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The original StarCraft has been called one of the most well-balanced RTS games of its time. It brought depth to and created a whole new meaning for the term "strategy" in real time strategy. StarCraft and Brood War became a global gaming phenomenon, and are still games fans will reinstall a decade later to wage cyber war against each other.

With the announcement of StarCraft II, the original games have had an even bigger resurgence, recapturing fans of old and creating new devotees. The Blizzard development team knows that they have a huge challenge ahead of them; they not only have to recapture the magic of the original games but improve upon the quality of the StarCraft franchise. And that is exactly what they intend to do.

And so I present to you an early preview of the core game mechanics and graphics, the meat and potatoes of StarCraft II if you will, that will launch the franchise into the 21st century...

Graphics

StarCraft II steps out of the old school 2D realm and into three dimensions, but I have to say, so far I'm less than stunned by the new graphics. They are on par with existing next-gen RTS games like Command & Conquer 3 or Supreme Commander, but it looks like Blizzard has been working with Warcraft for so long that they've forgotten how to make environments and units look grimy and gritty. In this stage of the build, the units look too colorful and cartoon-like for my tastes, and the environment is not always to scale with the units and structures.

You can see in some screenshots how cracks in the ground are bigger than the marines, or patches of grass are almost as high as the barracks. However, overlooking some of the negative aspects of the graphics, the level of detail that has gone into both the character models and the environment at this stage of development is remarkable.

What needs to be remembered is that this is an early build of the game. There are so many aspects that will be improved and changed, including environment and unit design. If they dull down the colors and balance the size of structures, units, and environments, I believe SCII could rival World in Conflict graphically.

The most noticeable thing is that the maps and environments themselves are far more detailed and involved than in the original games. The development team is bringing back plenty of NPCs crawling and flying around the map, which really helps to flesh out the world. In addition, parts of the environment will be destructible. Obstacles like rock formations will be placed around the map and in some cases will block alternate routes and entrances to enemy bases. These piles of rocks can be destroyed, clearing a path for a perfect flanking maneuver.

The terrain in SCII is going to play a far bigger role than it did in the previous games. In the originals, large cliffs posed huge problems for ground forces; you either had to find an entrance ramp up to the top of the cliff or a way around it. If none of those options existed you were forced to fly your forces over the cliff using dropships.

That's far less of a problem in SCII. The terrain actually adds to the huge list of strategies a player can use to defeat their foes. The Colossus is a new Protoss unit that can navigate over cliffs with ease. The Terrans now have the Reaper, a unit that uses jet packs to jump from one level of terrain to the next. This limits player's abilities to use terrain as natural protection for their bases and creates new strategies that didn't exist in the originals. I will cover these units and more in the Protoss and Terran previews.

Holding high ground now gives players an advantage where before it meant nothing. We've seen in videos how deadly the new Terran Crucio Tank (the new siege tank) can be when it sits high on a cliff overlooking the ground below; it can lay waste to an entire base without ever being fired upon. This is because the fog of war works differently between high and low ground.

A group of Crucio Tanks positioned on a cliff will reveal the fog of war around them, including the fog covering the ground below. However, ground units moving on the terrain below the cliffs cannot reveal the fog of war above them. This means the Crucio Tanks are hidden from enemy units below, allowing them to attack without fear of return fire.

Physics Engine

Graphics aren't the only thing to make the jump to the 21st century; the new physics engine in SCII really helps bring the game to life. As you watch the various SCII videos you will notice that all of the units retained a unique death animation. Most have been revamped to take advantage of the new physics engine. For example, ships fall from the sky when they are destroyed, their debris scattering across the ground below. This is just one example of how Blizzard has incorporated the new physics engine.

Customization

Undoubtedly, the main attraction in the original games was the online play, and SCII will be no different. But this time around Blizzard has made it a point to make the game less about managing your units and more about deciding what units and upgrades you need to spend your money on in the first place.

The amount of customization options in SCII are far greater than before and includes new abilities for old units, abilities for new units, and a plethora of upgrades for structures, ground and air units. This will generate a lot of potential for new online strategies and counter-strategies that we've never seen before. According to Blizzard the unit cap will remain at 200 for now, but like all things in SCII it could change if they feel it helps improve the gameplay.

In SCII, some units will counter other units better based on what race they are up against and what upgrades they have, just like it was in the originals. Blizzard is trying, however, not to make any one unit completely useless against a specific race. They strive to make every unit relevant and useful to fighting each race. But they do recognize that players are going to naturally gravitate to units that work best against specific races. An example would be the Protoss Dragoon vs. Terran Wraith -- good match up. But a Protoss Dragoon against horde of Zerglings was a terrible match up that always ended in the Dragoons slaughter.

Improved A.I.

Blizzard reps have said that the A.I. in SCII is already far superior to what we experienced in Brood War in many ways. Although the most notable change is how the computer now scouts the map like human players would and makes decisions based on the information they gather. If you thwart the computer's scouting attempts then it will opt to take a more standard build-defend-continue scouting type strategy. This is both exciting and promising for news which is sure to keep even the most skilled players on their toes.

Improved Pathing

One of the biggest improvements in SCII will be the pathing. Past players can remember the difficulties they had with this. Telling large groups of ground units to walk through a narrow piece of terrain would become a disaster; units would walk into each other, then turn around and walk the other way.

Telling a group of SCVs or Probes to gather minerals was always a problem as well. They would all mine one mineral deposit until they realized it was taken and then move on to another one. In SCII, when multiple workers are ordered to gather minerals from one deposit they will automatically separate themselves and each worker will head to a separate deposit.

Workers will also have a new auto-gather feature that will allow the player to rally their workers from the Command Center/Nexus/Hive to a mineral field or Vespene gas facility so that when the workers are finished being built they will automatically begin gathering.

Speaking of minerals, there will be a new type of mineral field called High Yield Minerals. The fields will take on a yellow color and will give an extra +4 (which totals +12) for every batch a worker gathers. The high yield mineral fields will be rare on maps and players will be forced to rush to them and defend them from the enemy.

Structure build queues have been implemented, which will help relieve some of the micromanaging involved in the original games. A worker can now queue buildings consecutively so that when one building is finished, the worker will immediately begin constructing the next building, and so on.

The last tidbit of gamplay information in SCII involves the Xel'Naga. The Xel'Naga was an ancient galactic race that had been extinct in the original games. We heard of them but never saw them. In SCII Blizzard has added a Xel'Naga Observatory as an NPC-like structure on the maps. These structures will start as neutral, but when a unit stands next to it, it activates, revealing an area and lessening the fog of war around the Observatory. This is the only Xel'Naga structure we know of now, but expect to hear of more in the coming months as Blizzard has said the ancient race will play a far bigger role in the SCII story.

Wrap it up already!

These are just some of the changes and additions to the gameplay mechanics in StarCraft II. There will be far more developments as the game progresses toward a release date, which as always, will be whenever Blizzard feels the game is ready to ship. For more information on the Protoss race, the Terran race, or the Single Player aspect of SCII see the other previews.

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