The Terran Ghost unit is fundamentally an upgraded version of their race. These are the units that have psionic ability; they are a lot stronger than average units and are quicker around the maps.

Ghosts wear a particular suit that when in cloaking mode glows turquoise blue. It acts as the unit’s second skin and allows them to sneak up to their targets undetected. They are highly trained and well controlled – each is fitted with a neural inhibiter to prevent them from straying from their purpose, though this may not always be the case.

Above all ghosts are the snipers of the battlefield. They shoot with precision accuracy and deadly intent. Together with their weapon of choice – the C-10 canister rifle – Ghosts are a unit to be feared in open battle.

The rifle itself is dangerous enough as it aids the Ghost units in showing base camp where to rain down a doom strike or a catastrophic nuke attack. The unit will seek out an enemy structure and use the laser on his weapon to call in the pain.

Tactically these units serve a multitude of functions, as spy scouts, bringers of destruction or skirmish snipers, the game could be won or lost with units like these.

Reapers are the most vicious of Terran criminals and are incapable of functioning in society. Brutally trained and chemically altered at the “Icehouse” in the Torus system, they are designed to be the most aggressive and highly skilled of soldiers. A trooper who serves for two years is excused and granted his freedom, but have never survived longer than six months.

Reapers have the advantage of being able to cross large amounts of ground quickly by jetpack. Jetpacks also let them move easily up and down rock faces and overcome other barriers. These mercenaries carry two lightweight pistols that are weak but quick. They can be upgraded to have explosive charges too.

Though fast and ferocious, the soldiers are weak and lack protective gear. Suffice to say they should never be used as a defense. Normal marines would be much more effective in that capacity.

Ideally they should carry out short but destructive hit-and-run raids. A group of them together can wreak havoc before their enemy even knows what happened. They can also be used as assassins to pick up slow but valuable targets like immortals or spell casters. The D-8 Charge is this soldier’s weapon of choice for harder targets.

This is the deuterium-eight demolition device and is extremely dangerous. Soldiers throw an explosive charge a short distance away and the charge detonates after a short period of time. These are not only hazardous for their opponents but for the Reapers themselves as well. Many do not come out alive so D-8’s are to be used with care.

The troopers also like to indulge in Stimpacks, which provide them with all the combat enhancement chemicals soldiers might need. With a destructive single-mindedness and weapons to match, Reapers live up to their name.

As long as you are familiar with the basics of each race in the original Starcraft game, you should have no problem mastering the subtleties of the much talked-about new units. You will now have the option of entering into battle with a Thor, one of the biggest and newest Terran units.

The Thor is first and foremost a heavy-assault fighting machine and weapon of terror that is dangerously armed with a 250mm bombardment cannon. Discovered by Agents of the Umojan Protectorate who realized that the Terran Dominion was conniving to create an innovative new terror machine, Thors possess a dorsal artillery battery as well as two giant particle beams which will ensure maximum damage against any assailant.

The Thor’s appearance is in keeping with the new 21st century look and feel of the game: it is a monstrously proportioned unit which resembles a siege tank, but has greater assault capabilities and can enter into long range attacks that are effective in both ground and air ambush scenarios. An added element of violence and destruction will no doubt be observed as these new and improved units take to the combat zone.

Thors are usually produced in large numbers and when their outer armor is exposed to a certain level of damage they don’t perish, but become wreckages instead. Damaged Thors remain on the battleground until they are repaired by the player.

Essentially, the Thor will be a tier 3 Terran unit that is their “boss” character. Naturally, it will have ample armor including twin arm cannons, which will inevitably trigger mayhem. While some describe its characteristics as redundant, the Thor stands out from the usual siege tanks in that it can be measured as the equivalent of a cluster of siege tanks. This means that it can focus on more than one unit when attacking the enemy. Although it does move more slowly, it’s firing force makes up for this slight setback.

The Thor is generally a sturdier fighting mechanism that can handle a greater pounding from the enemy, and will make for hours of exciting play.

The Starcraft 2 game’s facelift means that everything is bigger and better, which only translates into more intense action and increased excitement on the battlefield.

While we are all desperately waiting for an open beta to begin, a fight to the death between David Kim and Matt Cooper (both associate game balance designers) was released using the alpha build of the game. It’s a 20 minute brawl that is sure to whet your appetite. We won’t spoil who wins here, because it really is a great game to watch.

