StarCraft II Released

July 27, 2010 — by Per Christensson

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty officially went on sale today. The original StarCraft game was released in March of 1998, which means the sequel was twelve years in the making. To say this game was highly anticipated is a vast understatement.

Even though StarCraft was released more than a decade ago, hundreds of thousands of people around the world still play the game. In fact, StarCraft has become so popular in South Korea that it is now a professional sport, which is broadcast on television. Many popular games have come and gone in the past ten years, but StarCraft has truly stood the test of time.

Now with the release of StarCraft II, a new era is about to begin. Like the original version, StarCraft II is a realtime strategy (RTS) game that pits the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg races against each other in a battle for space domination. From the screenshots and trailers I have seen, the game looks incredible. The old sprite graphics have been replaced with polished 3D models and the gameplay looks even smoother than the first version.

It appears that Blizzard did several things right with the development of this game, including not misleading fans with the release date, like they did with the original version. Instead of pushing back the release date year after year, Blizzard did not even mention a release date until a few weeks ago. The company also released the game simultaneously for Windows and Macintosh platforms, which I am sure the Mac faithful appreciate. I am guessing many kids and young men across the world will be short on sleep for awhile thanks to StarCraft II.