This review was written by Solvanirn, one of our regulars on the forums. If you’d like to submit an article for Multiplaying, and you’re not a complete jerk about it, feel free to head on over and share your thoughts!

Let me first start off saying that I was extremely skeptical about buying Starcraft II mainly due to the fiasco surrounding the Battlenet and RealID nightmare as well as it being split up into 3 different episodes. As I stared at it in my local gaming store, I could not resist it. I could not get over the fact that I had literally destroyed 2 Starcraft CD’s by over playing them. I loved the game so much it I played it well into college (until my CD’s gave out). Let me also say that I am not the greatest at multiplayer. I loved the single player campaigns and that is really what has drawn me to the game.

As far as the single player, there is a TON of stuff to do. You have the normal single player campaign, which picks up a little after then end of the Brood War expansion, you can also do a quick game with just computer AI, there are also a series of challenges where you get X units have to accomplish something, and with having 4 differing levels of difficulty, you can spend a lot of time with just yourself.

The single player starts with Jim Raynor as the main character in this ‘episode’. After the first few missions you get a board a starship and into the main meat of the game. You have a lot of different options as to what missions you want to do in what order. There is definitely a big Dawn of War vibe to it as far as mission selections go, but its not a bad thing. You end up having a lot of freedom to go where you want, but it pays off if you do a lot of the extra side missions. There are also a few missions where you play as another race (no spoilers, but you do get to build a base and also have your own set of objectives). You also get money to spend on upgrading specific units for added bonuses (improving medics heal, stimpaks for marines, etc). You also have a choice who to help sometimes during the course of the game and this can effect what happens for the next map as well as having what units available. Like choosing which faction to side with when you run into a Zerg infested planet that is about to be purged by the Protoss.

The maps itself are extremely varied, from defend for X minutes, escort civilians for evac off of a planet, attack a train, or just plain crush the Zerg. This helps to keep each map playing a little bit different while also forcing you to use different units than what you are used to.

The new units are fantastic, but you can also end up with different specialty units as some are gained through research. Research is just a fancy way of saying having secondary objectives during the single player campaigns. As you level up in them, you have a choice, but cannot get both upgrades, like choosing between having a refinery be automated so you don’t need an SCV harvesting or doubling the amount of vespene that your SCV’s can carry. There is also new abilities to your old go to units from the first like the new shuttle also heals organic units and your science vessels (if you get them) heal your vehicles.

With having so many units, especially new ground units, you really have to focus on what your build strategies are (building barracks over star-ports, etc) but that is what the original was about, variety and not really knowing what your opponent or computer is up to.

The main campaign is as long as most games are in my opinion as it took me around 20-25 hours to fully complete it. However I was playing on Normal and also not extremely focused on secondary objectives most of the time. After the single player I have messed around in multiplayer for a bit but the thing that drew me was the challenges as they are extremely well done. These revolve around having a set number of units and trying to reach an objective. Like having 6 Ghosts and 6 Ravens (new unit that is a detector and drops ground turrets) and see how many Zerg you can wipe out in 3 minutes (and yes you have 7 nukes). These are perfect in my opinion, as they are short, are relatively easy to understand, but really test your abilities with the units and teach you to become better at micro managing.

Not wanting to ruin the story, but it is well done as all Blizzard games are. Flashy in game cinematics as well as great voice acting. All in all SCII is a fantastic edition and a great follow up to a classic game. If you were wondering about buying it and you suck at multiplayer (like me) I would still highly recommend it as you will definitely be busy for a while. Even if you hate multiplayer you can always thrash the computer around with some friends!!!

Now with all this awesomeness that SC2 is, the main gripe that I have is that you must log onto Battlenet in order to save your single player progress and to unlock the achievements. If you are not connected you are forced into signing into an offline profile that will not update your main profile. Also (and there is a warning about this when you log on) is that the name you choose when you first make your account is the name that will always be there so CHOOSE WISELY!!!!

So what do you guys all think? Pro/Con of SCII? Do you hate the required Battlenet sign in?