StarCraft

There are many games out there who have been awarded the, “Greatest Game of All Time,” title, but I don't think any other game deserves it as much as StarCraft. It practically birthed competitive gaming, and took it to the extremes; countries like South Korea have TV channels dedicated to people playing StarCraft. With the release of StarCraft 2 in a few months (hopefully) time, I decided to let you guys know my opinion on this wonderful game.

The story is spread out over 3 campaigns, each of which follow the 3 factions in the game. Each campaign has 10 missions, which range from about 20 minutes to one hour plus play times each. The first campaign follows the Terrans, which are humans. The Terrans are the most convoluted of factions in this game; even with fighting off the Zerg and Protoss, they are fighting civil wars amongst themselves. You have control of Jim Raynor, a Marshall under the Confederacy, who doesn't like the way the Confederates do stuff, so he joins up with the rebel group known as the Sons of Korhal, who want to bring down the Confederates. They eventually do, but Raynor isn't that happy with how things went down, so he leaves the Sons of Korhal and starts his own group, Raynor's Raiders.

Now the second campaign starts, which lets you control the Zerg. In the first few missions you have to protect a chrysalis which contains one of the series key characters. During those missions, you start getting the idea that the Zerg want to be the best race around, so they start attacking others, particularly the Protoss; the Zerg want to take over the Protoss' main planet, Aiur.
After that you get to control the Protoss in the last campaign. I won't say much about this since it wraps up the story pretty damn well.

The game controls like any other RTS game. You start out with a fairly small base, and a few builder units to help build it up. Most of the time you will be telling your worker units to harvest you some Minerals and Vespene Gas, those being the resources you use in the game. You use the resources to build buildings and train units at the various buildings you may use. Of course, with your growing army, you will need something to support them. Terrans use Supply Depots, Zerg use Overlords, and Protoss use Pylons. The Terran Supply Depot just sits there; the Zerg Overlord is an air unit that you can use to transport other units, and the Protoss Pylon have to be placed strategically over your base, because the Protoss buildings have to be in the vicinity of your Pylon, as the Pylon powers your settlement. Each race also has drastically different worker units; the Terran sport SCVs, which are guys in suits that build stuff, they build buildings; the Zerg use drones, which have to mutate into different buildings, which means sacrificing your drone for a building; and the Protoss use drones, which can warp in buildings and go harvest some resources while the building is warping in.


With 3 factions, each one has different strategies. The Terrans usually use lots of Siege Tanks, accompanied by a few Battlecruisers to take care of any air units they may find in their way of ownage. The Zerg will defeat enemies by sheer number of units, usually in the opening rush of the match. If that match fails however, Mutalisks and Guardians with some Ultralisks on the ground usually do the job done in the following stages of the match. The Protoss are probably the most strategic of the 3 factions. They will most likely use a group of Dragoons to find the enemy base, then move in Carriers with Reavers in them, which deal massive damage if micro-d properly.

Mission structure consists of usually, destroying everything on the map. Destroying everything is also the main premise of the multiplayer mode. Once or twice in a campaign you will have a linear mission in which you control a small group of units and take them through the map, eventually finding more units to join them.

StarCraft looked good, when it came out that is. It uses sprites, and is on a fixed, isometric view. Each of the factions are easily distinguishable amongst each other; the Terran's are gray and robotic, the Zerg are browish and slimy, and the Protoss have their signature yellow armor, and definitely look like guys you shouldn't be messing with. The backgrounds look nice, although organized; the game uses a grid system where your buildings take up a certain amount of squares on the grid. The same system is also applied in the Campaign Editor which comes with the game, which lets users create their own maps. StarCraft also had really good looking CG cutscenes, which raised the bar for cutscenes in game.

Audio in this game is outstanding. Every single unit has different sayings and different voice talents. Eventually if you keep clicking on one unit long enough, he'll say something weird, like the Siege Tank singing Ode to Joy. The soundtrack is also really well done. Each faction has its own unique musical score; the Terrans have a rock-like music, the Zerg have dark-techno, and the Protoss have just ambient music.

After many years in development, and first being regarded as, “Warcraft in space,” StarCraft made a really deep impact on PC gaming and gaming in general. With the impending release of StarCraft 2, players will still be playing StarCraft before and after the sequels release. It is really a gem that shouldn't be missed by anyone, and since it has been 10 years since the games original release, it will run on mostly every computer.