Thanks to the extremely flexible Galaxy Map Editor, map modders have already put together not only some impressive custom maps, but also some mods that completely change the way that StarCraft II plays. Terran Tetris, anyone?

So, just how does one go about getting their hands on a custom map and playing it? Well, firstly, you’ll have to log into Battle.net. Once you’re online, head on over to the multiplayer section of StarCraft II’s UI, and click “Join Game.” Once you’re here you’ll see a comprehensive list of all the maps being played, whether they’re standard or custom. Choose the map you want to play, Battle.net’s servers will then feed you the file, and depending on which player has the strongest connection a host will be appointed. That’s it!

With that in mind let’s take a look at some of the very best maps and mods, shall we?

PCG’s Top Custom Maps
Battlecraft

The idea behind Battlecraft is simple: I buy units to throw at you. The more units I kill, the more money I make. If the units I send counter yours, if even by a little bit, I’ll win that battle. The game is won by the player that manages to destroy his opponent’s base (can be played 1v1 or 2v2). Now, take that formula and add a plethora of custom made units, and you’ve got endless amounts of fun in convenient, five minute intervals.

Nexus Wars

The wars of yesteryear were won by the bigger, more destructive army — and Nexus Wars recaptures that magical explodey feeling in a wonderfully simple format. The rules are simple: much like Battlecraft you’ll get money for killing your opponent’s units, and you can add to your periodic income by creating different types of buildings. The buildings that add to your income also pop out units after a set amount of time. The first team to destroy the other’s base wins!

Red TD

Tower defense has long been a personal favorite, and I’m extremely happy to see a classic like Red TD appear in StarCraft II. While this map has gone under different names, the fundamentals remain the same: build towers to kill waves of enemies, if too many enemies populate the surrounding path, everyone loses. So, throw as much damage as you can at the bad guys, and don’t forget anti-air!

PCG’s Top Mods
Tetris

So you’re using the greatest gaming platform known to man, you’re harnessing power your grandfather can’t even comprehend, and what do you do with it? Why you recreate a game from more than 20 years ago, of course! Go forth, and drop supply depots.

Final Fantasy

Whether you like it or not, it’s difficult to deny that Final Fantasy is one of the greatest RPG experiences you can get on any platform. And, thanks to some reworking of the camera angles and the addition of a custom UI, you can get an extremely authentic Final Fantasy experience without having to leave StarCraft II. While this video is currently all that exists of this particular mod, it’s absolutely worth taking note of.

Kart racer!

Turning a real-time strategy game that’s generally meant to be seen from an isometric view and making it work as a racer can’t be easy, but someone made it happen. After adding some wacky music and swapping up the controls, the StarCraft II kart racer was born. Track it down, and give it a try.

“What’s so great about Battle.net 2.0? I heard it’s not as good as the old one.”
Yes, Battle.net is great. But Battle.net 2.0 is taking a new approach in an effort to make it even better. The new matchmaking system worked very well in the beta, setting people up with other players of approximately the same skill level. Blizzard says that connecting to games, both custom and match-made, will be speedier than ever thanks to some behind-the-scenes upgrades. Plus, with the new Real ID system you’ll be able to keep in touch with friends across Blizzard games, allowing you to chat with your WoW-playing friends from inside StarCraft II.

What has some folks up in arms is the removal of some of the old Battle.net’s features. The big one is the lack of LAN play—I’ll cover that in a moment—but Blizzard’s also axed chat rooms. At launch, you’ll only be able to create chats with people on your friends list, rather than jumping into a public chat where Blizzard says spammers were becoming too much of a problem. However, it looks like beta feedback has changed the Blizzard hive-mind on this point, and there are now plans to add private chat rooms in a patch sometime after release.

Finally, you won’t be able to play against friends in other regions—such as a US versus UK match—without buying a second $60 copy of the game that’s keyed for the foreign region.

So depending on how much you care about the features that the new Battle.net leaves out, it’s either better or worse.

“I heard I can’t play on a LAN. What’s the deal with that?”
Unfortunately, this is completely true—StarCraft II won’t have any LAN capabilities. You’ll still be able to play against a guy sitting next to you on your home network, but you’ll both have to have active internet connections to Battle.net. Most people won’t know the difference, but competitive players are concerned about server downtime and the possibility of lag.

So, why did Blizzard hamstring one of the greatest competitive multiplayer games of all time? In the name of fighting piracy, of course! Blizzard’s official line from PR Manager Bob Colayco states, “While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.” Yar, that be most disappoint’n, Bob.

“What’s this Real ID stuff? Will everyone I play with know my real name?”
Short answer? No.
Long answer? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Real ID is an optional feature of Battle.net 2.0 which will allow you to add friends you know personally to your elite list of pals using the email address that they have registered as their Battle.net account. Once this happens, you’ll be able to track your friends game to game, and server to server. There’s no other way for someone to see your real name through Battle.net.

“I heard StarCraft II will integrate with Facebook. Will it be spamming all my friends every time I play?”
Yes, StarCraft II will integrate with Facebook. The spam part though? That’s an untruth. Put simply: integrating StarCraft II with Facebook will let you find your StarCraft-playing friends easier, and that’s it.

“Why did Blizzard break the game up into three parts? Are they trying to charge me three times for one game?”
Well, yes and no. Blizzard definitely does want you to buy all three parts, and there’s certainly a lot of money in it for them if you do, but the question of whether or not they’re going to make it worth every penny you give them is up for debate.

The full StarCraft II saga will consist of tomorrow’s main game, Wings of Liberty, which includes a 30-ish mission Terran campaign (with a couple of Protoss missions mixed in) followed two expansions based around the Zerg and the Protoss that Blizzard says will come out at roughly 18-month intervals.

