somewhat neat manner. Given that two expansions are forthcoming I was expecting a major cliffhanger, but the finale could have served as a simple final ending with no major problems. Sure, there's clearly more stuff to come, but it's a pause rather than a cliffhanger, which given the indeterminate amount of time before Heart of the Swarm is released, is a good thing.

On the downside, the game is fast, frenetic and fun, but there are moments when you do have to acknowledge that it isn't innovative. Several RTS developments from the past ten years are ignored, and the game sometimes does feel like a very high-quality WarCraft III mod down to the feeble zooming-in button and the lack of realistic terrain. However, most of the time you are too busy playing to really focus on this aspect. The other issue is that the charming, slightly cartoony style of the cut scenes and between-mission discussions in the original have been replaced by more of a 'realistic' look, which drops Jim Raynor and his buddies squarely into the uncanny valley. It's not as bad as most games (and light-years beyond the likes of say Oblivion), but still somewhat disconcerting.


In addition, the game requires a one-time Internet activation (although you need to stay online to get the game's various achievements) and the original game's more approachable multiplayer aspects have been removed, most notably LAN play and the ability to spawn a lightweight version of the game on a friend's computer without having to buy additional copies. These are irritations rather than anything particularly deal-breaking for me, but others clearly feel otherwise.

However, a very common complaint, that this is only a 'third of a game', is more puzzling. StarCraft II is longer, more varied and more epic than the original game, and certainly moreso than any other real-time strategy game released in the past dozen years. It will take most players between 10 and 20 hours to complete, which is a very healthy amount of time for a modern single-player game, and of course the game editor, mods and multiplayer modes (where you have control of all three factions) extend the game's lifespan exponentially. If there was ever a time when a 'complete' strategy game consisted of 90 single-player missions taking 60+ hours to finish, one of the most powerful game editors have shipped, hours of cut scenes and extensive multiplayer, it must have passed me by. Certainly the original StarCraft was nothing like that at all.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (****) tends towards the conservative end of the spectrum for a sequel, but its impressive storyline, satisfying and varied gameplay and toweringly impressive polish more than make up for it. It's a powerful statement of faith by Blizzard in the so-called 'dying' PC games genre and is immensely impressive. It is available now on PC and Mac in the USA (standard, collector's edition) and UK (standard, collector's edition).

Countdown to Liberty: Special Edition Excitement

Rock Paper Shotgun has procured a slightly disturbing video of a StarCraft fan who has gotten his hands on the (insanely overpriced) Special Edition of StarCraft II. The video shows the fan fawning over the game box, art book, DVD-ROM and instruction manual with some ambient heavy breathing before he attempts to install the game only to be thwarted by Blizzard's date-checking software ("It's not yet time!").


Time to Nuclear Launch: 20 days.

Countdown to Liberty

Just to prove, if there was any further doubt, that the South Koreans are totally insane when it comes to all things Blizzard, they've stuck Jim Raynor from the StarCraft games on the back of a Boeing 747.

"In the pipe, five by five."

Oh yeah, and they're giving away a copy of StarCraft II absolutely free to every single South Korean who has an active World of WarCraft account.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, the most eagerly-awaited sequel in computer gaming history (in this house anyway), is released on PC and Mac on 27 July.

Time to Nuclear Launch: 25 days.

StarCraft 2 gets release date

Blizzard have confirmed that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, the single most eagerly-awaited sequel in PC gaming history, will be released worldwide on 27 July 2010.

"I have returned."

Better start practising to resist those Zerg rushes and Protoss Carrier Swarms right now then. The standard edition will retail for $59.99 whilst the collector's edition will clock in at $99.99 and include a making-of, a soundtrack CD, a USB flashdisk with the original two games included and more. Prices in Europe and other territories will likely be standard. Two expansions, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, are planned for release following the initial game.