Starcraft

"Give Me Something to Shoot – Classic"

While I get to chance to play computer games, I have always leaned my preferences for PC gaming towards the real-time strategy games. I am not really interested in games only for their blood and gore, but I also enjoy the intrinsic nature of a game that requires slightly more advanced thought. With the artificial intelligence of the computer challenging your progression, it is always nice to crush the machine and not have it crush your mind.

My interest in real-time strategy games started when I played a windows 98 demo of Age of Empires, and ever since then, the best real-time strategy games have always called me out of other realms of gaming and asked me to try them out again.

With Starcraft, I had heard many rumors that it was a classic and tried it out a little bit at my friend's house, and yes, I sincerely liked it for its enjoyability and its simplicity. Three races, all with their weaknesses and strengths turn this game into a true strategic game where actually technology can prevail over blindly massing an army of hundreds of units. Not only was Starcraft supposed to be classic, but it was made by a company, Blizzard, that was known for awesome game design from previous games such as its Warcraft line. In a time when computers were quite weak in processing power and graphical output, this game surely shined, and continues to outshine even the games of today despite the increased superficial fluff placed upon them.

And now, let us get down and shoot up this game in my review…

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Gameplay: 9/10
Even to this day, there are only a handful of games that emulate such gameplay perfection as Blizzard did in this game. I believe that the most defining element in this game is the species set up. There are three species – human, zerg, and protoss – and they so well matched that hardly any of them have advantages that cannot be counterbalanced by another species and played toward a disadvantage. While the zerg specialize in quantity over quality, the protoss are the exact opposite, quality over quantity. The humans of course, are the middle ground balancing the quality and the quantity. What makes this so interesting though is that zerg and protoss despite these subtle differences can be matched so perfectly that dueling master players of the species will only result in continual stalement, because neither is stronger than the other. Though the protoss unit might be stronger, it costs more to build and longer to train. With this disadvantage, the zerg take advantage of that and have the ability to make multiple units in the same timeframe at around the same cost, or even cheaper. Now the humans have their own special abilities as well. Not having the ability to make units super fast and super cheap as the zerg do or super strong as the protoss do, the humans have units specialized for taking out the technologically superior protoss and the mass flood of zerg. Not only do they possess those qualities, but they also have the nuclear device, which can do some impressive damage. What keeps this game continually balanced as well is the population unit control so that people can specialize on strategy and technology rather than pure brute force. Though wouldn't 200 protoss easily crush 200 zerg? Well, that's where it even gets more interesting. The protoss units account for more than one unit…sometimes up to eight units, while zergs can account for as little as half a unit. So maybe you have quite the strength of the protoss, but with limited numbers, will your strategy play out against a horde of 300 strong zergs? Now then, the additional topping on the cake for this game, is the technology over brute force. While most games focus on creating the most of the strongest unit, it is quite possible in this game to use technology to seal a person's brawn and overwhelm him with strategy. Let us say that humans are going against protoss. Well, the protoss are twice as strong as the humans, but the humans have a weapon in their arsenal to even the playing field. With that weapon, they can deactivate the shield protecting the protoss and make the protoss' technological superiority null and void. Let us say that the zerg are flooding the protoss with hundreds of units, well, no worries, a spell delivered by the protoss will easily dispose of units that are congregated too close to each other. Though in this system of balance, there are some flaws. If given the appropriate amount of time, the protoss can amass an armada of carriers (the strongest unit in the game) and totally eliminate any opposition, especially when defended with the appropriate technological defenses. It is commonly known that “mass carriers = instant win.” That is the reason an opponent must make it their business to eliminate the enemy before they can amass such a fleet. One more, less serious problem is the movement of units. It is so annoying that you cannot select more than a few units at a time, and that you must constantly highlight move, highlight move. And once and a while, units will not follow the path you placed for them, and sometimes that can annoy a player. But despite these flaws, and the fact that this game came out before the turn of the millennia, it is quite outstanding. I found that the goal in the gameplay strategy is to incapacitate the enemy before the enemy has the chance to build and incapacitate you. And if you both have built up and are dueling, it is your own faults and enjoy a massively long and sometimes boring fight. Of course, when two highly skilled players duel each other, these long fights are well worthy of being watched to learn from pros of strategy. What increases the joy in gameplay is that even after the completion of the epic campaign mode, a player can still enjoy an active multiplayer base in which to test out his mind against another person's mind. I can truly say that this is one of the few turn-based strategies where mind and not the mindless buildup of troops can win the game. Unlike so many other real-time strategy games such as Age of Empires where the strongest and most of a unit wins, in Starcraft the most calculated and correctly ordered units will win. There is no point in using tanks if aerial units cannot defend them and there is no point in having a ground-to-air aerial unit if you cannot defend it with an air-to-air defense. And finally to increase the life of the game even more, there is even a scenario builder to mess around with units and build your own scenarios and test out strategies before trying them in real life. The gameplay content is so epic. Building units, moving units, setting up units, and so on, flows with common sense, and most people who are new to real-time strategy games will have the basics down in only about an hour and once the basics are down, then all that limits is the willingness to open the brain to strategy and technology.