The amount of single-player content in Wings of Liberty is approximately the same as you got in StarCraft 1, so it’s difficult to say that you’re not getting a full game’s worth for your money. What Blizzard’s done here is basically the same thing as was done with the Lord of the Rings movies: they’ve said up front that you’re not getting the full story in the first piece, and you’ll have to come back two more times to get the complete experience. So if you feel ripped off by movie trilogies, you may feel ripped off by StarCraft II.

How much will those expansions cost? Blizzard claims that, as usual, they’ll charge what they feel is an “appropriate price for the content received.” As for what that actually means? Nobody knows for sure.

On the next page: Battle.net authenticators, custom maps for sale

Malgun Miok Kuk (Clear Seaweed Soup)

Ingredients:
- 1 cup of cut seaweed
- 4 cups of water
- 1/2 pound of beef
- 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
- 1 scallion
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- 1 clove of garlic

To prepare:
Soak the dried seaweed in warm water for 30 minutes, then rise and wash carefully. Cut the seaweed into 2-inch lengths, shred beef into 2-inch lengths and crush the garlic.
Bring the water to a boil, and add the beef. Remove any froth from the top, and add the seaweed, scallion, garlic, soy sauce and salt. Lower the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes before serving.

There are an alarming number of cabbage varieties, this is the one you need

Image courtesy of Jon Roberts

Kim Chee (Spicy Pickled Cabbage)

Ingredients:
- 3-4 pounds of nappa cabbage, sliced into 1 1/2-inch pieces (in the summertime my great grandmother would use cucumbers)
- 1/3 cup of salt
- 1 cup of daikon, julienned
- 1/2 cup of carrots and/or green onion (optional, my great grandmother would put in for color mostly)
- 1-3 tablespoons of red pepper powder, mixed with 1-3 tablespoons of hot water (depending on how spicy you like it)
- 1 tablespoon of paprika
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons of ginger, minced
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of patis (a type of fish sauce)

To prepare:
Place the sliced nappa cabbage in a large bowl or sink and sprinkle it with the salt. Place a plate over the nappa and weigh it down with heavy rocks, bricks, or can. Then let it sit overnight. The next day rinse the salted nappa and squeeze out as much water as possible. Use your hands to mix the remaining ingredients into the salted nappa. Allow this new mixture to sit overnight while weighed down once more. Pack the seasoned nappa into jars and let it ferment in a refrigerator (or, if you’re feeling authentic, bury it underground like the Koreans did before refrigerators were invented). It must be cool, and it must sit overnight at a minimum. Best if left alone for a week.

Image courtesy of John Joh

Firstly, there’s the great white north – Canada. Due to the good nature of Canadians, I suspect that while they’ll be engaged in hardcore unit on unit combat for minutes on end, moments before victory is achieved and one risks hurting a fellow canuck’s feelings, they’ll apologize for their callous ways and call out “gg, buddy.” They’ll then ride canoes to the local bar, drink a pint of Molson, and curl with their bearded brethren.

Despite being given a version of the game that features less blood and gore than any StarCraft player should have to endure, the South Koreans are granted a national day of inservice by the President himself, Lee Myung-bak. In the wake of this, hundreds fall asleep at their computers from week-long gaming sessions, and students are graded on how many actions per minute they can achieve. Kimchi is awarded to honor students.

The English, fueled by a steady diet of doner kebabs and Carling, completely forget about StarCraft II’s release. After a long day of enjoying socialized medicine and double-decker busses, they all go home to play Forklift Truck Simulator 2009. You know, because they like the number “two-hundred and nine.”

Those of us here in the United States will of course, line up days in advance for StarCraft II. Leaving our families at home and joining our fellow fans, we’ll define dedication in the name of the collector’s edition. Conveniently, we’ll also neglect the fact that the game is being released online on launch day.

Having just hosted the World Cup, South Africans are more ready than ever to get the celebration started. With their vuvuzelas in hand they preparBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZ BZZBZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZBZBZBZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZ ZBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZ BZBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

German StarCraft fans won’t be treated to the same bloody explosions that those of us in the US will be, but rather a squeaky clean version that features no blood whatsoever. All in all, this seems pretty tame for a country that had no problem zerg rushing Poland (too soon?).

Further east, the South Koreans will be getting about the same treatment as Germany. Their version of the game will be devoid of smoking, profanity, and all of the blood will be colored black instead of the typical red you expect to spill out of an exploding hydralisk. Why all the changes? Well, according to a translated Korean e-sports article, the game was resubmitted to Korea’s rating board after Blizzard failed to receive anything lower than a ‘Mature’ rating. The changes were made so that gamers as young as 12 could purchase the RTS phenomenon. Given that StarCraft sold about 4.5 million copies in South Korea alone, censorship seems like a good business decision.

As for everyone’s favorite communist superpower – China isn’t getting the game in the foreseeable future. While Blizzard has stated that they have plans to release StarCraft II to the Chinese, there’s no set date. Given all the difficulty Blizzard has had releasing the Wrath of the Lich King expansion over there, I wouldn’t expect it to happen anytime soon.

Most shocking of all is Japan, who won’t be getting StarCraft II at all. Blizzard has stated that they’ve got no plans to release the game in the land of the rising sun, primarily because they just don’t have a big PC gaming market. So, should you be a Japanese gamer looking to play one of the greatest RTS games of all time, you’ll need to import it. Also, kudos for going out of your way to read our lovely website. Nice, isn’t it?