Starcraft - Do you feel crafty? Well, do ya, punk?

Starcraft. The very definition of addiction. Starcraft is one of Blizzard Software’s older games (released around 1998), yet it still remains as one of Blizzard’s greatest, and the whole Real Time Strategy (RTS) genre’s finest. I wasn’t really familiar with the RTS genre until playing Starcraft on the Nintendo 64, and then after much delay and procrastination, I finally bought Starcraft for the PC as well as its expansion. For only $9.99, Starcraft has tons of value, with the ability to be played hundreds of times over, or even thousands.

Plot/Story

Starcraft takes place in the future where humans have started to colonize other planets, while risking being wiped out completely by an alien like race called the Protoss. Another alien race called the Zerg are also in on the fighting, and so all three races are now in an intergalactic war. The story is actually quite interesting, as voice transmission briefings before every mission go into detail about the story.

System Requirements

Starcraft doesn’t have very big system requirements, and so it doesn’t eat up a lot of your computer’s resources. I’ve got a crappy Compaq computer that I got back in 2000 that was already a year or two behind the times, and Starcraft still runs great. With the power that today’s standard computers house, Starcraft isn't anything. Starcraft also runs on Apple computers.

My Specs
Windows 98 SE
Intel Celeron 600mhz
96mb of RAM
Intel 810e Chipset Graphics

Game Requirements
Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP
Pentium 90 or equivalent
16 MB RAM
80 MB available hard drive space
2X CD-ROM for game play (4X for cinematics)
Direct X compatible video card

Installation

Installation was easy enough, just pop the disc in, put in your CD-Key, and go through the rest of the installation steps. From putting the disc in your CD-ROM to staring at the start-up screen, the whole installation takes 5-10 minutes even on outdated machines (hell, if it does it on mine it should do it on anybody’s).

Gameplay

Starcraft is split up into three episodes or campaigns which consist of the Terran (humans), Zerg, and Protoss. You can start with any race you want to, but as far as difficulty goes and for those first starting out with the game, it goes Terran, Zerg, and then the Protoss. Each campaign has 10 missions, for a grand total of 30 missions. The types of missions vary from destroying all enemy units, to taking over a base, to destroying a certain unit. The missions are different enough between each campaign so that they aren’t all exactly alike. Ten missions for each race may not seem like a lot, but the amount of gameplay you can get out of all 30 is amazing.

Starcraft ranks high among real time strategy games, but for those who aren’t familiar with the RTS genre, most of the time you’ve got to gather resources before building up buildings, units, etc. Once you build certain buildings, you can produce vehicles, fighters, and different kinds of upgrades.

Each race has its own strategy to learn, and no one race is necessarily stronger than the other. Some may think that the Protoss are the best, but they could be beaten by a person who uses Terran because he had a good strategy and was able to use his units effectively. The enemy AI isn’t that bad, though sometimes I think they cheat when it comes to the amount of minerals they have. It takes a little while to learn each race’s strategy, especially by the way of their structures, ground and air units, and how best to use the more advanced units and structures.

Each race has a tree of structures. For example, the Terran have to have a Command Center before anything else can be built. The command center produces SCV’s, which is the Terran “drone” that collects vespene gas and minerals, and also builds all structures. The same goes for the Zerg and Protoss. Each of them have a type of “Command Center”, and a drone that builds other structures as well as mine minerals and vespene gas.

Single player is fun, but once all three campaigns are finished, you might not want to go back and replay any of the missions. So the first thing I’d recommend is to pick up the expansion, Starcraft: Brood War for $9.99 as part of the Best Seller series. The second thing is to go online and play in battles with up to eight other players either allied or by yourself. Battle.net is pretty reliable, though almost every game that I’ve joined has had at least one hacker in it. Since I hate hackers, I’d quit and try to find a new one. When you can find a good fair game though, you could play Starcraft until you get so bored of it you can’t play another game. For a lot of fun, find the Raccoon City map for a little bit of Resident Evil.

Graphics

For 1998, the graphics still look pretty good. Even on my poor excuse for a computer, the graphics looked good. While they may pale in comparison to Warcraft III, there’s also a 4-5 year difference. The graphics are 2-D, and the animations of each unit are passable, with each individual unit looking different. There are a few cinematics here and there, and they look pretty dang good. Most of the maps are really cool, except for a couple because they’re really boring (mainly the ones in space).

Sound

Starcraft includes some crafty voice-overs for the numerous transmissions, and they sound pretty professional. Each unit has their own set of commands that they speak every time you order them to do something, which gets really annoying, but by far the best voice-over is the one for the Terran Science Vessel, which sounds like one of the characters from the Simpsons. I can’t quite pick who it sounds like, so if you’ve got an idea, let me know.

Overall

Starcraft will most likely stay installed on my machine for a long time to come, as well as the expansion Brood War. Starcraft does almost everything right, and many RTS fans today still prefer Starcraft over games of today like Rise of Nations, Command and Conquer: Generals (another great RTS series), and Warcraft III. Myself, once I get a machine that can run anything more than Delta Force 2, I’ll be able to play today’s games, but for now, good ole’ Starcraft r0x0rz my b0x0rs.

happy gaming