Millions upon millions of copies sold. Spawned an entire gaming culture in South Korea. Is the origins of the term 'Zerg rush'. Have I played StarCraft? Chuh, yuh, of course I've played StarCraft...
Took me twenty years, but I managed it.
The RTS genre has its bastions and mainstays, and while I'm rather familiar with Command & Conquer, I am most definitely not familiar with StarCraft, save for it being sci-fi and full of rushing Zergs. And I suppose it was one of the first e-Sports I knew about before I really knew what an e-Sport was. I don't know. I know it's got a dedicated following for one reason or another, and it's about time I found out what that reason was.
Fun Times
StarCraft was recently remastered with updated graphics and whatnot, but alongside that were completely free and legal releases of the original game and it's Brood War expansion, without the bells and whistles of the remaster. Obviously, paying for those shiny bits can wait until I find out whether this game is for me, so the free version got fired up and I dove into the campaign.
According to the 1001 entry, other RTS titles of the time were perhaps better, or more innovative in evolving the genre. Also in that write up is the fact that there are three unique and yet somehow completely balanced races to play as, with their own strengths, weaknesses and even winning strategies and playing styles. That sounds pretty innovative to me.
I did want to play as the Zerg first, but alas, I'm locked into playing as the Terrans first, the future military force of the human race.
The first mission, if you need to go on it, introduces the absolute basics of StarCraft and RTS's as a whole. You need to produce units that get resources that build buildings that produce units that kill other units, so on and so forth.
That much I figured out, but already I like the look and feel of StarCraft. I'm just milling about unopposed, but it's smooth - perhaps too slick, when moving the camera, actually - and it's simple. You click on a unit and you hover for a tooltip, and it only shows you what you need to know, and then you can issue orders and let the AI get on with it.
The main resource to keep an eye out for is found in the form of big blue crystals - quite hard to miss, and plonked on your mini-map when you discover them. They get spent for seemingly everything, whereas the gas vents are rarer and presumably fuel or pay for things that I really don't need to worry about in a tutorial mission.
After building enough stuff, I was ready for some action.
There's not a lot of action in between missions. There are no live-action cutscenes of Hitler and Einstein or Kane and... that bloke from the GDI... None of that. Just text and some barely animated heads. But I can see from the mission objectives that this is going to be a bit more like what I'm looking for.
Oh yeah, this is more like it. Selecting a giant squad and uncovering the fog. These guys are responsive and zip along the terrain nicely. There's not much hanging around when you're on the move. That sounds like the most obvious statement I've ever written. What I mean to say is, it's zippy, and I like it.
Your units are nice and capable too, though I imagine going against two or three Zerg isn't as much of a problem as going up against twenty or thirty. Decisive action was swift and over in seconds, and the mission continued.
It was just to produce more units, in this case training some Marines. Assuming you have the resources to pay for their production, you can cue up a number of units to build one after the other, either identical or not. It's a useful feature in this genre, and I bet I've already come across it in another game on this list without even realising...
Anyway, I've not yet had a chance to really shoot some aliens in StarCraft, so hopefully in the next mission...
That's what I want. Bloodshed. Carnage. Marine's faces light up with the flash of their weaponry. You can't see much from this distance but there are some nice details on display. It just looks great. Both it and Command & