Well, after nearly 24 hours the StarCraft 2 beta is creating some pretty positive impressions all around. Everyone expected Blizzard's "when it's ready" philosophy to pay off in terms of polish and consistency and the beta is proof that this approach can pay real dividends. Yesterday, Charles wrote up some impressions of the front end, explaining some of the finer points of the lobby and exploring some of the tools for post-game analysis. Today we thought we'd bring you a look at how the game actually plays. Of course, since this is a beta, things are still subject to change, but it should give you a good idea of the pace and feel of the long-awaited sequel.

For this first go round, we're going to be looking at the Terrans and taking them through a match on the Blistering Sands map. This 1v1 map has players facing off against each other across a rocky field. Things start off just like they did in the old StarCraft. You've got your Command Center jammed into one corner of the map near a field of minerals and some vespene gas vents. Your SCVs are put to work right away building refineries and harvesting minerals so you can get your economy up and running.

With resource income assured, you'll soon be faced with the crucial decision of what to do next. Do you use your meager resources to create a few military units to send out to raid the enemy? Do you build more SCVs and capture the three resource piles on your side of the map? Do you keep pumping out SCVs to work at your current Com Center and hope that the enemy leaves you alone for a while?

I'm a classic defensive player when it comes to StarCraft, but I didn't want to cede the middle of the map to the enemy just yet. With a sizable group of SCVs working around the first Com Center, I sent a few out to the furthest resource node that was still on my side of the map and set up a new Com Center. I dropped down a barracks nearby so my reinforcements could be closer to the chokepoints, and hoped that I could hold back any early attack from the enemies. With the barracks done, I churned out a couple of marines and sent SCVs off to create bunkers along the enemy's three possible approaches to my base.

Marines are pretty cheap but they're the only thing you can build at the start without having to dish out extra resources for upgrades or new structures. A few extra supply depots gave me a little more room at the top of the unit cap to fully staff the two bunkers I'd built but before I could manage that, the Zerg marched in and smashed their way through the more distant bunker and made a beeline right for my base. Now not only did I have to divert units back to my main base to eliminate the attackers, but I still had to keep marines heading for the broken chokepoint to stop the Zerg from getting any more units through. And of course, this also meant taking SCVs away from resource collecting to build another barracks and drop down a sensor tower to help give me a little more notice of a future attack.

The recently completed Engineering Bay not only gave me access to the sensor towers, but also anti-air missile turrets and a few other attractive upgrades. In time I was able to get a nice first line of defense that included a full bunker, a sensor tower and a missile turret that would stall any enemy long enough for me to send new units to defend against the Zerg attack.

Despite their frequent recon flights over my forward Com Center, the Zerg seemed inclined towards a direct attack, rather than hitting the less defended pass and marching straight through to my relatively undefended main base. It's a good thing too, because the extra marines I was able to send to the point of attack helped to hold the enemy off long enough for me to construct a third base and a vehicle factory to pump out the flame-spouting Hellion scouts. I wasn't exactly rich, but I had enough cash to buy the upgrades required to unlock some new units including my favorite, the Thor assault mech.

Personally, I don't see why anyone would build anything but Thors. Sure they take up a lot of room in the roster and, yes, they're slow and expensive, but just a couple of them were able to fend off just about anything the enemy sent my way. Of course, to make the most of the experience, I tried a bit of everything else too, from the Reaper raiders to the massive Battle Cruisers, which are nearly as cool as the Thors once they're upgraded. As the enemy continued to send larger and larger waves my way, I was able to chew them up while also boosting the size of my own forces a bit. As the smaller and weaker units fell in battle, despite the presence of Medivacs, I used the extra space in the unit cap to pump out, you guessed it, more Thors.

At this point, there was really nothing left to do but send my Thors and Battle Cruisers, accompanied by a diverse array of additional units that did not look nearly as stylish, through the other side of the chokepoint and take out the Zerg bases. The defenses were well prepared but not up to the task of fending off a handful of my most powerful land and air units. While they pounded the enemy base to pieces, the rest of my units engaged the Zerg defenders. As first one base fell and then another, we made our way slowly but surely to the main Zerg base in the opposite corner of the map. They never stood a chance.

All in all, the experience took little more than half an hour, with some extensions for note taking and exploring all the units and techs in the game. There was surprisingly little down time when there wasn't an interesting decision before me or a sense that the battle was progressing. The post-game build order was particularly revealing in terms of how the enemy and I approached the game. Where I had opted to boost my economy a bit, he had decided on a more aggressive early attack. It gave him the chance to take out one of my bunkers and actually wipe out all the SCVs at my main base, but by then I was earning enough resources to wipe out the attackers and establish a stronger defensive position along that line of approach. By the time he tried to probe my other defenses, I had enough momentum to hold him back until the Thors could turn the tide.

