We gave resident StarCraft expert and AusGamers user, Hogfather, access to the AusGamers StarCraft II beta to run the anticipated RTS through its paces, and while the beta itself is clearly focused only on multiplayer and BattleNet 2.0 lite usage, it still gives a very good indication of the potential for the game's longevity and just how far Blizzard have come with the franchise, or if they've stuck to their roots.

This is a nice and in-depth piece for those of you out there wanting desperately to know the SCII skinny, which Hogfather serves up for you nicely.

Click here for the full hands-on. If you're after a single-player look, check out Dan's hands-on preview from late last year right here.

Yeah, the single file pathing is still annoying, and I distinctly remember them saying ages ago when they were first talking about the game that they had fixed it. I haven't noticed any fixes to it at all :(

Hope that the preview is OK!

Yeh Khel, I remember they were talking about improved pathfinding and the like so I didn't want to come out and say it was absolutely, 100% unchanged. It feels like a direct port of the original algorithm to me in a lot of ways though.

Something I noted during the re-read was the stuff about cover. The implicit cover provided by trees was something I recall reading from the original game's manual and could possibly not be in the sequel -- it sort of rolled off my hands following the recount of the other terrain benefits that were in SC 1. I intended to edit that out but didn't get there (its been a busy week).

So to clarify - in terms of terrain, cover, line of sight etc, the game plays like SC:BW and most of the tactics for this revolve around attaining higher ground or line of sight advantages (droppping troops on cliffs etc) as per the original. There's lots of rushing too!

Its a very fun game and I wish I had more time to give to it - to date I've actually only played about ten or twelve games. You might think that's insane, but without that sense of community I just didn't find myself urged to make time to play it. Most the the time I lost in StarCraft was probably underpinned by the social aspects of channels, clans etc. There was just something about logging in and seeing who's on that was missing in the beta to date.

Yea I could imagine they are focusing on a max number of concurrent users in peak hour, which probably doesn't translate to lots of aussie players.

That's the thing - there are loads of people playing, its easy to get a match-made game.

They are just hidden from you when you log into the game as there is no global chat lobbies. Its sort of like Steam - until you get into a game or get peeps on your friends list (which is tough given the currently liimited access) you're sort of in a chat roulette of games :)

I'd reckon one of the problem with removing single file pathing is that the units is that it'd have a huge effect on game balance that they seem to be struggling with enough as it is.

Also, the units on the path are following the shortest route from A to B, if units decided to spread out they could be following less efficient routes and fall well behind. It's surely doable because plenty of other games order their units in rank and file formation, but I guess if they did that it just wouldn't be Starcraft!

you're sort of in a chat roulette of games

I hope the new battle.net doesn't involve some form of exposed cock in every third match.

When i started losing a game of original starcraft on battle.net i used to play simcity by building farms everywhere in patterns. Easily should be able to make some kind of penis shape using that sore loser tactic..

iv watched nearly every sc2 vid there is and it just makes me feel like there mocking me cause i cant play it...