For some of you, it will only be minutes past midnight before you go and get yourself some good ol’ Starcraft 2 action. You’ll be lining up (or already have) at your local Best Buy or Future Shop and be one of the many who’s already figured out that the best way to win a multiplayer is either to zerg rush the piss out of your opponent or tech rush with a team.

And then there will be me, waiting for you to skill yourself up to the point that when I do get the game and fire up the mulitplayer experience, you’re waiting there to hand my ass to me (and assuming your no older than my current shoe size, tell me all about my momma). Oh the horror…

Much like Ed, I distinctly remember my experience with Starcraft as if it were yesterday. I remember thoroughly enjoying the story line on the single player, and the satisfaction of providing limited support to my buddies when we fired up the multiplayer (okay, okay.. we cheated.. we always played 4v4 with 5 people – it was nice to have a mole). I also remember scenes such as the image above, although I was usually able to last long enough to have a massive number of firebats all freaked out on the stimpack juice.. yes.. that is definitely the stuff.

So what should we expect in a moments time?

StarCraft II continues the epic saga of the terrans, protoss, and zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy as each faction struggles for survival.

Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard Entertainment will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company’s world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game.

Well.. that’s the official line from Blizzard. I can’t speak to the single player experience, but having had a chance to crack open the multiplayer beta, everything I remembered from a decade ago was still quite the same. The zerg or tech rush is still the in thing. Protoss are still OP in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. Chris still plays terran because he thinks there is honour in doing so. Yep, same old same old. There are some new units and unit dynamics (no more firebats which pisses me off), the rules that bind line-of-sight are different (height is something that comes in handy), and games didn’t seem to turtle as often, but it just seemed to me that it was just the same ol’ game polished up.

But what do I know? Exactly.