This is the first of the StarCraft Battle Report series and has excellent commentary by lead designer Dustin Browder and Robert Simpson. The next Battle Report is in the works. Straight from Mr. Browder:

Question: When can we have the next Battle Report?
Answer: We were waiting on getting some improved graphics in (some of the new stuff looked REALLY rough). That was finished last week and we are now playing and looking for a good game. Once we get that game the process is reasonably quick to get it out. Once we go Beta, you guys can do these and put them up. When that happens I’m sure there will be a ton of them and I’m sure the quality of the games played and the announcing will go way up.

The next game is apparently pits the Terran versus Zerg, which should be very interesting.

I can’t believe the alpha build of StarCraft 2 looks and plays as well as it does in that video.

(Source and Image: Joystiq and Blizzard)

This hardcore tank is a massive improvement on the original Arclite Seige Tank that was feared for its explosive firepower and devastation in Starcraft 1. There are two new functions that they designed into the Crucio – the mobile assault mode and the deployed siege mode. Destruction and defense? Great!

The Crucio is compact, ready for rough terrain and destruction of enemy forces. The huge shock cannon will decimate the Zerg swarms.

The Crucio makes up for the fallibility in the older Arclite tank that needed many of its fellows to follow it into battle in order to get anywhere. The defense of the armored tank is still superb.

At close range an enemy attack would simply rip the old Arclite tanks to bits. The guns were useless at close range. Now in Starcraft 2 we have the Crucio. The guns make up most of the new tank and from the brief look at screenshots you’d only need a couple to cause massive devastation.

There are turrets featured on the Crucio now and they come with an upgrade into assault mode. This means that when you’re stranded without cover a horde of Zerg cannot simply rush in and in two thwacks your tank is scrap metal.

It will be better defended and able to keep such attacks from destroying your carefully created convoy. The new tank will cost more to create but we don’t mind with all those new features.

In this clip the Crucio does damage to a pack of excited marines. It blows them all to smithereens until the last coward bolts, to die on the escape. Haha!

As with all classic units, the wraith has been improved upon, updated and therefore rendered old, unfit for the incendiary battles of Starcraft II. Or has it? The creators of Starcraft II have left us an extremely cool feature in the new game where we will be able to play with some of the older units from the first game.

The Wraith has been rendered useless in the wake of new technologies like the air and ground unit the Viking that transforms from a cruiser into a walking, killing anti ground unit. The old Wraith unit is still available for game play in Wings of Liberty as crafts for Raynor’s Raiders.

Once Raynor’s Rangers this mercenary group fights to free the Terran from the Sons of Korhal, Mengsk’s insane rule and of course the Zerg who destroy everything in their wake including Raynor’s relationship with Sarah Kerrigan when they captured her, assimilated her and she became the Queen of Blades, his biggest threat.

With the Banshee taking control of the skies from the Wraith and the Viking destroying enemies on the ground, it will be interesting if the guys at Blizzard can resist upgrading the beloved Wraith a little as well. We know the cloaking technology has be given to the banshee, which makes it a formidable air attack weapon, but the Wraith’s will always be good for bringing down larger crafts, clusters of them swarming over the bigger ships and burning them to the ground.

The Wraith is flown by one heroic pilot, is armed with missiles for the air and a laser for ground attacks. Wraiths are also great for exploring the map or a bit of espionage in cloaking mode as they fly over an enemy base.

With the vast new landscapes and improved game play it will be so interesting to see if the Wraith can still hold its own against other newer units in the Starcraft II worlds.

• Graying moustache and beard with brown hair
• Drinks and smokes heavily
• Former Confederate Marshal
• Captain of Hyperion
• Leader of the Raiders
• Respected by Tassador and Zeratul
• Likes Matt Horner, Tychus Findlay
• Dislikes Arcturus Mengsk, Sarah Kerrigan, Zerg

Resourceful, loyal and honorable Jim Raynor comes back in Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty as the main protagonist. After losing hundreds of men in his desperate attempt to save Sarah Kerrigan, only to eventually be betrayed by her, he is a broken shadow of a man and drowns his sorrows with drink every chance he gets.

He is disillusioned with the universe. He survived the bloody Guild wars that have now passed and watched the Zerg ravage the Terran worlds. Mengsk who he thought was an ally betrayed him and handed Sarah Kerrigan, the love of his life over to the Zerg. He lived through her assimilation, was unable to save her and then suffered her treachery.

Now in Starcraft 2 the growing desperation of his plight eats away at him. He has no money to keep his mission of bringing down Mengsk’s Terran Dominion going, and has to take on mercenary work. His second in command Matt Horner is the only man who believes in him, that one day soon this brilliant, experienced tactician will once again become the hero he was always meant to be.

