I just finished my Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty normal-mode marathon, defeating the final map with Kerrigan's showdown.
I really hope to play through the campaign again without the rush factor to re-experience it. I can say Blizzard Entertainment did a great job with this first episode of the game. It's been 11 years for many of you waiting for the sequel. Nine for me. I gotta say the wait was worth it. All the developers involved simply excelled, they overdid themselves.
The game design overhaul from the original game's briefing room to what we get in Starcraft II is just short of awesome. After you finish a mission, you go to each room of the Hyperion and you will find updated info on what happened after the mission. Most of the time you get new dialogues. There's the sense that it is a progressive story. You learn new things about the characters, and about Jim Raynor's past.
There's a video game arcade machine in the Cantina room of the Hyperion battlecruiser. When you click it, you enable a Galaga-like game with Starcraft units. It's fun, and it's incredible to play a video game within a video game. A nice tease for the map campaign modders.
There are at least three missions, out of 26, where you must take a decision of which path to take using the in-game cutscene engine. For example, Tychus Findlay suggests Raynor to take out the Nydus tunnels beneath Char's surface, and a General suggests you take out the zerg air units. If you choose the Nydus option, the final showdown against Kerrigan will have Air units. If you choose to take down the Air units, the final showdown against Kerrigan will have Nydus worms popping near your base and no air units. It's fun how Tychus and the General stand next to each other in front of you, and two separate windows pop laying down the mission objectives of both characters, right there onscreen -- and that happens during an in-game cinematic no less.
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