What better way to spend a Monday evening than with a wonderful reminder that Australia was one of the first in the world to get its hands on the new Starcraft II game?

War is coming, but I have to admit – an Aussie victory is oh so sweet….

Approximately 2000 people packed King George Square in Brisbane to not only be the first to get their hands on their preordered copies of Starcraft II, but also meet a couple of the “big wigs” from Blizzard – namely, StarCraft II Producer Kaeo Milker. EB Games put on a good spread – the square was decorated with Starcraft paraphernalia and the Blizzard logo was a fitting decoration for the clocktower of Brisbane City Hall. The event kicked off at 9:30pm with one of the awe-inducing Starcraft II trailers, with the crowd cheering for more.

After that it was time for the trivia, with three of the top Starcraft fans battling it out for a Blizzard prize pack. This contest had a clear winner after only a few questions, and the audience got to learn more about Starcraft trivia for future trivia encounters.

No geek event would be complete without a cosplay competition. While the audience were pleading with the judges to let Sara Kerrigan win the crown, her position as an EB Games employee excluded her from any of the prizes. Still, it was wonderful to see someone dressing up purely for the love of cosplay. Congratulations to the Pylon who not only won a Collector’s Edition of the game, but a brand new Dell gaming laptop to enjoy it on.

Laughter echoed and rebounded off of Brisbane City Hall as we were treated to a Starcraft Sound-Alike competition, where punters took the stage and tried their best impersonations. I was never aware of exactly how many different types of Battlecruiser sounds there are. I am happy to have an improved education in this regard.

However, the important news came during the Q&A with Kaeo. We had an update on any possibilities for a Blizzcon in Australia (alas, no plans right now, but Blizzard are aware of the desire to bring the love Down Under!), and also found out that Starcraft Ghost for the consoles was a bad, bad, idea. However, we also got the best piece of gossip: Australia and New Zealand will be the only region with dual-server capabilities for Starcraft 2. With the new South-East Asian servers, Australian subscribers to the online game will have an option to either play with South-East Asia or with the North American server.

Who says that Australians don’t have all the fun?