Story: 10/10
Usually games that have such great gameplay and multiplayer facilities usually lack a defining storyline, however Starcraft truly captivates an epic plotline filled with confusing and plot twists that will force most people to replay the campaign one more time through to understand all the intricacies. Just as an adept reader will reread a book to learn the essence of such a novel, Starcraft's storyline is so interesting and unique in its time that even a book on it could have been written to dwell into its crevices. What makes this storyline so intricate is that a player must play with all the species at various times in the game to learn the perspective from their point of view. You will learn the story through the points of view of the humans, zerg, and protoss, and once you have seen it through all their eyes, the plot will come together as three pieces of a puzzle lock in to form the overall picture. Not until you have seen all the sides of the story will the campaign truly make sense. Because the story is arranged in such a way, it is hard to explain it without spoiling such minute detail, because the detail has been well compiled. I will say this though, that you begin your campaign on the human side and learn all its details and once that is completed, you move onto the zerg side and see the zerg's mind through its encounters with the humans and the protoss. And from the zerg you continue onto the protoss. What is so interesting is that it is similar to a duo (actually trio) sided movie of war. Where you are the eyes of the supreme commander of every world. While the humans cannot understand the zerg, zerg understand that they must expand in the universe, while the protoss know that the zerg must be annihilated. And what makes this so great, is that it is not a fairy-tale like story, but something to relate to in real-life: there is corruption, there is bondage, and there is treachery and betrayal. To ever increase the knowledge of the storyline, cinematic cutscenes are included to give the player movie and pictorial detail along with intelligence detail: truly wonderful, and had I not misplaced my Cd-key, I would have reinstalled it again right now and played it through just to enjoy a storyline that is lacking in almost all games contemporarily and previously.

Graphics: 9/10
With the available technology back in 1998, this game surely took the capability of the computer to the max in real-time strategy gaming. The graphics of all the units are pristine and the pixelation of every character is nicely finished and touched up. What adds to the epic detail of the graphical output is the fact that when a person selects a unit, a player can view an animation of the unit in the heads-up display and it is always interesting to see some of the designs of these players. Sometimes it can prove comical. Another adding feature to the graphics of this game is that the cinematic scenes are so well done. I can understand that the people do not look real in these scenes due to the limitations of graphical power back then, but for the available technology, I could not have asked for more: the flashlight dimming out, the shadow of zerg about to devour some humans, it is well placed and well constructed. Not only are the characters themselves well detailed, but their attacks are also unbelievable detailed. From the nuclear explosions delivered by a human ghost unit to the carrier's fleet of attacking wings to the suicide flying zerg, this game set a bar that needed to be matched and surpassed, and only recently have any real-time strategy games had any success and matching such legendary setups. Now I will say that there was one detracting element in the graphics and that was the shades of darkness. Yes, I understand that is space, but sometimes the darkness of the graphics can sometimes take away from their beauty, and I only wish that their could be some more life put into the darkness of the cold space environments. Nonetheless, this real-time strategy game impressed me in the graphical sense, because such raw power could be delivered by such little hardware.

Sound: 9/10
Not only did Blizzard deliver in the graphical department, but also in the sound department. The songs were of quality versus quantity and it shows when a person must sit down to game for over an hour and have to nail the enemy. With pump action songs, it gives the player the subliminal conscious to wreck havoc on the opponent. The only problem is that the music lacked a little bit in the quantity area. Though the songs were few, they never got old, and I enjoyed listening to them over and over again, but I just wish there could have been a few more classic songs to add to the repertoire. Nevertheless, some great space battle music.

Replayability: 9/10
This is a game that most hardcore real-time strategy gamers could keep playing. Though the campaign may get old, the multiplayer online aspect of the game will not. Even after so many years, the multiplayer aspect of the game is still going strong. Though as Starcraft II has finally been seen approaching the horizon, only now will the online multiplayer community of Starcraft be threatened as the sequel follows. And to even add more to the replayability factor, there are expansion packs to add to the storyline and give the story an increasing sense of closure. However the flaw with the “mass carrier = game over” scenario, there is a little detraction in replayability factor as this is an exploited advantage of the protoss, and I only hope that such is fixed in the next game. Nonetheless this flaw can still be countered and with determination, the attempts of the enemy to build up such a fleet can be halted as long as the other player can effectively take him out as fast as possible. Remember, it is not all about brawn in this real-time strategy and the actual use of support units means the critical difference between defeat and victory, especially against more seasoned players. This game will provide hours of joy to a strategist, and once you have had enough, it will start getting you after only a month or two of laying off the game, and you will want to come back for some more. Not many games are like that out there, and that is what separates the classics from the regulars.

CONCLUSION
Using my rating system for real-time strategy games:
27.5% Gameplay, 25% Story, 20% Graphics, 7.5% Sound, 20% Replayability

Overall Game Rating: 9.25

OVERALL RATING: 9/10 – Genuine Classic
Suggested Action: A definite must have for all strategists.

Final Comments: Now many games of this caliber exist in the gaming world, but when they do pop up, they are cherished for years and years to come. With the announcement of Starcraft II in production, I can only imagine the power that it will deliver with the fact that computer capabilities have advanced and leaped by so many years, and possibly it will grace the gaming world as one of the greatest games ever. Starcraft is a great game, and a sincere classic, but I still say that it lacks a little essence to go down as one of the greatest games ever. Nonetheless, I will say that it earns a spot in my repertoire. Okay, okay, well actually, if there were a hall of fame of games, I would say it belongs in there, but in the top 10?…maybe not…of top 10 real-time strategy games though…hmm…definitely in the top 3. It was unbelievably well designed and the only limiting factor was the capability of computers in a fledgling error of computer technological advancements. But even with this, despite all the expectations of graphical quality today, this game still garners the respect of players and will always be a noteworthy mention in everyone's playing field.

Fin

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/19/07