How StarCraft II will change your views on the RTS genre

Despite two days of play we can't do justiceto many of the new Zerg units created for StarCraft II because we didn't get around to using them. Or in some cases we just felt we hadn't really got to grips with how to use them properly. Take the new Queen unit. She was hyped up in a presentation as the ultimate defensive weapon in the Zerg army.

Having created one (you can only have a single Queen) and expecting great things from her when our base came under attack, she was quickly decimated from the air, leaving us to the now obligatory two minutes of humiliation as we were systematically taken apart, unit by unit.

The one thing we did find useful about a maxed-out Queen was her healing abilities. She can also burrow under the ground and surface at other bases you may have across the map but we never managed to make that work effectively amid the terrifying confusion and lack of judgement that marked the majority of our battle encounters.

Another new unit (all of which you can seehere) is the Corruptor. Rather than use firepower to kill an enemy it attacks like a parasite and turns the enemy against itself. Yep, you guessed it; we had this tactic used on us before we even understood how it worked. Then when we tried to create some Corruptors of our own, we got rushed early on and never saw the fruits of our labour.

And that's about the only complaint we can level at StarCraft II. It's too bloody easy to get destroyed before you’ve got started because the young boys have clicked on things faster than you. That's why if you watch the Korean StarCraft maniacs you'll notice they've developed Jedi-like mutant fingers that can click a mouse something like 23 times a second. Apparently they very rarely get much further than building a few basic structures because battles are decided on who can create a better attack force before their opponent.

That's a level we'll never be able to play at, so it's lucky Blizzard is working on a ranking system that will ensure your opponent is of a similar level to you. So we look forward to playing against all the 67-year-old StarCraft II fans. The ones with a single arm.