For both of you who haven’t heard, Starcraft 2 is in closed beta!  And if you found this blog, then I highly doubt that I need explain what Starcraft 2 is, but just to be certain I will.  Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty is the sequel (well, first part of a trilogy that constitutes the sequel) to Starcraft, a real-time strategy game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in 1998.  The other two parts of the Starcraft 2 trilogy are the Heart of the Swarm and the Legacy of the Void.

In Starcraft (2), there are three species that the player can take into battle: the Protoss, the Zerg, and the Terran, each with different units, styles of play and mechanics.  The Protoss are the high-tech aliens, with shields protecting their warriors.  Their units tend to be expensive but powerful.  The Zerg, collectively named the Swarm, are vicious insectoid aliens who favor melee combat (typically).  The epitome of the Zerg units is the Zergling, a small, fast, and rather nasty unit that is cheap and quick to produce; they are rather fragile and cannot attack at range.  The Terran are humans, with their armies being composed of marines, tanks, vehicles, and spacecraft/aircraft.

A bit ago, around February, the closed beta for Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty started. Since then, I’ve been craving my daily dose of videos.  The beta is just the online melee component of the game through Battle.net 2.0 (also in beta); there is no access to the single player game or the level editor. Still, these videos will have to hold me over until A.) I get into the beta, or B.) the game comes out.

There are quite a few videos available online for those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to have beta access.  My favorite three commentators are HuskyStarcraft [Protoss], HDStarcraft [Zerg], and PsyStarcraft [Zerg].  They each have their own styles of commentating, but all are enjoyable.  Both HD and Husky commentate their own games as well as some of the more interesting high-level games.  Husky and HD also have a number of games where they play against one another or on the same team in arranged 2v2.  The HD/Husky dual commentaries are particularly fun to watch and listen to.  Psy seems to be quite skilled (at or near the top of his Platinum division) and commentates his own games.  I recommend checking them out and tossing these guys subscriptions (or even donations) for their hard work. 

I also tend to head over to http://www.teamliquid.net/sc2/ and read the articles and view the streams.  I intend on playing Zerg primarily, so I’ve been watching the players listed as Zerg. Because they are awesome.  The spreading of creep through tumors looks like it would be fun to mess around with: "I will cover the entire map with creep, muhahaha!"

I’ve been watching SC2 videos just about everyday since they started showing up.  By now I must’ve watched (or listened to) over a hundred. Over the weekend I’m going to write a more indepth summation of my impressions of the game and post it.  Till then,

Cheers,

-S