When I finally got my hands on Starcraft II, I couldn’t help but notice that a couple of abilities seen in the immensely popular World of Warcraft made their way into the game, especially on the Protoss side. In Protoss vs Terran matches, these new abilities, mostly assigned to lower tier units, can make a huge impact if they are researched and put into play. With the Terran race being considered by many in the early going to be the strongest race in StarCraft II, Protoss players are going to need all the help they can get, and some clever micro usage with these abilities, can go a long way.

Charge can be researched for zealots, which is incredibly useful. With this ability, a zealot will charge at high speeds toward the nearest enemy ground unit, closing the distance immediately between it and ranged attackers like marines and marauders. Closing the distance on ranged units to avoid getting kited is important enough, but with the marauders’ researched ability for concussive shells, which slow down approaching enemy units, charge becomes an absolute must. A pack of zealots with charge can easily overtake a pack of marauders or marines, but watch out. If you see medivacs, you might want to back off and get some anti-air in the area, like stalkers or void rays.

Next up is blink, an ability that can be researched for stalkers. Blink allows an individual stalker to phase forward through space instantly, to another nearby location. This has a few nice uses. I like to use it to phase my stalkers in between enemy forces, separating the enemy army and making it easier to manage and harder for my opponent to send in reinforcements. Stalkers can also blink across gaps, provided they are small enough. On certain maps, you’ll find you can actually blink stalkers around the map into the back of an unsuspecting enemy’s base, crippling economy and possibly grabbing an easy win. Otherwise, if you have a well-hidden observer, you can blink stalkers from low to high ground, without needing to use a choke point. This is useful if you need to get in behind a well stocked Terran wall, though you will still need to watch out for siege tanks.

Anything to fight off a Terran wall or a full troop of marauders and marines is more than welcome. The once downtrodden Terran race in StarCraft I is now a mighty power in StarCraft II, played by most of the current top players in the world. These familiar little moves highlight a very important thing to remember in StarCraft II: research your upgrades. When playing, you need to err on the side of caution and assume that your enemy will bring fully upgraded units, with researched abilities, to the fore, unless you’ve done some thorough scouting and know for a fact they have not.

With these abilities, good Protoss players can become masters of the quick hit-and-run attack. Blink is great for quick retreats, especially when using the high ground-low ground strategy. This can lead to a decrease in units lost, and a healthier economy. Charge makes zealot strikes lightning quick, and can overwhelm slower Terran players who have not finished building a wall, or who have too few marines to fend off a zealot rush.

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Zeratul’s appearance in StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty was all too brief, but the urgency he brought to the fore more than made up for it. Tidings of Armageddon at the hands of a reawakened ancient race, the Xel’Naga, and claims that Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades leading the Zerg in an effort to destroy the Terrans and Protoss, is the key to stopping it, has turned the plot of the StarCraft saga on its head. With all the stunning plot twists his memories brought to the fore, we can only assume that Zeratul will continue to play a vital role in the coming conflicts.

I think, after being faced with one of the hybrids in action while trying to free the Protoss ancients needed to translate the prophecy, Zeratul will be even more dedicated to his quest of finding these hybrids, and, ultimately, their source. It’s hard to imagine that he could possibly be wrong at this point; the Dark Voice and his minions encountered in Zeratul’s final vision of the Protoss’ destruction almost certainly are Xel’Naga, intent on recreating life in the galaxy once again. After all, claims by the Dark Voice of being the Protoss’ beginning and end lends itself to nothing else but the suggestion that he is a member of the ancient creator race.

Zeratul will also likely keep searching for the mysterious Samir Duran, who seemed absent from Wings of Liberty; however, as some have noted, Dr. Narud of Moebius is Duran spelled backwards, and Kerrigan, during the Moebius mission, mentions that she sees through his “pathetic charade.” Coupled with the secret mission, Piercing the Shroud, it looks like Duran, if he is indeed Narud, has had some influence on Mengsk, and has given him access to hybrids and advanced technology. If Duran truly is an agent of the Xel’Naga, he will likely be doing anything to help anyone who wants Kerrigan dead, as she is the only one who can put a stop to the Xel’Naga plot to destroy all three races, and rebuild the galaxy with the hybrids.

