So I’ve been participating in the Starcraft II Beta for a few weeks and I wanted to share my thoughts on the game so far.

First off, I was a dedicated player of the first Starcraft and it’s expansion, Brood War (Which I somehow have 5 legitimate copies of sitting in my junk drawer.. I guess I kept losing them.. then finding them again!). The original Starcraft was a great game that seemed to dominate all other RTS games at the time, due to it’s balance and emphasis on micro-management. Starcraft II has a lot to live up to (at least in my eyes) in order to be an upgrade from the original.

So here are my thoughts overall and then I’ll give you my thoughts on each race:

When I first started playing on Battle.net, it seemed like I was getting Zergling or Reaper rushed every game. However, once I became more familiar with the units that comprised my race of choice, I found that there seems to be a counter to everything your opponent can throw at you. It doesn’t seem like one race stands out among the others in terms of strength and special abilities. The key is the element of surprise and the ability to micro-manage your units and make the most out of each of them. If an opponent doesn’t cover the rear of their base, it can be easy to sneak in a strike a deadly blow to their economy. Keeping an eye on the empty base locations is also very important. Before you know it your opponent will have four bases scattered all over the map and you won’t have a clue. If a Terran player is in an intense firefight with another race, the Raven unit can throw up a Point Defense Drone which shoots down enemy missiles, giving your troops both on the ground and in the air a big advantage.

The new Battle.net

If you are a veteran of the original, you will notice right off the bat that Battle.net has been completely re-vamped to include matchmaking, rank placement system, party system and some awesome UI enhancements.

One of the great things about PC games is that you have control over every details. In the the Starcraft II options screen players can tweak every detail to get the game running as smooth as possible for their setup.

In general, this beta feels fairly polished and balanced, with the occasional bug or crash here and there, but nothing that stands out. There seems to be a new patch for the beta every week with very noticeable fixes to balancing and bugs, which lets you know that Blizzard is paying close attention to the reports sent in by their beta testers. Battle.net is better than ever and is only going to be improved from here on out.

Terran

Terran seems to be the most popular race in Starcraft II. Likely since they are the humans and we naturally relate and understand them the best.

Like other races, Terran units range from both light to heavy and just like in the original Starcraft, the Marine is the first unit built from the barracks. It looks like the Firebat was replaced by the Reaper, a light ground unit that can traverse uneven terrain and has a special attack that can eradicate a building very quickly.

My favorite Terran unit is the Banshee, a cloakable air unit that has a strong ground attack but no air defense and is created at the Starport. With a group of 6 or more banshees, it is possible to slip into the back of an opponents base undetected and deliver a barrage of rockets into their main Command Center/Nexes/Hatchery giving you a huge economic advantage.

Overall the Terran race has it’s strong and weak points. While their Siege Tanks can absolutely decimate ground units, they are defenseless to air attack. The Terran Missile Turret is a great air defense, but cannot target ground units. It seems that the key to Terran is creating a good mix of air and ground units for defense as well as offense.

Protoss

The Protoss have mastered psychic abilities. Units are warped in at their corresponding facility and some units even have the ability to warp other units across the battlefield. Each Protoss unit also has a shield that, once drained, can be replenished. While this seems like a huge advantage over other races, the Protoss actually have quite a few weaknesses. Their build times are much greater than Zerg and Terran. This makes it almost impossible to rush with Protoss units early on in the game and makes them weak against a Zergling or Marine rush.

Protoss seems to be the most dependent on minerals and gas since many of their high-level units require a large amount of materials to create. Building a new base and increasing economic output early on is essential.

Many of the units from the original are present such as the Zealot, Dark Templar and Carrier but there are a slew of other units from the Colossus, a large War of the Worlds type of machine that can traverse uneven terrain much like the Terran Reaper and can be targeted by both ground and air attacks, to the Warp Prism, a flying unit that can warp other units across the map like a Terran drop ship might carry them and the ability to convert to a temporary Pylon, providing power to buildings within it’s matrix.

Overall, Protoss seems to be the most n00b friendly race and the most straight forward, although they do have some unique abilities that will only be used by advanced players. They appear to be quite balanced in spite of their special abilities and units which can attack both air and ground.

Zerg

The Zerg are, in my opinion, the more complicated of the three races. Units must be built on “Creep” which can be expanded by Creep Tumors and by a shower of creep released from beneath an Overlord.

All of the Zerg structures are organic, living creatures which are morphed from the basic Zerg worker unit, the Drone. This is a key disadvantage since a worker unit is lost with every structure and must be replaced.

The Zerg have a ton of special abilities. The Infestor can use mind control on enemy units to take control of them, the Queen showers some goo on a building and restores 125 hit points and the Roach can move around the battlefield while burrowed underground.

Of all the races, Zerg seems to be the least popular and the most complicated. That isn’t to say they they are any better or worse than Terran or Protoss, just harder to master.

Conclusion

I have enjoyed participating in the beta thus far and am surprised that this game feels so much like the original. While there are some new key features and much needed improvements, it still feels like you are playing Starcraft.

Battle.net has also been greatly improved and now has integrated matchmaking, ladders and friends list which makes for an awesome online experience.

Once Starcraft II is officially released, I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on the single player. Thanks for reading.