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StarCraft II Single-Player Details Revealed
As Blizzcon approaches, a number of gaming sites were invited out to California to get an early look at the single-player campaign for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Kotaku has a detailed write-up (spoiler-free version), and 1Up summarizes one of the missions: "... you're on a planet with an alternating day/night cycle (every five minutes, it switches): during daylight, you're safe. You can build forces and go out and destroy structures. At night, the infected Terrans will relentlessly stream towards your base — necessitating a strong defense against the 'zombie horde.'" An interview with some of the developers is available, in which lead designer Dustin Browder says Blizzard will continue their trend of having downloadable maps and other improvements throughout the game's life. BlizzPlanet posted a mission guide for the part of the game they got to see, and new video footage has been released that shows off the single-player mode.
I think they can create a bad game, they are smart enough not to release it.
Now, if only they'd add LAN play back.
If just one mission is tower defense, I think that leaves a good degree of potential for the rest of them.
I wouldn't worry much about mission variety here -- if the originality Blizzard has been cranking out for of World of Warcraft quests in the expansions is any indicator, they'll have their hands full experimenting with mission structures.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
You stated your self what revolutionary things Blizzard has done. The big one being non-identical sides. Think of the major games before Starcraft. I honestly can't think of a single one that had teams that were more than different models and maybe a few variations on special abilities like Warcraft had. The idea of having 3 completely distinct and yet balanced races was extremely revolutionary. What Starcraft did was show that you could have races that were absolutely nothing alike and yet the battles would still be balanced and fun.
They had differences among units sure, but on the whole the races were very similar. With Starcraft playing Zerg requires a completely different style than playing Protoss. As Zerg I can throw Zerglings at you and if they die I don't really care. They are cheap and easy to produce. With Protoss your economy can feel every unit lost. As far as I know no other game had tried something so radical at the time.