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Blizzard officially announces Starcraft 2

Break out your party hats. Here's what we know right now:

Starcraft 2
Genre: 3D RTS
Release Date: [?!???]
Platform: PC

UPDATES
(UPDATE 1 @ 02:59) CGI Trailer @ Youtube (note: camcorder. A High Res version of this might come later.)

(UPDATE 2 @ 03:12) Official press release is up, but mysteriously not on their press release page yet.

(UPDATE 3 @ 03:15) IGN PC has Screenshots! Having some trouble getting the full-size ones to load, but when they do, they're stunning.

(UPDATE 4 @ 03:30) First gameplay video has surfaced (if you can get it to load).

(UPDATE 5 @ 03:56) Youtube to the rescue, with a re-host of the gameplay video from above. It's the combat section described in the IGN Live-Blog at 3:23.

(UPDATE 6 @ 04:14) Korean Youtube work-alike "Tagstory" comes through with another gameplay video. This one seems to be from the end of the presentation, and shows a bit of gameplay interspersed with concept art.

(UPDATE 7 @ 04:46) Can't sleep. Luckily, there's a THREE part video up on Youtube to keep me company. It's the whole narrated demo that was shown at WWI.

(UPDATE 8 @ 04:58) Starcraft2.com is live. They've got good quality streaming or high-res downloadable trailers, detailed specs on some of the new Protoss units, screenshots that actually load, wallpapers, and a ton of other great stuff. Blizzard.com also finally updated, and yes, it is about time.

New Units and Unit Changes:
Protoss

• Zealots can now charge to quickly cover ground
• Immortals - New Ground Unit - Replaces the classic Dragoon, has a special kind of shield that only activates under heavy fire.
• Protoss can apparently now warp in units from anywhere within pylon range. (!!!)
• Stalker - New Ground Unit - Sounds like a Dragoon that can teleport.
• Colossus - New Ground Vehicle - Sounds like a Giant Dragoon with super ultra death lasers. Long legs can help it get over uneven terrain.
• Phoenix - New Air Vehicle - Has the ability to overload it's primary weapons for a multi-shot blast that leaves it immobile for a short period thereafter.
• Warprey - New Air Vehicle - Equipped with a Beam Weapon, which unleashes increased damage the longer you can focus it on an opponent.
• Mothership - New Flying/Space Vehicle/Building/thing - Huge cost, huge payoff. Has the ability to distort time around itself, causing missiles to freeze in place. Has a "Planet Cracker" attack for orbital bombardment of a planet's surface with a laser similar to what the Warprey has, but bigger. Can create black holes at will. Limited to one at a time.

Terran

• Reapers - New Ground Unit - Marines with jetpacks, to help them traverse uneven terrain. Also have multiple types of pistols.

Zerg

• Zerglings now have the ability to mutate into some kind of rolling bomb . . thing. Instant Infected Terrans?

This first look sounds rather focused on all-'toss all-the-time, but the other races were around too - mostly Terran - but there were few new units shown off. Sure, they had Battlecruisers and Siege Tanks running wild all over the place, but we know about those. As for all the new Protoss stuff, sounds like somebody played Supreme Commander and got jealous. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Unfortunately, it looks like that's it for this first information blitz. No release date, no expected system reqs, no details on a fourth or fifth race (come on Xel'Naga and/or Hybrids!), but this is just what we have right now. There will probably be more details once Blizzard's official site updates in a couple hours. There's also obviously going to at least be some shaky-cam video of the event online at some point, we're just not sure when.

Updates will be appended as further details surface.

[Source: IGN's WWI Live-blog. (Good job on actually keeping it online, guys!)]

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