We got a chance to play the first mission of the Terran single player campaign mode in StarCraft 2. Unfortunately I was stopped from taking videos or pictures so you’ll have to settle for text.

The game starts with a cinematic showing Jim Raynor on his ship, the Hyperion, battling off an attack by the Zerg. You then get a news reel showing the Zerg attacking other Terran outposts, and some footage revealing that Kerrigan herself is leading the attack.

After that, you’ll find yourself on the bridge of the Hyperion, controlling Jim. You can walk around the ship and talk to the crew in a sort of point-and-click adventure style format. Heading to the armory will let you upgrade your weapons (if you have enough money), while clicking the console on the bridge will bring up the mission select screen.

We were given a choice of two missions, an escort mission where you have to save some civilians from a Zerg attack and one where you have to locate and retrieve an artifact of some kind.

We went with the escort mission. The mission was fairly simple: you start with some firebats and a medic, but have access to a barracks as well. You have to escort some ground carriers filled with scientists to the nearby space port. Along the route Zerg will ambush you.

There’s about five waves until you’ve rescued enough civilians, and the Zerg throw more stuff at you with each wave. Most of the units on both sides were pretty familiar, although I don’t recall the Zerg having a big flying unit that spewed purple goo out everywhere – I might be wrong.

The game is pretty fast paced; build speeds are on par with Warcraft 3, and units can die pretty quickly too, if you don’t look after them.

The game looks great, you can zoom in close, and the animations are top notch – even better than Dawn Of War 2.

Right now, the game is definitely shaping up to be a good one, the story does indeed look epic, and it feels a lot like the original StarCraft which should please most fans, but we’ll wait until we can get our hands on the multiplayer beta to fully pass judgement.