Here it is! I've beaten the campaign on StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and I have a few things to say. First off, I still hold a large grudge against Blizzard for taking away LAN play, so I remain bitter. Secondly, battle.net integrated a game client into the mix this time with a cross-game chat that works quite well so far. I like this, so I'm not as bitter. Moving on, the game itself mixed together many things that I find new in the game that, when I went back and played the first one again, I wish they had then too.
Just to note a few of the basic changes, they added a progress bar for all building assignments. Whether it be constructing a unit, or fashioning a building, or even researching an upgrade, there's a gray bar above the respective sites showing the progress. This made keeping track of buildings and upgrades so much easier, and allowed better tactics to be employed with proper timing.
Another thing they added was a better campaign mode, though this is but the first of the trilogy. You have multiple missions to choose from most of the time, and you can upgrade units and research new things to use in battles in the garage and laboratory respectively. The research opportunities are only made available when you collect enough research points in the missions themselves. This made for a challenging and fun bonus objective systems within the missions that livened things up when you didn't need them livened up. But it was welcome all the same.
Continuing with the madness, you have new units out the wazoo for the Terrans, with new units for each of the other three races as well. Terrans are beefed up with the Thors, giant mech land walkers that can flatten about anything in their tracks whether it's in the air or on land, facing up against the Protoss Mothership, the ultimate in land and air assault craft, with the new Ultralisk from the Zerg throwing it's tusks into the fray. Now there are some units you can't use in the game, like the Protoss Purifier, a beefed up mothership, and the Zerg Omegalisk, which is unbelievably difficult to destroy with anything short of a platoon of air vehicles. Then there's the hybrid, but he's just an ass.
Throughout the campaign, you have (I believe) three occasions where you have to choose between two options. Each option will give you a different mission and different perks. Maybe an upgraded unit, or an advantage in a later mission, or just a different mission to stem from where you thought the plot was going. Either way, they don't really have an effect on the story to a large extent, but it is refreshing to see here and there.
Yet another addition to the game exclusively for the campaign are the hero units. Yes, before you had units like Jim Raynor and Kerrigan and Duke, but never more than one per mission. But there's a mission that you get FOUR of them. That's all you start out with in the mission, and each of them has a special ability that is quite equally awesome.
I didn't have a chance to play any online vs. because of my current situation for internet, but I've talked with some people who have and they say it's pretty damn spiffy. I'd like to get a chance to do a 2v2 match, because the idea of dismantling a pair of foes with a buddy is incredibly enticing. This said, for the most part I'll probably be sticking to 1v1 for the time being until I can find a reliable partner who doesn't show me up too bad.
After all of this, I have to say that as much as I'm still bitter towards Blizzard about this, I love the game. I'm stoked for the next installments of the series to come out and I'll almost guaranteed purchase all of them legally just to show my support. For those of you who have the game, I hope to face you in battle one day!
>Ryft
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