Whoa! StarCraft II Finally Announced

I was no great fan of the original StarCraft. I was more of a Emperor - Battle for Dune or Dark Reign fan. This weekend Blizzard finally made the long awaited announcement that StarCraft II was in production and slated for release sometime in the near future [does that mean this year or next or ??? :- I wonder ;(]

The new version promises quick a fair bit of upgrades to the previous incarnation, including:

• More distinctive race attributes meaning that the different playable races will have specific gaming elements;
• Upgraded abilities for the original units that were present in the original
• Uses a 3D engine that "realistic physics and the ability to render several large, highly detailed units and massive armies on-screen simultaneously."
• Map editing to make your own battle grounds
• Provides multiplayer support but only through battle.net if what has been currently written is true.

The hype intrigued me to check out the initial coverage from the usual places 1Up.com, GameSpot, IGN, etc. The game itself looks pretty impressive. IMHO when you see images like these and play footage like this you hard pressed to wonder if you will be able to resist not getting the game. My primary worry is what kind of processing power this is going to require.

I do have one regret though, why is it not MMORPG like? With World of Warcraft, Blizzard is leader of the pack in this domain so why not apply some of these learned techniques to new games... maybe for the 3rd iteration!

For more coverage check-out this 1Up story.