Precious few games exhibit the kind of refined balance, complexity and versatility to be played competitively by full-time professionals, and only one has had the staying power to be played in stadiums at full capacity – and broadcast on television to millions more – twelve years after its release.

Since 1998 Blizzard’s sci-fi real-time strategy title StarCraft has more closely resembled a sport than a videogame. For many it’s a form of entertainment that is as enjoyable to watch being played by talented practitioners as it is to participate in oneself.

The Korean StarCraft circuit has seasons, teams, corporate sponsors, match statistics, commentary and a zealous fanbase. Professionals such as Lim Yo-Hwan earn more than half a million New Zealand dollars annually – that’s the sort of paycheck an All Black has to sign to a European club to earn. Interestingly, it also happens to be more than Blizzard President Mike Morhaime earns before bonuses.

It should be no surprise then that StarCraft II is both highly-anticipated and that its current multiplayer beta can be an ongoing lesson in gaming humility.

The original's competitive nature is built into the very bones of StarCraft II. Battle.Net 2.0, the online portal through which the multiplayer is accessed, ranks players into leagues and ladders before hosting small tournaments for the top ranked players in each. It dissects matches click by click, unit by unit, and offers replays so that players can analyse their opponent’s gameplay in detail.

Yes, StarCraft II is an evolution of the original title. No, it’s not simply a graphical update. The difference between the two is akin to evaluating two models of the same car: They’re aesthetically very similar but should you pop the hood the differences will become more apparent.

At its core it’s still a base-building strategy title in which players construct and assemble units with a mind to destroy their opponent’s base. But comparisons with other real-time strategy titles begin to fray around about here. Players have three factions to choose from: The pioneering human Terrans, the xenomorphic alien Zerg and technologically-advanced alien society, the Protoss. Each faction is built and played in a different style and each has its relative strengths and weaknesses. It means that players must intrinsically understand all three factions before seeing perennial success online.

Perhaps more so than other real-time strategy titles, StarCraft II is a cerebral joust between the players. Blindly accumulating forces and marching them across the map will almost always end poorly. It’s a game where performing reconnaissance on the enemy’s base, evaluating their position, determining their strategy and responding by building the correct opposing units is essential. A good round of StarCraft II is as much about the small skirmishes in the opening minutes of play as it is about the violent base assault that closes it.

It requires meticulous management skills on behalf of the player – adjusting minor details such as where units are standing, what abilities they use, and when, can determine the outcome of a game in seconds.

All of this can sound like a significant barrier to entry for those who haven’t invested the last twelve years rote-learning build orders, but we do believe that Warcraft III players should be able to hit the ground running. None of us at Gameplanet would presume to call ourselves “good” at StarCraft II (although we would stress again that the benchmark for “good” in a game that can be played professionally is set that much higher) which means that in the beta, we often play the role of a lone confused probe cast amongst the hungry Ultralisks.

We do expect the full release to be a slightly different affair. First of all, the volume of players old and new, and Battle.Net 2.0’s clearly robust matchmaking system, should pair inductees to the series at their own level. As accounts are tied to game codes, there won’t be as much account rebooting (wherein veteran players create a new account and play beginners in order to inflate their win/loss ratio).

Secondly, the five-tiered AI will allow players to upskill without losing face playing against more seasoned players. (Currently the beta only includes Very Easy AI which helpfully allows players to grasp build order changes in a non-competitive environment but provides absolutely no challenge.)

Thirdly, comprehensive post-match statistics and a replay feature which can be viewed from your opponent’s perspective clearly show you exactly where things went wrong. It’s a system you can quickly learn from.

Finally, the in-game UI and automated AI are much friendlier than in the predecessor. Worker units will instantly fan out around a mineral field instead of stacking on a single cluster. Units can move through buildings and path better than before. New functions such as setting worker rally points on resources strip out some of the more menial micromanagement. A vastly improved grouping system creates tabs when traditional grouping capacity is met.

As to the beta itself: Many players aren't getting past second base (pun absolutely intended) or one expansion – an additional resource-gathering hub – before the match is decided. To that end, we’re not often seeing the full diversity of units on offer.

Early gameplay is much faster. It’s now more feasible to begin researching unit upgrades before starting an expansion and players can survive much longer before needing to do so.

Three faction-specific abilities have largely contributed to this pace: Zerg larvae injection (an additional four larvae courtesy of a Queen, now recruited directly from the Hive), the Terran M.U.L.E. (an enhanced resource gatherer dropped directly onto a mineral field), and the Protoss chrono boost (an ability that reduces the build timer on selected units and research).

While a great number of players are still using traditional StarCraft strategies with a small sampling of new units thrown in the mix, some of the fundamentals have changed. For example, due to their warp gate ability the Protoss are now much more efficient at “rushing” the opposition early on than the Zerg, who have loaned their name to various “overwhelm” strategies in a raft of games for the past decade.

But the nuance of strategy could be discussed for pages on end. Already, wiki sites replete with spreadsheets and graphs detailing the minutiae are cropping up across the internet. Instead, we reached out to some of Gameplanet’s team to get their first impressions on StarCraft II.