[hugh]

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty video, a futuristic real time strategy video game from Blizzard Entertainment, and sequel to the award-winning 1998 video game StarCraft goes on sale worldwide next Tuesday July 27th.

The new installment of Starcraft is expected to big a huge seller. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on in March of 1998 and went on to sell more than 11 million copies sold making it one of the best-selling games for the personal computer. A Mac version was released in March 1999

Set in the 26th century in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy, the game is built around three species: the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; the Zerg, a race of insectoid genetic assimilators; and the Protoss, a species with vast psionic power. Wings of Liberty will focus on the Terrans specifically, while two expansion packs (to be released at later dates) Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void will focus on the Zerg and Protoss, respectively.

 

[hugh]

To get a jump on its retail commpetitors, Futureshop has announced it will be holding a Midnight Madness event at all stores across Canada (except in Sudbury Ontario and Quebec) at midnight on Monday, July 26th.

The big box retailer says the first 20 people to purchase Starcraft II at each store will receive a free gaming headset and the first 50 people will receive a Starcraft II hat and poster. The game which is only available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X will sell for $60.

 

[hugh]

Now a personal note:

I never played StarCraft (I was a big Age of Empires fan) but am very interested in getting this game.

 

[notsure]

I wonder what type of horsepower they will recommend for this.

I played the original game way back and wouldn't be opposed to getting a new copy... if it played well on my new MacBook Pro.

 

[MarcP]

I've been on the beta test of SC2 for a few months and it doesn't require a really beefed computer to run.

With SC2, Blizzard is finally offering digital download on release day. People can pre-download the game right now and activate it on release day.

 

[Larry]

I too have been part of the beta test. The game is amazing but a bit overwhelming at the start (especially if you never played the original Starcraft). If you like strategy games, where your actions will determine the outcome, then this is the game for you. The minimum specs are:

2.6 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
128 MB PCIe NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT or ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card or better

The recommended specs are:

Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
2 GB RAM
512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon HD 3870 or better

To run the game its full graphics capabilities, you need more.

 

[rlongfield]

I'll say this for Blizzard, they'd make a damn fine movie company. That trailer is more cinematic than most movies. If I didn't know or haven't been waiting for StarCraft 2 the game to come out I'd want to know when the movie was going to be released.

 

[UncleJohn]

NCIX got it for 49.99 + free shipping