It might be old news by now, but yesterday Blizzard Entertainment set an official release date for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. It will be hitting shelves around the world on July 27th. That’s July 27th, 2010. No really. They mean it. Beta testing has been rolling for a couple months now. Of course, single player fans might have to wait longer than July to dig into zerg and protoss; Wings of Liberty is the first of a three part series and focuses on the terran side of the plot. The two that will follow, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, should couple with Warcraft Cataclysm to ensure Blizzard continues to collect my money for years to come. But who plays Starcraft single player anyway? If the game’s launching on July 27th, then presumably b.net is launching with it.

Expect mass swarms of BGH to overwhelm the competition at first, but it won’t be long before that map editor gets put to good proper use. All I’m really hoping for out of Blizzard is a revisit of Polaris Prime and Station Unrest, my two favorite maps. The rest is on the users. Unlimited map pitched battles? Turret defense? The Crash RPG series? A Day At School? The Chrono Trigger and Ogre Battle UMSs? Count me in. And what about those Risk maps that only started popping up a few years ago? Well, get to it all you programmers who actually know how to write triggers and the like. Until then I’ll be backstabbing 7v1 comp stomps. Who’s building a spire instead of drone rushing the computer for a quick easy win count?

I used to demand cookie recipes in exchange for checking allied victory. The 9-0 guys would actually hand them over. That’s what you get for not booting Is_Tab_Of_Ten.

Oh god….