What interests me most is what Zeratul’s reaction will be to the fact that Kerrigan is now a human once again. It seems like her role as the savior against the Xel’Naga was predicated on her being able to control the Zerg swarms, rather than the Dark Voice gaining command. If she cannot fulfill that role as a human, is she as good as dead, as far as the prophecy is concerned? If so, Zeratul’s warnings seem to have been for naught. That is, of course, assuming that Kerrigan is completely human now, which might not be true, considering that her hair still remains as it was when she was the Queen of Blades. With her psionic powers as a ghost, and perhaps remnants of the Zerg infestation left behind, she may still be able to wield influence over the swarms, which could lead to a battle between her and the Dark Voice for control of the Zerg and, ultimately, all life in the galaxy.

What Zeratul’s role will be in the next chapter remains to be seen; likely, it will not be as great as it will be in the third chapter, Legacy of the Void, which will actually be focused on the Protoss. Even still, he figures to be a major player as long as the Dark Voice, and possibly the Xel’Naga, are involved. Besides, any further cinematics featuring Zeratul showing off his fighting prowess would be more than  welcome.

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Out of all three races, the Protoss probably remain the least changed during the early stages of the game. The familiar zealot rush still works in much the same way as it did in Starcraft I, but there are a few other new Starcraft strategies that make the Protoss a little more versatile at the beginning of games.

Zealots essentially remain the same units they were in the first Starcraft. They do have one new ability, charge, that allows an individual zealot to rush toward an enemy unit extremely quickly once every ten seconds, making it much more difficult for opponents to keep the lethal close combat zealots out of attacking range. The charge ability must first be researched at a twilight council.

A new unit that replaces the old Protoss shuttle is the multipurpose warp prism, built at a robotics facility. The warp prism, in addition to the loading function of a shuttle, can be shifted to act as a mobile pylon. When in this mode, the warp prism cannot move, but if threatened, can revert quickly back to transport mode and retreat. Early in the game, this new use is vital because of the ability to upgrade Protoss gateways into warp gates. Warp gates allow the Protoss player to warp their units to any location on the map covered by a psionic matrix. Thus, a player can load up a warp prism, send it to an enemy base, shift the warp prism to phasing mode, and use it to constantly warp in reinforcements. These new Starcraft strategies can overwhelm unprepared opponents.

The classic Protoss dragoon does not return in Starcraft II. Taking its place is the stalker, a more agile unit that, like the dragoon, is both anti-ground and anti-air and requires a cybernetics core to produce. Though they are not as tough or lethal as dragoons, stalkers do have the ability to use blink, which must be researched. Blink allows the stalker to teleport a short distance, which can be used to catch up to fleeing units or to execute a successful retreat.

The Protoss have always been known as the slower race early in the game, in terms of unit cost and production time. This is alleviated by the new chrono boost. Each nexus can, at the cost of 25 energy, speed up unit production or research at a selected building by 50% for 20 seconds. This is perfect for quickly increasing probe production in order to get resources faster, or to create more zealots for a quick rush on an enemy base.

Finally, the Protoss have a very useful new support unit: the sentry. Created at gateways after a cybernetics core is in play, the sentry does minimal damage to air and ground units, and is very fragile. Its three abilities are what makes it a must for any good early Protoss attack. The sentry has inherited hallucination from the high templar of Starcraft I, which must first be researched. If an attack can be executed before an opponent has made detectors, hallucinations can create mass confusion, wasting much of the enemy’s time. The sentry also has two natural abilities: the force field and the guardian shield. The former creates a small force field on the map that obstructs ground troop movement. This is ideal for choke points, allowing a quick Protoss player to cut off a main enemy force from receiving reinforcements, opening a very successful divide-and-conquer tactic. The guardian shield reduces damage received from ranged attacks for all ground units inside the shield by two each, making the already durable Protoss force even harder to kill.

