Starcraft

"Blizzard at it's best"

Blizzard has always amazed me with its excellence in games. I have yet to see one Blizzard game that was bad. I was at first reluctant to try Starcraft, but I found out that it was like a Warcraft in space and with three races instead of two. After a while I just had to try it out because I loved Warcraft, and I wasn't disappointed.

Gameplay - 10/10

Starcraft is an excellent real time strategy game with wonderful game play. The basic game play has you starting out by sending your peon units to gather resources needed to build your attack and defense. Each race has its own unique and interesting units. Some are upgradable and have different abilities. Each unit requires you to build a certain set of buildings before you can train one.

You have a choice from three races, the Protoss, the Zerg, and the Terrans. Each one has their own strengths and weaknesses. The Protoss are extremely powerful but units are more expensive than the other races. Zerg are extremely cheap and can be spawned very quickly, but they are weak and are easily killed. Terrans are extremely good at defense but have a little trouble with initiating combat.

Each race also has special abilities and things that are unable to be duplicated by the other two races. Terrans, for example can make their buildings fly and relocate fairly easily. Zerg units can hide units safely underground for surprise attacks. Protoss units and buildings have extra shielding/armor that can be repaired if damaged.

Control - 7/10

Controls take a very long time to master good enough to be a multiplayer compititor. There is the slow way of doing everything with the mouse, but that will get you killed easily. To survive, you have to memorize a certain key for every building and every unit so that you can quickly choose what to build without having to take the time to look at the little pictures. Also, you have to know how to set quick keys to groups of units and place markers on the map to get around fast.

Story - 10/10

Hope I don't get this wrong here, as I am typing this from memory and don't know where my manual is.

Basically, the Terrans are from Earth, but something happened to get them stuck on a planet in another solar system. If you ever watch Star Trek, the Zerg are exactly like the Borg. They go from place to place and consume species and add their abilities to their own race. Now the Zerg have come to wipe out the Terrans.

The Protoss were created (therefore they are a type of cyborg) to be the ultimate race, and they were brushed off as a failure, but they wiped out their creators and show themselves to be the ultimate. Now the Protoss were watching over the Terrans throughout the years as they eventually discover technology to get back into space, and saw the coming of the Zerg. They become a part of this conflict though.

So the overall plot focuses on the Protoss and Terrans joining together to wipe out the dangerous Zerg.

There are many factions and types within each of the three races, and there is some internal race conflict between different factions, which makes things very interesting through the whole game. There are a few FMVs between battles, and story elements within the battles themselves, all of it spoken dialog. Each battle briefing tells part of the story too.

Overall, a complex and excellent plot for a strategy game.

Audio - 10/10

Definitely, without a doubt, Starcraft has the best audio of any RTS game I've ever played. Each race has their own special music track, and is very well done. Especially the Terrans, I love that music track and never get tired of it.

Sound effects are also excellent. Each and every unit has their own remarks when you choose them, battle sounds are great. Every building has a special sound when you choose it.

Video - 9/10

The graphics are beautiful. That about sums it up. Each unit has a unique look and just full of life. Units don't just stand still in place. They have animations and show a face in the status bar. Everything from the simplest units to the biggest buildings is very detailed.

Replayability - 10/10

After you finished the single player missions, there's plenty more to do. The game comes with a level editor with which you can create your own missions. There are plenty of web sites out there that have levels to download, and there's even a lot of full campaigns with story lines to play. After all that there's also multiplayer, in which you can play several different ways. Battle.net makes things interesting with competition ladders and keeps records of your wins and losses.

To buy or to rent? - If you like strategy, then you will probably like Starcraft. Starcraft deserves a special spot in every strategy gamer's library.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/01, Updated 10/30/02