"Starcraft, the only game that truly deserve 10/10"

Introduction:
This is another blizzard game, but it must be one of the best ones. Brood War is the expansion set of StarCraft. When StarCraft was released I thought it was the best game ever, but the expansion, Brood War, made the game even better! The new units, maps and the adjustment to the units have just made the game much more exciting to play and the balance of the game is fairly good now. Note to fans of WarCraft, this game I personally thinks is better then WarCraft III even, not talking about the graphics and the story line, but the game play and the mass unit control also gave the controller a much more busier them to do in the game, rather then just sit through the game. If you are guessing or thinking about buying this game, you shouldn't hesitate, it is worth your money. I believe if you buy the expansion right now, it cost about 10 dollars or the whole expansion pack (StarCraft, Brood War, strategies guides for both) for less then 30 dollars, I guarantee it is worth your money. It is however just your choice.

Game play: 10/10
The game play/control is just excellent just like StarCraft, however I will talk about the 6 new units equally spread through the three races with each unit having their advantages and disadvantages. In the race, Protoss, it gained Dark Templar and Corsairs. Dark Templar is cloaked all time without any costs, it is very useful for attacking at a surprise when your opponent does not have any detectors. The Corsairs is just a very useful anti air unit and is almost needed for every battle. The Zerg gained Lurker and Devourers. The Lurker can be morphed from a Hydralisk and it is a ground unit killer, it can only attack when it is burrowed. The Devourers is morphed from a Mutalisk and it is also a very useful anti killer. The Terran gained Medics and Valkyrie. The Medics are very useful for quick attack because it's only purpose is to heal other units and the Valkyrie are also anti air unit. I have just listed all the new units, as you can see all three races have gained each an anti air unit and a anti ground unit. Blizzard have done a great good for the balance of the game.

Story: 9/10
The story can only be played single player and without going online. It is recommend to play the story mode before going online and playing with other players. The story mode let you learn how to use each race at a fun way by creating a story line, you should be able to learn how to use each race after finishing the game. While the story is going, there are also simple and interesting tutorials teaching you have to use the units. Back to the story, it is a really in-depth story and it is impossible to tell you the whole thing. But, you start out with Terran, they are the human race which try to defend the other two Alien races. When you complete all your Terran's missions, you move on to Zerg, they resemble monsters looking faces and to build units, you sacrifice one of your drone and it mutate in to a building. Zerg, one of the weird race or rather creepy I prefer, but you are trying to destroy the Protoss race. After, when you are controlling the Protoss who are very futuristic and they are trying to defend their homeland. I do not want to spoil the ending, you must find out yourself.

Graphics: 9/10
Awesome graphics, all though 2-D but they did not miss out any details of the units, and you can clearly distinguish the difference of each units. I like about the 2-D graphics because you do not need a “super computer” to run this game. What I mean is, you do not need to spend few hundred dollars to upgrade your computer to run this game.

Audio: 9/10
The music and sounds are very original, the background music rocks at first, however it gets a little boring, but it still rocks. The voice of each units are unique, but it is lack of lines so it is really repetitive and sometimes you don't want to hear it again. The great thing about the Audio is that it report what is going on in the game (i.e., when a unit is build, or when you are under attack) Sometimes when you are so concentrated you forgot about these things.

Controls: 10/10
Wow, the control in this game are awesome. Basically you can play this game with a mouse only, but having a keyboard also adds advantages where you can communicate with your team or using the hotkeys. The controls on the mouse are basically left clicks for selecting and right click for commanding and you would use it for movements, attacks, building structures. Very easy to get used to this easy control and also very standard. Perfect Controlling.

Replay Value - 10/10
I will split these two rating from single player + multiplayer type of games. I will start off with single player game. Well, the single player game is just basically the story mode which is not hard to complete within 1 week. The main purpose of this is to teach you have to play the game, After you have beat the game, you will most likely not replay the whole thing, maybe few of the outstanding missions. However, it is still enjoyable. For the Multiplayer type of game, which you have to get online to play. You will never get bored of this game, because you can get online and every game you play will be different and the strategies you use will also be different. The game has been out for many years, and at the peak time that I observer that were about 100 thousand players online playing StarCraft at any given time. Currently there are about 25 thousand players online at any give time, all though it is dropping but it has been out for many years. I know most games requires a better connection then phone-line, but this game works fine with phone-line connection. I have tested out both phone line and using Cable, the only outstanding differences you would see is, using Cable, when downloading new patches you can see it goes much faster then phone line. It also have minor effects on downloading new maps off other players. But aside from that, it should be fine, you shouldn't worry too much about it.

Final Recommendation: 10/10
This game is great, the audio and graphics are nearly prefect but the game play is just so good that you have completely forgot about the minor weakness on the audio and graphics. Additionally the control are just so easy to use which you don't have to spend hours trying to find out how to move your units. Storyline is awesome, can't get any better! The three different races are equally balanced so giving all of the advantages and disadvantages which also made the game not rigged and there is no “best“ race in the game. After playing this game, you would not be able to stop, because you just won't get bored from it. There are endless strategies you can use and unlimited combinations on units usage. This is the only game I can truly give a 10/10 in my life so far.
Lastly, this game is a must buy, I just can't stress this enough, this game is truly addicting and once you are hooked, you can't get out!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/07/04