Starcraft II Drops Tonight; Geek Out Collectively In Fountain Valley

By Spencer Kornhaber Mon., Jul. 26 2010 at 4:03 PM

Categories: OC Media, To Do Tonight, Wacky Vids

Blizzard

Twelve years ago, Irvine-based gaming firm Blizzard Entertainment dropped Starcraft, a sci-fi strategy game featuring heavily armored humans turning insect-like aliens into blood fountains via machine gun. It's sold nearly 10 million copies. At midnight tonight, the company will finally release its sequel to the revolutionary game--and Starcraft geeks lucky enough to live in Orange County will get a chance to hear from some of the people who made it.

Fry's Electronics in Fountain Valley is holding a Blizzard-sanctioned midnight release event, featuring live entertainment, exhibition matches and question-and-answer sessions with in-the-flesh Starcraft developers. The event starts at 9 p.m., but the product goes on sale at midnight. It goes without saying that supplies are limited, so it can't hurt to stake out your terrain (or Terran? HA!!) in line... now.

No mainstream consensus, yet, on whether the game is any good: Blizzard issued no advance copies to professional reviewers. The critics will be playing along with everyone else tonight. We did get a chance to sample the game in 20-minute bursts at BlizzCon 2009. Our uninformed verdict: It was fun, very story-heavy.

Watch the game's trailer below. Don't you get goose pimples with each line of well-worn, so-cliché-it's-nearly-parody dialog?