Okay, so yesterday morning I hopped on a train bound for Cambridge. I'd arranged to visit some friends in one of its suburbs for an afternoon of films, videogames and alcohol.
Den and Dave are two of the nicest, most genuine people that I know. I met them when I was 15 years old at a Misfits concert at the Cambridge Junction, and they have since then become two of my best friends. It was a real pleasure spending an afternoon chilling out at theirs, eating Kettle Chips and watching Hardware, Highlander and Bubba Ho-Tep - all of which were films I had not seen before, and all left a lasting impression on me.
I'd mentioned to Dave that Blizzard's latest work of art was released the following day, and he said that they'd make sure that I got to Game in time. Considering that I actually had to get a train to get there, Dave slung me in the car at about 7.50am. Worked perfectly, though - and for this, I owe them both more donuts and trifle. Maybe some trifle donuts? Hrm.
Anyway, I got home, and after doing some essential stuff (spend a couple of hours on Facebook doing fuck all) I decided to install it. For a 12gb game, it certainly doesn't mess around and I swear the CD drive on my laptop was going to break. After a painfully anxiety-inducing installation (if you'd heard the noise my disc drive was making, you'd understand) that was broken up by really rather pleasant audio logs to serve as a recap of the StarCraft mythos up to this point.
After the install, the game started up and within seconds I was at the main menu. After logging into Battle.Net I began the campaign and the first thing I noticed was that everything is so excellently designed, but the technical side made me grin like a motherfucker - Blizzard have, yet again, designed their product so well that it will run on older PCs as not to alienate a large portion of their fanbase. Top marks for that.
Everything about this game fits so well - the return of established characters and recommencing the narrative was a step in the right direction rather than a tangiental sequel that may have been as good in terms of game mechanics - however, the story really draws you in.
The edition that I got is fucking awesome. I'm not talking about a garden variety 'Collector's Edition', either; you get so much cool stuff it's unreal. In the HUGE box it comes in, I found:
StarCraft 2 game disc
'The Art of StarCraft 2' A4 hard-bound artbook
Jim Raynor replica dogtag - 2GB USB stick that contains the original StarCraft + Brood Wars
'Making of StarCraft 2' DVD w/ Development Diaries etc
Soundtrack CD
Exclusive in-game content (decals, avatars, variants of units)
'Mini Thor' companion for World of Warcraft
2 WoW guest passes (10 days each)
2 StarCraft 2 guest passes (10 days each)
Holy shit, that's a lot of stuff.
Basically, StarCraft 2 is awesome and if you don't buy it people are going to question your taste. Also, the Mini Thor is ADORABLE:
Oooshie booshie booshie, who's a cute little walking death machine?
And since this blog's about WoW, I guess I'd better do something WoW-related. Here's my character as of today standing in Orgrimmar with his newest little buddy.
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