Starcraft a wonderful RTS
This is my First review since about middle school, so let me know what you all think.
This my review of Starcraft. This game is a science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. This is the first game in the series which was released for Windows on March 31, 1998. It is one of the best selling games for the PC, with more then nine million copies sold worldwide as of May 21, 2007. Hell the Starcraft Battle chest is only $20! For the game, expansion pack and strategy guides!
Story:
I don’t want to spoil to much of the story for you guys but its basically about this…The Zerg have taken over larges parts galaxy very far away from Earth, both the Terran and Protoss are trying to fight them off from taking over everything. The Story starts you out with the Terran missions. Then you move to the Zerg missions and finally end with the Protoss missions. The story is very well put together and it has a lot of twists and turns that you don’t really see coming through out the game. The ending is especially crazy and sets up for the expansion pack Brood War amazingly. In addition to having an excellent story line, incredible cut scenes (for its time), and great action, Starcraft is a fascinating strategy game.
Story/Races:
I don’t want to go too in-depth about all the races but I thought a quick overview would be pretty nice. So since you start out with Terran I might as well start with them.
Terran is the human faction of the game, they combine technology with there weapons but are less advance then the Protoss technology wise. This race can build anywhere there is land and is rather good at repairing its hurt units. The story uses the Terran vs. both the Zerg and Protoss here and there. When you are playing as the Terran it is mostly against the Zerg.
Next up the Zerg. This alien parasite looking race infests the ground it builds on and can grow in very large numbers very quickly. The heath on most the units isn’t that high but with huge ass hoards of these things it doesn’t really matter. There greatest strength is growing there army fast and burrowing underground and surprise attacking the enemy.
lastly is the Protoss. They are the more human like alien faction of the game. There technology is greatly improved from the Terran and Zerg and are a little faster at building then the Terran. This group has some great defense cannons and fast moving zealots. There energy shields are a great tool vs. the Terran but work a lot better vs. the Zerg. (This is probably my favorite race just because I love making a great defensive base)
Overall I would just like to point out that not one race is better then the other. The whole game is so well made that every race is balanced against the other giving every player an equal chance to win the game. Every race has the strengths and weakness against the other. Just for that fact I think its amazing that since its all balanced it will be a test of your skills in using that race vs. the skills of other players and how they use there race against you.
Gameplay/Controls:
The gameplay is amazing. It is a rather simple concept of clicking on units deciding where to move them to and what to have them do. The units you start (Terran are SCVs, Zerg are Drones and Protoss are Probes) with help gather resources that build the more power units that both help defend and attack. Its your rather basic RTS game, but its so engaging that it makes you want to come back again and again to play out different battles with your friends. The camera is a fixed view looking down on the battlefield and you just move the mouse around to see different areas of the map. There are keyboard hot keys you can memorize that really helps move faster throughout the game. Once you have your set army that you’ve built up you send them out to the rest of the map in search of the other players or computers base. You can do a simple action of highlighting 12 units clicking the A button and then click in a certain area on the map and the units move out on there own attacking anything that’s in there sight. If you want a more sneaky way load them up in shuttles and fly them in a back area of someone’s base and just upload huge amounts of units to take out there army and then there base. The way to win the match is to destroy the other players base, so just all there buildings.
Just a quick mention with the Battle chest it comes with the expansion pack Brood War. Which comes with additional campaign for each race building on storyline, and also adds a few new units and upgrades for each race as well.
The controls are really easy to pick up, its simple point and click and then you can throw in the keyboard hot keys to move faster throughout the match. To move the unit you click on it then right click to move it to a different location or if your building pick a building and an area where you want that unit to start building. If you want to just go out and attack everything highlight the unit or units and click A like I said before then right click to the area you want to head to.
Graphics:
Even though the graphics are pretty old(by 10 years) by today’s standards the graphics still hold up to this day because of the great gameplay. You keep playing the game over and over online it doesn’t matter overall what it looks like. With that said, the games graphics are pretty weak but that shouldn’t bother you if your enjoying being able to control a hoard of Hydras to an enemies base and just killing the shit out of them. The cut scene graphics are still pretty good vs. in game graphics and are enjoyable and not to lengthy to watch.
Sound:
The game play sounds and music in game fit the game perfectly and don’t get to repetitive when playing long online games, or offline missions. Each unit and building in the game has its own unique graphic and sound that come up when clicking on it. There are also multiple sayings that the units say, so its not the same thing every time. Overall the sound of the game is great and adds a lot to the game.
Additional Features:
Battle.net! I shouldn’t have to say much more then that but ill elaborate a little more. Battle.net is the program used to play Starcraft online vs. other players and or Computers. You are ranked on your wins and loses and there are ladders and leaderboards throughout, also there are clans you can join if you really get into it. The best thing probably about Battle.net is that ITS FREE, that’s right I said a FREE online that you can play with friends with or against each other. The only cost is buying the game. How freakin great is that people?
Community and Services:
Overall I would say the community is not that great..there are ton of assholes on battle.net, most of them just swear up a storm up at you and are either going to backstab you for not being as good as them or the other people you play with get killed right away. its a lot better if you have friends playing with you on a channel you make. This is the only down side to the game, that the community isn’t as nice as giantbomb.com or noobtoob.com…but o well. Services side of the game are pretty good, there are always new patches coming out that fix the old bugs of the game which is nice because it feels like they still actually care about this game and don’t just move on to the newer games Blizzard is working on.
Overall:
In the end I would have to give Starcraft for the PC a 9 out of 10. It gets a 9 only because the graphics are that old now and the community is still pretty crappy. Other than those to facts the game is amazing and still sells a shit ton of copies to this day 10 years later! I would recommend this game to any gamer either new or returning to RTS. It’s great for beginners to get a handle of an RTS game and its great for people to returning to the gene that are used to games like Command and conquer and Warcraft series. This was my first RTS game and I still love playing it to this day. Another great part of the game being this old now…the battle chest is only $20 for the game, the expansion pack Brood War and strategy guides so GO GET IT! It is a must play before even thinking about starting Starcraft II.
Thanks for reading everyone