The United Nations Failed, instead the United Powers League was created. This power ruled the world, banning religion and eradicating the last vestiges of the separate races. English was declared the only language of Earth as the UPL ruled with an iron fist and a kind of enlightened socialism. This was done in a desperate attempt to unify the human race. Eventually, believing that the human race was divine in itself, they sought the eradication of all mutations and cybernetics that might destroy the pure human gene pool and protect it from the temptations of modern technologies.

Project purification was set in motion, the persecution of all humans that have muddied their blood with altered gene strands, mutations and technological improvements. Almost 400 million people where murdered in an attempt to salvage the original human condition. The UPL used the media to hide the mass murders that occurred, misinformation and propaganda ran rife, but most of the human population remained ignorant of the extent of the violence.

Reawakening the space exploration programs after sabotage and diminished funds shut them down was another priority for the UPL. They perfected new technologies for space travel and together with warp drive and cryogenic technology widened their reach to the stars. In forty years the Terran colonized many planets in their solar system. Doran Routhe, a wealthy influential scientist, consolidated power with the UPL and became obsessed with finding natural resources on planets beyond the Terran solar system. UPL graciously provided him with thousands of prisoners for his ends. Of 56 000 prisoners from the purification project only 40 000 were deemed fit to go by Routhe’s super computer ATLAS. They were loaded onto massive carriers and set in a state of cryogenic hibernation with enough food and supplies to colonize the worlds on the outer rim. It was well planned but fundamentally flawed.

Four carriers, the Nagglfar, the Argo, the Sarengo, and the Reagan were sent into space. ATLAS was placed aboard the Nagglfar to monitor the humans as they slept. He discovered a rare mutated strain in some of the prisoners that would enable psionic ability in nearby generations. Everything discovered by ATLAS was sent back to earth for Routhe to keep. The navigational software linked to ATLAS shut down on the journey, erasing the coordinates of both Earth and the outer rim planet. They drifted in space for thirty years. The engines eventually failed at warp speeds, their stasis chambers were running low on battery power and in a last attempt to save the mission the ships engaged their emergency protocol. They landed on some habitable planets in deep space, 60 000 light years from earth. The Sarengo crash landed and killed all of its passengers, while the Reagan, landed on the same planet safely that would be called Umoja. The Argo landed on a planet later called Moria, but had no idea what had happened to them. The Nagglfar landed on Tarsonis and discovered what had happened to them and that they couldn’t return to earth.

It was difficult for the Terrans, they had no idea on other worlds were more like them, had no communication and little resources at their disposal. For years they were isolated completely. Then on Tarsonis, they developed technologies of their own, and could finally travel into space again to explore their surrounding planets, where they found the other survivors and trade flourished.

Both Moria and Umoja refused to join the Tarsonis confederacy. Seven other planets were colonized, the Tarsonis military influence increased and they claimed the name the Terran Confederacy. The mining areas that were most rich fell in Moria, and the Kel-morian Combine was formed that helped the mining guilds keep their power from the confederacy. This inevitably caused the beginning of the guild wars.

Four years later, peace was declared but only after the mines were given to the confederacy. Umoja formed the Umoja Protectorate fearing the military might of the confederacy itself. The confederacy expanded, colonizing world after world relentlessly, oppressing their own people with radical policy. One of the revolts against them was called the rebellion of Korhal. Citizens on a productive colonized planet, tired of their ties to the corrupt confederacy, rioted and attacked their own militia. Martial law was declared and after the confederacy was all but gone, they sent in assassins to kill the Korhal leader and his family. They were dealt with harshly and became the examples to all the other confederate colonies. From this outrage came the confederacies biggest threat, Arcturus Mengsk the last surviving member of the slain family. He wreaked a savage revenge upon the confederacy but ultimately was the reason 4 million people on his planet were killed by the confederate nuclear missiles. He did not relent forming the Sons of Korhal in retaliation and silently attacked the confederacy every way they could.

Despite rampant war and constant violence the Terran spread far around their new sector. Then…the aliens came, the Protoss. One of their colonies was completely destroyed and soon they found themselves having to defend themselves from a greater threat than each other. Then, mysteriously on their second attack the Protoss withdrew. But Zerg surfaced sometime after that on the outskirts of that second colony and ravaged the lands like never before.

Infighting and political differences divided the Terran and all they could do was watch as the Zerg decimated their planets, one by one.

The coming of the Zerg