I still kinda have to slap myself in the face, STARCRAFT 2 announced? OMG I thought maybe another year or 2, but finally!!! after almost a decade of waiting StarCraft fans can rejoice!

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/790/790131/starcraft-2-20070519000515560.jpg

So we've all seen the videos and screenshots on www.starcraft2.com the videos are listed as demos and things will change, the game is pre-alpha, but looks very finely polished. Obviously we only know a little bit about the Protoss so far, something about the Terrans and very little about the Zerg.

What we do know about the Protoss is that they will still have Zealots, Probes and what looks like most the standard buildings from the past game, what is new are 6 units. The Immortals replacing the Dragoons (with beefed up shields to protect vs Terran Siege tanks, makes good sense to the story since Tanks pwned dragoons in SC1) and seemingly Dark Templars are being replaced by Stalkers (guess they figured they could use more technology from their Auir brothers) No info on if they will still be able to cloak or any unit cloaking for that matter.

The Zealots get a nice Charge passive ability, the Immortals getting a tough heavy attack shield and the Stalkers being able to blink or teleport a short distance. Also new and replacing older units, the Phoenix replacing the cosairs, they seem to be a cross breed of the old Scout and Corsairs as they look like they can hit both air and ground units, are very good vs small to medium fighters, but seem to suck hard vs heavy air units.

Also new for Protoss Air, the Warp Rays (reminds me of those really cool aliens that could kill the borg in StarTrek Voyager , man I'm a real geek lol) they are very good vs heavy air units, but get pwned by small units.

And last but not least the Protoss mothership super buff, and super deadly... also super slow and you can only build one of these. By just looking at the demo its definitely overpowered, but after reading the comments by the devs, that it is a demo and also that they gave the mothership a huge amount of mana just to show off its attacks made me feel a lot better.

I get the feeling though that due to cost and its mobility, that most pro players won't plan their whole game around building up to a mothership, but rather just play basic and mass attack + mass expand, standard SC domination.

I do have 1 other worry however, from what little we saw of the Zerg we know that the zerglings have a new ability that allows them to mutate into mobile bombs. First worry is that 1 of these little bombs was enough to take out a zealot, a hand full was enough to take out the Protoss Colossus. The fact that you can potentially have a hundred lings on the map and all of a sudden turn them into deadly bombs seems a bit OP to me, in fact more so then the Mothership because of sheer numbers and mobility. Also the splash damage of the zerg bombs did not seem to kill other zerg bombs nearby. Also another OP factor to the Zerg bombs is that unlike the Scourge in SC1, these zerg bombs have to take alot more then 1 hit to kill.

I think that in order to balance them out, they need to 1) either get killed in a few hits like the scourge, 2) splash damage kills other zerg bombs, so you have to micro them carefully, 3) they take a much longer time to mutate then in the demo, 4) they are slower then they are in the demo or 5) a combination of any of these.

Now on the Terran side, our lovable and expendable marines are back, it is unclear if they still have stimpack, but it does look like they have a shield upgrade (possible similar to footmen in WarCarft 3) absence are medics (the poor hot babes that get slaughtered in SC1, but gave the name of m&ms (marines and medics) a combination that killed zerglings. Also it seems that the Firebats are gone and replaced by the Reapers. Now to me the reapers unit profile looks fugly as heck, like Bain from Batman or something... their specialty is their jump packs that allow them to jump up and over ledges which gives the Terrans some nice added mobility. But they wield 2 tiny pistols :p

I hope they change the profile of the reapers, cause they are just butt ugly right now.

Everything else however in the game seems golden :) the play mechanics, economy and game flow seems to have stayed pure to StarCraft.
All in all... I CAN'T FRIGGIN WAIT FOR MORE UPDATES!!!!