Platypus of Truth

It took fifteen years to get from Starcraft to Starcraft II.  To say the wait was worth it would be cliched.  Would I have liked this game to have come out a lot sooner?  Sure.  Did I still love it when it came out?  You bet. I've already discussed my reaction to the map editor for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty over here .  As far as the game mechanics are concerned, they're the same easy-to-use-hard-to-master interface; just perfect for an old fossil like me.  The Diablo-esque tech-trees were easy to navigate even for someone who has never played any of the Diablo games or their imitators.  The three divergent plot trees were minimal and underdeveloped but still fun.  I appreciated the way they stressed that choices have human consequences.  In fact, that might be the whole point of the game.   *mild spoilers ahead* Now on to what really interests me: Story.  Unlike the first Starcraft and its expansion Broodwar, Wing...

I love Starcraft.  Not Diablo.  Not Warcraft.  Starcraft. One of the things I liked most about the original Starcraft was the map editor.  Not only could you enjoy the imagined world of the Korprulu sector, you could actually take a hand in expanding it yourself!  Fifteen years (or so) later, the first installment of Starcraft II is finally here with a vastly expanded editor. The vastly expanded Starcraft II editor can be a bear for an old dinosaur like me with little to no experience in the strange world of modding (did I even spell it right?).  The maze of buttons and menus is enough to make you give up after 14 or 15 hours of wrangling with the thing.  Sure, there are walk-throughs online, but they all presuppose some basic knowledge and facility with this sort of thing.  Creaking joints and cramped mental worlds aside, however, there is a compelling reason for an old fossil to be excited. Like so much of our modern world, the video games...