I just finished the third episode of Starcraft II, Legacy of the Void. Despite being an avid Starcraft player back in the late 1990s when the game came out, I didn’t pick up the sequel. The plan to split up the story into three separate games didn’t interest me – Blizzard isn’t known for getting their games out quickly, and I (correctly) assumed that I’d be left hanging by a cliffhanger plot.

While Starcraft II does manage to tie up the story of each campaign into a neat package by the end, I’m glad I waited. The game’s story is excellent, comprising perhaps the greatest science fiction epic in the entire history of gaming. At its core is the relationship between two characters from the first game: Jim Raynor, a rough-and-tumble space sheriff, and Sarah Kerrigan, a erstwhile human who became queen of an alien brood. While the love story between the two in the first game wasn’t too deep, the second game used that relationship as the central pivot of the entire story.

I’m hesitant to say more, as the story is a real pleasure to explore as it unfolds. In some sense, much of it is self-driven – after each mission, you have the option of watching a brief dialogue scene with one or more “allies” who help your commander during the journey. Every faction has 5-10 characters that appear during the narrative, some as fast friends, others as uneasy allies or enemies. Each one has their own personality traits, quirks of speech, and apparent motivations, and watching these unfold over the course of 20+ missions in each campaign is a lot of fun.

Each campaign starts you out with the basic units for your faction and then has you unlock additional units as you accomplish more missions. In many cases, you have the option of which unit to unlock first. For each faction, you also have choices to make, as each unit comes in multiple “flavors”, each with unique benefits: your zerglings may evolve the ability to leap over cliffs; you may choose to give your Terran bunkers more durability or a turret to help take down foes. These options make each run-through of the campaign a slightly unique experience.

In addition, Blizzard clearly made an effort to have each mission be very different. Some give you a base allow you a variety of choices about how to tackle a problem; others simply give you a few units (usually with a “hero” unit that sports unique abilities). The vast majority introduce some kind of time-sensitive limitation, asking you to achieve victory before a certain event happens or to hold out against waves of foes for a particular length of time. This is a distinct contrast to the first game, which generally gave you a base and let you have at it. The time limits do introduce a sense of urgency and difficulty to the missions, and on the Hard difficulty mode there were several that I had to try multiple times before succeeding.

The time limits notwithstanding, I loved the game – it was easily one of my favorite games of the last decade, just as the first Starcraft was one of my favorites of the 1990s. I’m not sure I’ll be too keen on diving in to the multiplayer option, except against friends – I’m sure there are a lot of excellent players out there whose skills would far surpass my own. Real-time strategy games tend to operate on an “actions-per-minute” economy requiring fast clicks and optimized builds…and although I’m an avid gamer, I’ve never cared much for the adrenaline rush that comes with competition. I’m far more interested in cooperative gaming, or – if it’s competitive – with someone who’s at least an acquaintance. That being said, I’d go back through Starcraft II’s campaign story for sure…although perhaps I’d revisit the first one and see how well it has fared in the intervening years. Guess I’d better go dig out the old CDs for the game and see if I can install them.