"I just love controling mindless drones to their death..."

This review will cover the original Starcraft and it's Expansion Pack, Brood War, as the same game. but I will explain why Brood War is a great add-on as well.

GRAPHICS 10/10

Wow. This game looks wonderful. This is about as good as you can get using sprites. The games 3 races, the Terran, the Zerg, and the Protoss each have unique units. Each time you play as a different race, you fell like you changed games. (Compare the Zerg's slimy, bio-buildings and the Terrans ramshackle Command Centers can you'll see what I mean.)

The movies in this game are amazing. In one of them, a group of Space Marines are stalked by a handful of Zerg Hydralisk. You can fell the tension mounting as the Marines nervously look around. Each Original Mission has about 4 movies plus a intro movie, and none of them are bad. Brood War, on the other hand, only has 4 movies altogether, and the last one stinks.

GAMEPLAY 10/10

Controlling a massive army of giant insects have never been more easy. Just point, click, press A, and the units are off, ready to kill anything that moves. Some units, which I call Magic Casters, have special Abilities. The Protoss Templar can create enormous, Terran Ghosts can Nuke appoints, and Zerg Queens can infest other units so you can see what there doing. Thats only a little bit, theres alot more.

First, you take your little ''Peon'' unit, units that gather Gas and Minerals, and make them build building. Buildings either make a battle unit available, allows the player to upgrade existing units, or it even attacks the opponent. Units themselves rage from the weak but many Zerg Zerglings from the powerful Terran Battle Cruiser. Each race has powers and weakness, but none are more powerful than the others.

SOUND 10/10

YES! Turn up the volume and let the brilliant music infest you ear drums and cause them to pop! From the Techno beat of the Terran, the noble melodies of the Protoss, and the disturbing tunes of the Zerg, the music really suits the mood. Brood Wars offers even better music. (Love that Military march for the Terrans) Like Warcraft I and II before, click on a unit a bunch of times and they say some weird stuff. Voice acting is some of the best I ever heard for a video game.

STORY Starcraft 10/10
Brood War 8/10

The Original should get a score of 11, but I can't do that. Gamewise, the story is great. Read the manual and you realize that the plot is excellent. Though you don't have to read the manual to understand the game plot, but it adds to it greatly.

Basically, the Terrans (humans) are in a state of civil war. A group of freedom fighters known as the Sons of Korhal are in open revolt from the Confederacy. Unknown to them, there planet is being infested by a insect race known as the Zerg. Another race, called the Protoss agree to exterminate the Terrans to get rid of the Zerg, who want to assimilate the Protoss into their hive.

The Terran campaign is centered around a Jim Raynor, a Marshal you is called to the wastelands to defend against the Zerg attack. He is mixed up with the Sons of Korhal.

After than the it's the Zerg and Protoss campaign. The Zerg Campaign is about the broods trying to take the Protoss homeword of Auir. The Protoss Campaign is trying to stop them. I could tell you about them, technically, since you can play them in any order. But I wont because it will ruin the story.

If you haven't beat the Original yet, then this might spoil it. (But it explains it all on the box) The Brood War Campaigns comes after the Starcraft story. The Overmind is dead. Zerg broods gather up their forces to create a new Overmind. Meanwhile, a group from Earth, called the UED, come to the Terran sector can try to tame the Zerg. At the same time, the Protoss try to rebuild their homeworld. It's a nice story, and continues the plot well. But I liked the first one better. The ending leaves it open for a sequel. (I bet that was the plan the entire time.)

REPLAY VALUE 10/10

Starcraft forces you to come up with new strategies all the time. '' Hmmmmm...Can a group of Hydralisk take down a few Carriers? How can I use Burrow to spy on the enemy? Theres got to be a way to destroy those Photon Cannons without heavy loses.'' It goes on and on. The best part is, you can play on Battle.net can play against human players, not just the computer.

GRIPES

A grip for me is that my Internet connection isn't that great, so I can't play Battle.net good. One major problem I had is the rally option. When you build a unit, you can make them rally to a specific spot on the battle field, like the borders of the town. Thats great, but lets say you town is under attack. The unit ignore to attacking units and rallies the to point, getting killed along the way. The weird part is, that patches haven't fixed this problem. More than likely, no more patches will be released, so the problem is hear to stay.

OVERALL Starcraft 10/10
Brood War 10/10


Starcraft is a great game, an Brood War is a great expansion. This is the best Real-time Strategy can get, until Blizzards makes something better. (Warcraft III) Brood War adds several new units and tile sets, plus a brand new story, so it's worth dishing out the $20 bucks for.

Blizzard is the god of Strategy Gaming.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/28/00, Updated 11/09/02