There's obviously a lot more to be said about the Terrans and the other two races, so stay tuned to IGN for even more coverage of the beta in the coming days.

Zoom all the way out from one of RUSE's World War II battlefields and you'll see the edge of the strategy table in the commanding Allied general's war room. Desk officers work silently in the background; troops are colourful blue and red counters inching across a map of Europe, their movements delineated in bright, wide arrows.

Zoom all the way in, and you can hear the artillery fire, watch foot soldiers set up an ambush in a French village square and see a tank battalion inch along forest paths whilst a recon unit scouts ahead through the trees, on the lookout for hidden enemy soldiers. You can command the battle as if you're on the ground, or from a strategist's eagle-eyed viewpoint, and you'll need to make use of both. Pivotal moments in battle play out in letterboxed cinematics on the edges of the game screen, showing you a squadron of incoming bombers or the moment of defeat on another front.

RUSE's challenge comes from strategy and planning to outwit the opposition, moreso than any competitor on the RTS scene. It's a precise, ponderous game; it demands careful thought, forward-planning and preparation for all eventualities, not quick reactions. Overpowering the enemy by sheer force of numbers or speed of action is never a possibility. The game plays out significantly differently on each of its three difficulty settings – reinforcements that back you up at crucial moments simply don't show up on higher difficulties, and easy secondary objectives turn into death-traps.

The story follows an American chap called Joe Sheridan on his journey from a Major in Tunisia to a General on the front line in the closing stages of the War, guided by a charming, mustachioed British ranking officer. Unfortunately, Joe is a tiresome dude, a big-headed frat boy who often seems more concerned about his rivalries within the American army or the attentions of his attractive assistant than with the war at hand. The plot focuses on tracking down a German intelligence source, Prometheus, but frankly it's not a gripping war epic.

The opening mission gives you a tantalising glimpse of the scale and variety that you'll be playing with later, teasing you with a German battlefield full of looping fighter planes and bombers and tanks on all fronts. After that, though, the game takes all of that away for a good few starter missions. It flashes back to Tunisia in 1942 and takes quite some time to get going again. As the war goes on and Joe climbs the ranks, access to new units, base building and the titular Ruse techniques slowly opens up, but it's hours before you're really allowed to stretch your legs on the battlefield.

Those opening hours crawl by at the speed of one of the game's heavy tanks. Battles are slow and steady, relying heavily on your ability to predict the next enemy movements and defuse their attacks with ambushes and strategic unit deployment rather than meet them head-on. Crucial to this approach are the Ruse intelligence techniques themselves, which allow you to decrypt enemy transmissions to determine their movements, send spies behind their lines to see exactly which units are hiding there, speed up your own deployment and movement speed and boost your chances in various other helpful ways. In higher forms they even allow for dummy attacks, feinting your forces one way while in reality attacking from another. In multiplayer, the ruses evolve into devilish mind games and panicked gambles.



Knowing which Ruse mechanic to use at which time is crucial to success. RUSE isn't easy on strategic mistakes. You must remember to put your bombers under radio silence to protect them from fighter planes, or hide your infantry in towns or forests, or your vital, limited units will be wiped out. Make a mistake during the earlier missions and you're almost guaranteeing yourself an instant restart – oddly enough, things get a little easier later on, when the game finally starts allowing you to build your own bases, establish your own supply lines and deploy and position your own units. Once Joe is a general, you can always manufacture some extra tanks to make up for your strategic mistakes.

The slow pacing never changes, though. RUSE isn't a fast-paced RTS, but it's not a dumbed-down console port either (apart from a bizarre inability to redefine the controls, smartly laid-out as they are). It has its own tension; watching masses of Axis troop counters creep slowly and inexorably towards your base whilst you deploy defenses at the limited speed allowed you is just as tense as the frantic, unpredictable battles of other games in the genre, in its own way.
CLOSING COMMENTS
RUSE takes a while to warm up, but once it does, it's cracking stuff, as the game's unfailingly proper British generals would no doubt put it. The Ruse mechanics do much to breathe fresh air into the genre, allowing for a pleasing game of tank-based poker. Its faults – that slow, slow pacing and yawning, sluggish start – are largely the result of this approach, and we're inclined to forgive them for the focus on the original psychological gameplay it creates.