The perils of the online logins so many games insist on these days came to me yesterday when trying to have a blast on Starcraft II.

Yes the battle.net system was down, stopping login - meaning that online play wasn't possible.

Actually I didn't even want to go up against Taiwanese 12-year-olds capable of 300 mouse moves per minute - I just wanted to use the single player.

This does work 'offline' but you can't complete any of the mission side or bonus goals - making the time spent a little pointless.

Why on earth this should be the case escapes me, but it certainly gives you a better understanding of those who are anti-online forced logins with such vehemence.