For savvy players, Protoss can be developed much faster than in the original Starcraft. With the importance of charge and force field taking center stage, good micromanagement, which requires a lot of skill and practice to hone, is more important than ever. For those that put in the time, it will prove to be well worth it.

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In 1998, Blizzard released what many believe is the best real time strategy game ever. Fans extract resources, manufacture war units and crush opponents over the internet and local network to this day – twelve years later.

No wonder the expectations of “StarCraft 2″ are high, in other words. And a significant number of hours of multiplayer part of the “StarCraft 2″ during the beta testing, it was primarily the one player part and the main campaign that stood as the biggest question mark when the game was released on Tuesday.

A lot of people will spend hours, days, weeks, months and perhaps years in the tough battle against other players over the net, much of the “StarCraft” experience related to the story and the main campaign.The games is very detailed, every little detail is trained and thoughtful to a degree that only games with seven years of development time can be.

The Plot starts four years after “StarCraft: Brood Wars”. In the center stands the marginalized hero Jim Raynor and the newly released Tychus Findlay. The latter was actually sentenced to life imprisonment and was released in a permanent protection suite under mysterious circumstances.

Together with the idealistic Matt Horner he takes the fight against the oppressive reign of Valerian Mengsk. A match which will be made considerably more complicated by the return of the insect-like “Zerg” forces, led by Raynor former colleague Kerrigan. Kerrigan was poisoned and corrupted by an invading Zerg army as she desperately tried to fight.

The story that unfolds through 25 missions are of high quality. In particular, Raynor and Tychus are wonderful characters who feel real and three-dimensional despite the seemingly stereotypes on respectively “snout rough-but-bottom kind-with-dark-history completely” and “cigar-in-mouth-and-noicy-machinegun hero”.

Between missions you’ll return to Raynor’s spaceship. Here you can chat with people on board, researching technology with technology-earned points, buy upgrades for their devices, hiring mercenaries and a whole host of other things.

Which projects you want to undertake, and what order you choose to do them in, is to some extent up to the player himself. You can skip some missions, but then you’ll go missing money and research points. You’re also sometimes faced with dilemmas in which one must choose which party you want to support in a conflict, with associated positive and negative consequences.

The missions are very varied; each one has its very own character, indeed almost their own personality.

On one mission I suddenly had to take into account the difference between day and night. The aim was to destroy a Zerg-infected colony of well over one hundred tentacle covered buildings.

During the day, which lasted five minutes, the colony was abandoned and where almost frightening still, the night crept thousands upon thousands of infected zombies from the ground and attacked. If I didn’t get my entire army into the base and defense systems in full swing before darkness fell, I would base my struggle to stand against the zombie waves.

On another mission I was on a planet where the lava floods washed over everything from lowlands regularly. Because I had to conduct mining activities on lowlands, had to evacuate the buildings, machinery and get into the air on time.

I could have continued like this for an eternity, the missions were so unique that I remember them all. Not only that, I will also like to play them again.

The number of units and buildings in the main campaign surpasses those available in the multiplayer part with a good margin. It was actually almost a little disappointing to go back to this after having me wait in the arsenal one player section. But it seems to balance considerations as the reason for this, and the selection in the multiplayer part is it does not matter on.

If one is to first find out scrutiny and attempt to find fault, it may be mentioned that the auto-navigation to your devices sometimes selects inappropriate solutions. If the planned road is or becomes impassable, they can choose the long and potentially dangerous detours to reach the target. But it goes much time between each time it happens, and always caused you to have given an extremely low order.

Few games have had more expectations to live up to than “StarCraft 2″, even fewer have done it just as convincing. Good, old “Star Craft” can retire with dignity, the real-time strategy genre has found a new king.

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