This is a gargantuan task. Writing about Starcraft 2 after its aftermath, feels like rehab. My initial skepticism made me look at the beta as Starcraft 1.5 (many many people did that), and I thought that this game wouldn’t astonish me. But I was wrong. I was baffled, amazed, and sometimes even furious at what Starcraft 2 had in store for me. It’s colossal, it’s magnificent, and sometimes it’s even a piece of shit. But it’s an epic piece of shit that I couldn’t stop playing, even if I got my ass kicked dozens of times by twelve-year-old Korean kids. And no, me being crap in multiplayer didn’t affect the game's score or anything. I suggest you read on.

I wanted to be a troll. Not the fantastic creature, but the idiotic skeptic raving anti-fanboy babbler that pisses all over Blizzard's epic tale. But I couldn’t, no matter how harsh I was, or how much I was used to being a surgeon-like critic here at UFO Gamers. Okay, you’ll find a few rude words here and then, and a few violent statements aimed at some random individuals, but those, besides aiding my psychiatrist in his research about hereditary rage, are just some harmless ways that help me put my ideas on paper.

Holy shit! It’s here!!!111oneoneelevenOMGZWTFB BQ!!!!

Yes, Starcraft 2 is here, and after so many years of waiting, I jumped into its arms waiting for nostalgia to kick in. And it did kick. It kicked me. In the balls.

Casting any bile aside, the gameplay is as Starcraft as it can get. You won’t find any differences here, only the sheer pleasure of micromanaging your base to annihilate anyone that stands in the way of victory. However, the single player campaign has some quirks that need to be noted. First of all, between missions, at your command centre, you have the opportunity to upgrade different types of weapons for your troops, enhance the capabilities of a certain building and so on.  For example, you can upgrade your bunkers, so that they’ll hold six marines instead of four. It’s interesting, it’s tactical and it’s fun. But there’s something fishy about it. The way you earn resources is by finishing different side-missions. And that, my friends, pisses all over the atmosphere. How can you feel as though you're in an epic, dramatic battle against the Zerg, while Raynor's guys are out and about gathering cash to be able to afford that hot new suspension on his pimp-shuttle. It’s outrageous. And what the fuck? When did Raynor have time for a goddamn hair implant?

Oh, Blizzard, you cunning little whores! You transformed Raynor into Arthas! Probably because you wanted WoW's  player-base to get all wet and horny and worship Starcraft 2 as much as World of Warcraft. Speaking of whores, let’s talk about Activision, the puppet-master behind the new design decisions in Starcraft 2. In case you haven’t played the first one, I assure you, it has one of the best scripts you can find in a game (this is even more awesome, considering it’s and RTS, not an RPG or whatever). It was funny, it was smart, and most of all, it was mature, making you feel in a believable sci-fi future. Here, instead, we find macho-bullshit lines every minute, and horrible voice acting (I think it was on purpose), that remind you of Stallone movies in the 80s. I’m just going to quote Jim Raynor out of context now:

“I’m going to finish this!”

“They won’t stop us!”

“We’ll never stop fighting for humanity!”

And the list goes on.

There’s so much childish dialogue in this game, you’d think you’re playing a Dora the Explorer game. But no, you’re playing Starcraft 2, a title with gameplay so fine and dandy, you could swear that the RTS gods have blessed you in their own special way. I’m guessing that Activision wasn’t really satisfied with SC being Korea's national sport and all, and they decided they need to be even more popular, to attract the dip-shit population to buy the game. Call me retarded, but I think that SC2 would have been enjoying the same amount of sales, with a smarter and more mature script in its possession.

But on a more serious note, without the nitpickings of a hardcore Starcraft fan, this game is a complete package that’s great for RTS fans and newcomers alike. The huge amount of content present here is enough to spend your salary without any regrets. It’s too bad that there’s only one campaign, the Zerg and the Protoss campaigns shall be sold separately. I won’t call those two titles 'games', because I got too pissed off when Blizzard announced that they’ll be cutting the initial Starcraft 2 into three games, sold separately (again, my spidey-sense tells me that this is Activision's pesky little hand). But, the content out of the box is enough to justify the purchase.

You’ll be kicking alien ass, you’ll be running across the map with your marines, trying not to burn to death, while a solar explosion slowly incinerates a planet's surface, you’ll feel like a true commander in-between missions, aboard Raynor's awesome battlecruiser, The Hyperion.  In multiplayer however, you’ll feel as an insignificant insect, amidst the hordes of Starcraft players. Battle.net manages to make the multiplayer experience a blast. This new improved version is like a Blizzard-games-only-Steam-like-application, but a bit improved. While playing SC2, you can chat with other players, in other SC2 games, or even World of Warcraft players. The matchmaking system is also a great deal of fun, calculating your win-lose ratio, allowing you to enter games with players with a similar skill to yours.  And what would a new Blizzard game would be without achievements. You can earn them in campaign, in the skirmishes and of course, in multiplayer. And some of them are ridiculously hard to obtain. But these little details, give the game a sense of accomplishment. Although some of the lines in this article have been harsh, others resembled praises. And they are praises. I can get angry from any little detail that bugs me about a game, but there are only a handful of games that stay months on end installed on my hard drive. Starcraft 2 is one of them. It encompasses a complete experience, from novice players to hardcore maniacs. The gameplay mechanics are sublime, merging the old and the new, and excluding some design hiccups, it’s a complete game that shouldn’t be missed by anyone.