Preview: StarCraft II (Page 3 of 3)
The immortal is the next evolution of StarCraft's dragoon unit. It's a powerful walking tank with an automatic shielding system that kicks in every time an attack of a certain magnitude is detected, allowing it to easily withstand large barrages of firepower. Unfortunately, small-arms fire doesn't trigger the shield system, meaning the immortal is vulnerable to attacks from smaller units.
The colossus, conversely, does wonders against small units. A long-legged machine that can quickly scale cliffs, the colossus is armed with a pair of tracking beams that can easily cut through marines and zerglings with incredible speed. Finally, the stalker is a mechanical, dragoon-like unit that can 'blink' short distances, allowing it to catch up to fleeing units or quickly bypass obstacles.
The Protoss's new offerings were, thus far, all very impressive, but it was the phase prism that came close to stealing the show. An unarmed aerial support unit, the phase prism can hover over any area on the battlefield and distribute a psionic power field identical to those created by pylons. Combined with the Protoss's new warp gate technology (which allows units to be warped in anywhere in the psionic network), the phase prism can be used to project reinforcements anywhere on a map. And, as an added bonus, they can transport units, meaning a single one of them could travel anywhere on the battlefield and, through a combination of offloading and warping, set up a new base in a matter of seconds.
Nevertheless, impressive as the prisms were, the new Protoss mothership won the hearts and minds of viewers at the Worldwide Invitational. The only super-unit in the entire game (neither the Zerg nor the Terrans have anything like it, and a Protoss force can only have one of them in battle at any point in time), motherships come equipped with three devastating abilities that tax their energy reserves but obliterate enemies.
The 'time bomb' is a defensive ability that slows down all enemy movement inside a spherical field around the mothership, including that of enemy projectiles-missiles that penetrate the sphere never make it far enough inside to deal any damage. The 'planet cracker' is an equally potent offensive ability that sends columns of energy straight down, but doesn't prevent the unit from moving, allowing it to rove over an enemy base, literally carving a path of destruction. Finally, at a significant energy expense, a mothership can project, at will, a black hole, sucking anything and everything around the distortion into an inescapable vortex, instantly obliterating single fighters or fleets of Terran battlecruisers.
...Same Old StarCraft
Still, for all the new wonders StarCraft II will introduce when it's finally released, it still has the same game speed, the same unit definition and cohesion, the same feel as the original masterpiece. Terran buildings still fly and Zerg structures are still built on Creep. The single-player storyline will still star Sarah Karrigan, the Zerg Queen of Blades, and multiplayer games will still be played on the (new and improved) Battle.net matchmaking service. StarCraft II is, in short, still StarCraft. It's simply the next iteration of the franchise.
Does it have a lot to live up to? Hell yes. Will it be a success? Almost assuredly. Will it be better than the original? That's a tough one. But if anyone can do it, Blizzard can.
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