Starcraft: Heavyweight Champion of the RTS World

In 1998, Blizzard released Starcraft. And there was much rejoicing. Today, it's still the game of choice among RTS aficionados. Other real-time strategy games have come and gone in that period of time, and the only one to even come close to taking the throne from Starcraft was Ensemble's Age of Empires 2, and even that pales in comparison to Starcraft. It's truly a testament to a game that it's still played (and played often) three years after its release; after all, 3 years is an eternity in game years.

In Starcraft, you control an army of one of three races locked in interstellar conflict. There are the Terrans, who are essentially humans, though most no longer reside on Earth; the Zerg, a bug-like race with no free will of their own, but instead controlled by central commanders called Cerebrates; and the Protoss, an advanced race which uses both technology and a high-tech form of magic to wage its war.

What's unique, though, is that each race is actually completely different than the other two, as opposed to Warcraft 2, where the Orcs and Humans were basically the same race with different graphics. For example, the Zerg build extremely quickly, usually 3 units simultaneously, but their units die very quickly. The Protoss, on the other hand, take an extremely long time to build, but have great staying power. One Zealot (the most basic Protoss unit) can take out 3 or 4 Zerglings (the most basic Zerg unit), but those 3 Zerglings build in about half the time it took to build one Zealot.

The single-player story that links these three races is one of the best storylines you'll find outside of an RPG. It's conveyed through both full motion video sequences, pre-mission briefings, where several characters fill in the events that have taken place since the last mission, and in-mission events. It's a fairly deep story with a number of surprising twists (and far too complicated to go into here without giving it all away), and it really provides an incentive to finish the current mission so you can find out what happens next.

The missions themselves are varied nicely as well, not all being of the "Blow your enemies into tiny bits" variety. In some missions you need to get to a position and defend it for a certain amount of time, or sneak through an installation with a fixed number of men, or clear a path from your base to another point on the map so a particular unit can deliver or pick up something. Of course, there are still "destroy the enemy completely" missions, for those who like that sort of thing (and, honestly, who doesn't?).

The real fun, of course, is in the multiplayer mode. You can battle over a LAN or over Blizzard's free battle.net service, where your win/loss record is recorded and you can be ranked in ladder competition. Furthermore, human opponents are much more unpredictable than computer opponents, as they don't always act predictably. Up to 8 people are allowed in a single game, and lag is usually at a minimum; I've only seen people dropped from a game due to long lag times once or twice.

Graphically, for a three-year-old game, Starcraft looks pretty nice. The units are all easily discernable and colorful, as are the backgrounds. Given the 200 unit slot per side limit (which is even less in actual units because a lot of units take up multiple slots), the units themselves tend to be quite large, which is good in a game like this, where one needs to quickly assess an incoming threat. Those expecting mind-blowing graphics should look elsewhere, however. Being an older game, its graphics are pretty but functional and the game doesn't take advantage of any 3D acceleration. The upside of this, however, is that Starcraft plays smoothly even on older machines; I played Starcraft on my old Pentium 150 and it ran perfectly, with no slowdown that I can remember.

Sound is expertly done as well. Each mission briefing and in-game event is done with full voice acting. While some of the voices can be a bit grating, in general, the voices are quite well acted and this really adds to the intensity of the story. Also, each unit has its own greeting when you click on it; it gets a bit repetitive after a while but it's still a good way to identify units quickly.

My only complaint about the sound is that there isn't enough music. There is only one long track per side. While this is good, it does het a bit stale after a while, and considering they could just put all the music on mp3 (I believe it was popular enough in 1998 for this to be an option at the time), they could have added a bit more. When you play Starcraft a lot (and chances are, if you start to play it, then you'll play it a lot), that the music will start to get old quickly.

The control is also smooth as silk. Left click to select, right click to move. The only real problem with the control is that units won't attack if they get near the enemy; they'll just keep walking until they get where they're going or they're dead, whichever comes first. Of course, by using the attack command, they will, in fact, attack anyone in their path. Especially since most good players avoid the right mouse button entirely in favor of attack, it would be nice if Blizzard defined that as the default. That's nitpicking, of course; the control is excellent overall, this minor gripe aside.

Basically, Starcraft succeeds in being simple and complex at the same time. It is simple in that there are only two resources to be managed, as opposed to four in Age of Empires 2 and upwards of 6 or 7 in some games, like Cossacks. This makes micromanagement of the harvesters much easier and allows the player to concentrate on the actual battle, which is the fun part. (After all, if I wanted to play a game that was mostly resource management, I'd be playing a turn based strategy game, not a real time strategy game.) However, it is complex in that the three sides are so wildly different, and thus the player needs to adapt in each game not only to the strengths and weaknesses of his own side, but also the relative strengths and weaknesses of his opponents.

All in all, Starcraft is simply a gaming masterpiece that should be in every gamer's collection. For those who don't already own Starcraft, I highly suggest the Starcraft Battle Chest, which includes Starcraft, the Brood War expansion, and strategy guides for both games. Go out and get it today, and enjoy a really fun piece of gaming history.