A little late on this news, but that’s because I was trying to decide how I was going to present it. The first look at the StarCraft 2 single player setup gives me mixed feelings – I don’t know whether to hate it or give it the benefit of the doubt and just wait to see what happens.

The old briefing room of StarCraft is no more and has been replaced with a slightly interactive environment. The Terran campaign, for example, takes place on the bridge of the Hyperion (at least partly). While the idea is fairly cool, I have some reservations on how they are implementing it.

First off, it seems as if you are no longer a part of the game, meaning that you’re simply controlling Raynor rather than yourself (as Magistrate or Cerebrate, etc). Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware that the game, and especially the single player, is in very early development and may actually contain more of a role-playing feel that it looks like now, but I’m not holding my breath. I liked the little role-playing factor of being able to interact with the main characters while being one yourself at the same time.

Secondly, is it just me or is SC2 single player way way too similar to Knights of the Old Republic? The new briefing room looks like the main area of the Ebon Hawk not only because it’s in a starship but because there’s a little “star map” and NPCs standing idly around. I’m not trying to nit pick here … but come on. There are even “character interactions” which basically boil down to “How do you feel?” type dialog that KOTOR is famous for.

Lastly, I don’t know how I feel about buying units. It looks like it could be an interesting concept but we’ll just have to wait and see whether it becomes just a boring little gimmick or if it really does affect gameplay. On one hand, I don’t see how an interface where you buy units you can afford (ie. there should be a natural progression) is much different from a system where you are handed new units/spells on a mission-by-mission basis. On the other hand, different unit progressions may correlate with different mission paths (which Blizzard said will exist) so there may be a strategical element to it after all.

One positive though, the graphics look great. I know that the single player setup is basically just triggered cutscenes, but it’s pretty nonetheless.

If you want to watch the full single player Blizzcon demo click “Read the rest of this entry” and click play!