Starcraft 2 - Early impressions

So... I've been playing SC2 for the past few days now and early results are very positive. Not unlike most players of the original Starcraft, SC2 has been a long-anticipated sequel. The sequel hasn't disappointed yet.

First, let's talk about the gameplay experience. For hardware we have the following:

*Intel E2200 processor - dual 2.2 GHz processors
*2 GB DDR2 ram
*Radeon 4670 video card - 1 GB DD3 ram

This is far from a gaming setup, and the only real saving grace is the lovely video card. SC2 recommends that my comp run on the high default for graphics and texture, but I kept getting the damn paged pool memory warning so I turned texture down to medium and kept the graphics default at high. I still get the memory warning, but it's not nearly as quick to set in. That, and I have yet to get the warning that I've run out of page pool memory altogether.

With the current medium/high settings, the rendering is smooth as a whistle except during the most gigantic scirmishes. For example, there was one mission where I had to erradicate a bunch of zerg that were infesting colonists. When I attack a town with 20+ ground troops and I'm met with swarms of zerg and there's a huge thing spewing green infection vomit everywhere, that bogs things down a bit. Beyond that, however, I haven't noticed the game slow down mid-flight.

The cinematic videos run smoothly also. I was especially impressed when the video involving Kerrigan pre-infestation ran without any stuttering. Loading time between the Hyperion and the missions themselves takes a while, though. Outside of that, I can't complain.

As far as gameplay goes, it felt like getting back on a bike. I haven't played SC1 or Brood Wars in forever and all of the hotkeys and various shortcuts were intact. I was happy to be able to select an SCV and hit B - R for a refinery or B - U for a bunker. I was able to hit the ground running due to the familiarity and felt like the game was too easy on the normal setting. I switched to hard and found that more suitable. I switched back to normal for my first run through the game and I've only had to restart a handful of missions to rethink my strategies.

I don't know how many missions there are in total, but I'm willing to bet I'm a little past the halfway marker in the game. Maybe this will change when I go back through the game on hard, but there hasn't been a whole lot of missions so far that required as much strategy as some of the missions in SC1 and Brood Wars (especially some of the later missions in those games). For the most part I'm able to just amass a contingent of Marines, Marauders, and Medics. The triple M is able to handle just about everything outside of the upper tier units.

That's it for now.