14 DAY TRIAL // I have one word of advice for anyone who wants to get into StarCraft II multiplayer: Do your homework! Learn what the other races are capable of and scout as early as you can. Learn what your units are good against and what can breach you the other player's defenses more easily. In many ways StarCraft reminds of a board-game like chess. It is just a lot faster.
You have to know how to open up the game, like in chess. You have to guess what your opponent has in mind only by looking at his first few moves, exactly like in chess. You can also decide to do the first push yourself, having in mind his weaknesses. The difference is that that the tempo of the fight can get quite hectic and chaotic, but players who know what they are doing, have a bigger chance to survive a hard fought battle.
I must say that Blizzard have succeeded in easing new players in. At the time being, I am still losing more than I am winning, but I am having a great time. I can feel that I am becoming better with every match and that I am able to face my adversaries with much more competence than in my first few tries. I find myself on a bus on my way home from work thinking how to improve my approach on the game, something that has not happened to me since Rome: Total War.
Cooperative games against the AI are also fun and a great way to meet new players for competitive team play. It is quite nice to see how can one army support the other until it is fully developed and go and take down the AI player in one successful epic strike.
I think the community will thrive in the next few years and with the coming of the other two installments, Blizzard will manage to keep things fresh for a long, long time. Battle.net works incredibly well, by the way. Battle.net works incredibly well, by the way. The connection never drops, I can always find another player to fight and I must admit that I don't miss the lack of Local Area Network functionality.
Veterans can feel right at home, while newcomers learn why StarCraft has been so popular in the last decade. Blizzard has managed to reach its goals and expand the audience of the most popular strategy game on the planet to even bigger numbers.