Battle.net redesigned from the ground up
As the development team felt they had to tinker with the formula there is now the idea of research outside of the missions. After successful completion of a mission there are two tech ladders open to you, Protos and Zerg. For each ladder you have a series of Boolean choices between different technologies and once decided you can never go back, that other item will never be researched. The scientist in me is appalled at this idea; yes I’ll take mind controlling aliens any day, but one time research choices, that’s just crazy. Messing about with the idea of alien research isn’t the only change compared with the original, you also earn credits for completing missions which can be used to buy, erm, research again. Only with this tech tree you can research all the options, just not the options of the alien research tree, which don’t produce alien like research. Two separate ways of doing very similar things each with their own uniquely frustrating take on the matter. I think there is someone from the HMRC tax department who went to join Blizzard.One new worthy addition is the concept of mercenaries, after completing a mission you can buy the ability to call up highly powerful mercenary units of differing types. I actually find myself quite liking these purchase concepts at this point, this, far more than the story options allow you to create differing game play, something which should add to the longevity of the game greatly.
For many fans, little of the preceding review matters, StarCraft was all about the multiplayer. Indeed it is no urban myth that certain players in South Korea receive more than their footballers. StarCraft II carried on this fine tradition, despite the wildly different technologies of each race it appears that the game play is rather well levelled. Battle.Net ensures the tradition that new players aren’t slung up against the full time professionals living in their mother’s basement.
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