While many StarCraft II fans are busy racking in beta time before Blizzard pulls the plug, others are checking out the upcoming game on a designer level using the included StarCraft II "Galaxy" Editor. One modder based in Denmark has taken StarCraft II editing to another level by creating first and third-person shooters.
This isn't really anything new: Blizzard sported the editor's capabilities at BlizzCon 2009 by showing off a StarCraft Ghost-like 3rd-person action/RPG game and a vertical-scrolling arcade shooter. However, with all the excitement surrounding StarCraft II's RTS elements and it's highly-anticipated release this July, we tend to forget what the game's engine--in combination with the new Battle.net--will bring to PC gaming on a whole.
Mod creator Malu05a reminds us of the huge potential by creating a multiplayer first/third-person shooter that could easily become a full-fledged commercial project. "One of the multiplayer maps of my AC130K project turned freelance here this weekend," he said. "This map is call Waterworks. It's a first-person multiplayer shooter. None of my friends were online at the time of the [video] recording so I had to place some dummies in just to give you an idea of how it works. The third-person view is also not available in-game, but this is just to show how it will look for other players when you run around."
In addition to Waterworks, Malu05a also uploaded a first-person shooter demo over on YouTube here. The Waterworks demonstration however switches between the two views as seen below. Both results are quite impressive, and it has us anxious to see what modders will create when the actual retail game ships next month. Who said PC gaming was dead? Console gamers.