"Why am I reviewing this game so many years after its initial release?"

Starcraft. People just yawned and said, ''Oh. Another strategy game. Age of Empires'll probably kick its butt.'' But when it came out, they were wrong. Starcraft was easily the most balanced game that most gamers had ever seen, with three totally different races, about fifteen units for each race (though you barely notice), and... Well, just read on.

Graphics: 10/10.
Considering that these graphics are from 1997, you will marvel at some of the buildings and animations. Take the cutscenes. Some of them are incredibly hilarious, while still maintaining detail to the last blade of grass. In-game, they managed to make it use only 256 colors, yet the detail makes it look more like 16.2 million colors. No, really. It's true.

Audio: 9/10.
Voice. Acting. Rules. In the cutscenes, they have actual crickets behind the superb voices. I dunno why they have crickets on alien worlds, but hey, that's just me. And in-game, the voice clips make the characters seem to appear in your mind, waving their hands to make a point. Or claws. Whatever. Anyway, the voice-acting is cool.

Music: 9/10.
They have three different songs for three different races, and they all rule. The Terran song is kinda techno-ey, yet still maintaining that edge that makes you feel like you're really there. Same with the Zerg, only their song is kinda creepy-like, making you feel like you're in the midst of these aliens, standing on gray, mushy creep... Anyway. The Protoss have a noble, upbeat sound to their song, making you feel like marching in to the enemy's base and kicking some butt, metaphorically speaking. The music is very inspiring, and will never fail to get you in the mood to play a game of Starcraft with any race.

Gameplay: 10/10.
Believe me, this gameplay leaves Age Of Empires wondering when the house fell on 'em. Let us start with the Terrans. The Terrans take the most traditional approach to RTS gaming by being extremely versatile and having a strategy for every situation. Base being overrun by a Zergling Rush? Liftoff all the buildings you can. Being attacked by a crowd of Zealots? Firebats take the cake here. Their buildings lift off, as I said, which basically means if you don't like the view from your Command Center, you can move it somewhere else. But not all buildings have this vaunted ability, and the Terran add-ons do not lift off with their parent buildings. Add-ons are also powered by the parent building, so you cannot use the add-on without a parent building attatched to it.

The Zerg are a rusher race. They have one unit-producing building, that's it. And that is the Hatchery. The workers for this race do not build buildings, as the Terrans do, but they turn INTO the buildings themselves. Most buildings must also be built on Creep, given off by Creep Colonies or Hatcheries. Creep Colonies cannot be used to build new areas of Creep, it merely extends that which is created by a Hatchery. Zerg are also very cheap to produce, and very fast, and they hold the record for the world's fastest rush; the Zergling rush. You can easily decimate a base with this vaunted technique, and then if you don't manage to kill him, only seriously injure him, send in Hydralisks. Hydralisks are pretty much the ultimate unit in Starcraft, because they attack both air and ground, and in swarms of 150 they're unstoppable, period. And that's unupgraded... Also, all Zerg buildings and units have this nifty auto-regeneration ability. Cool, huh?

The Protoss. This race is very expensive to upkeep, but it pays off quite a bit. For one, the Probes need only select a location to put a building, and a warp field will appear. Even if the Probe does something else, the building will keep coming in. And you can warp in as many buildings as you want at a time. Plus their basic unit, the Zealot, can beat two Marines or two Zerglings, if unupgraded. Zerglings with all their upgrades can beat Zealots two-to-one, though. Then come the Dragoons, which is like a moving Photon Cannon. Photon Cannons are the best building attacker in the game. They attack both air and ground for equal damage on both, and Dragoons have the exact same damage rate, but they can move. Unfortunately, Dragoons are also more expensive.

So all of the species in Starcraft have ways to counter the attacks of other species, plain and simple. Very balanced.

Control: 8/10.
Once in a while, you click where you don't want to when casting a spell, but the control is the same as in most other RTS games. Left-click selects a unit or building, and you left-click on a button to make it do something. For instance, you click on Attack, and you can click on any other unit, even your own, to attack. But most people just right-click to make the unit(s) move/attack, depending if you click on the ground or a unit.

Replayability: 10/10.
I could probably play this game for years, man, years, and never get tired of it. Even though I suck at the game, I still enjoy playing it very much, and it's always fun to lie about how good I am to scare my opponent. But it doesn't usually work. Heh heh. Oh, I forgot to mention, there's this thing called Battle.net, and it's a multiplayer Starcraft server. And you can access it for FREE!! FREE!!

Overall: 9/10.
There are a few minor flaws which Blizzard could have taken care of, but the game is awesome, plain and simple. If you ever see it for sale and you don't have it, BUY IT. You will never regret it, I promise you. Sorcerer out.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/10/03, Updated 04/10/03