Starcraft

"One of the Best Strategy Games Ever"

I and many gamers alike see a good future for strategy games. Its games like these that make me appreciate what great games are all about. Blizzard has done it again, a strategy game with perfect war tactics and strategies that will entertain people for many years to come. Once again, a game that will not soon be forgotten, here is the amazing Starcraft.

Visuals: 10/10

The opening video starts off showing Blizzard Entertainment Presents... and then you see a guy smoking a cigarette. This three minute video won't explain much according to story, it will just you a glimpse of whats coming.

With a history of great games with great graphics, it is no surprise that your eyes will once again be astounded by the spectacular visuals that Blizzard brings to you. Each unit, vehicle, aircraft looks very different and you will have no trouble identifying them when your eyes lay contact on them. When you click on a unit, they will have their own little mini-screen at the bottom of the page showing how they look like up close and personal. This part looks really good, because it’s not just a still picture, it’s an actual video. You can see their heads move, their eyes blink, and their mouths move when they talk. In the bottom right corner you have the mini-map of the current map you are on, showing your base, units, opponents bases if you have discovered them, and resource deposits. At the middle bottom you will have a description of whatever it is you have clicked on. It will show the hit points, status, name of the unit, and any other information. At the top you will see your stockpile of resource deposits: minerals and vespene gas. Once again, as in Diablo, you will see full motion videos. These are the “movie clips” of the game, where you just sit back and watch the precious seconds of footage that is on, explaining the story. You will view quite a few of them, either before or after a level.

Audio: 9/10

No surprise here. The audio is superb. Let’s start off with the music. Since some levels can be long, music will fill your ears during the gameplay, providing you with quality futuristic war music. There’s not really a tune or song that is so good you will remember for a long time, just something to break the silence when no orders are given. The sound, on the other hand, is much more to talk about. There’s a lot of alien activity in this game, so the developers have to think of good sound effects for the spacecraft and noises that everything makes. There are humans in Starcraft, and it’s not hard to think of something for them. They have machines, so they make the sounds that machines make. But when you are dealing with a barbaric species of monsters, you got to think of something good, and let me assure you that they did. The sounds that were thought of are quality and truly original. Just like in Diablo, Starcraft has great voice acting. Even when they are not humans, the characters have their own distinctive voice.

Gameplay: 10/10

This is where the game truly shines. Never has so much strategy been put into a game like this. Just like in real war, a country can not win a war with one specific type of unit unless your numbers are so big that it’s obvious you can win. Just like in Starcraft, it is hard to win by massing one or two single war units. A true expert will win with a variety of different units, so that there is no easy counter against his/her army. Beginners will mostly start off by amassing, let’s say, a Protoss Carrier. They are a very powerful air unit which can annihilate very fast. That is their strong side, their downside is that they are very slow to replace, and take a long time to construct, and are very expensive. About fifteen cloaked wraiths can take them out like a human stepping on an ant. There are so many counters to units, and counters to the counters that try to counter the units. Every units building mechanisms are different. A human building can burn, and to fix it you have to manually fix it. A zerg building will slowly heal by itself, and a Protoss building has a power shiel which regenerates slowly. Those are just a few examples. The gameplay in Starcraft is flawless.

There are two types of resources that you will in need in order to breed and feed the military machine: vespene gas and minerals. The deposits have a certain amount, so once they are depleted, you have to find another patch of resources, dominate it and guard it well.

The single player mode features a great story involving all three races: Terran, which are humans united under one government. Protoss, which are a superior alien race. Finally, Zerg, which are barbaric monsters that have a massive army. Each race has a trait. The Zerg have strength in numbers, the Protoss are small in numbers but have superior quality, and the Terran are somewhere in between. But you don’t have to do that, you can do whatever you want and find different results. There are three campaigns, each is a different race, and each campaign follows the story to where the last one left off. There are no difficulty levels, which I prefer, because I don’t have to make choices. Judging from it’s length of play, I would say the game isn’t hard, nor is it easy.

One small problem is that you can only select twelve units at a time. This could cause a small problem when you have an army of fifty troops or planes, but all you have to do is keep selecting and clicking and you will be a bit out of formation, but that's about it. Not that big of a problem.

Replay Value: 10/10

Once you beat the game, which will take anywhere from 15-20 hours, you will spend all of the time playing Starcraft online on battle.net where you will spend hours a day fighting co-operatively or against seven other opponents. There are now lots of rules on the games you will join, such as 20 minute no rush, where there is sort of a peace treaty for twenty minutes, and then once your base is fortified, and your armed forces ready, all out war happens. These kinds of games are extremely fun, especially when playing with allies, because things can get very interesting and intense. At one point you can be dominating an enemy’s main base and then suddenly one of their allies launches a major offensive on your base, forcing you to retreat for now and come back later. Different maps are made and people just make different types of games. It can get very fun.

Starcraft is another instant classic made by Blizzard which will surely bring about an expansion, if not a sequel, in a very long time. So even though you might uninstall this game few times, thinking you won’t play it anymore, you will eventually come back for the victories that you remember from before.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/02, Updated 09/16/02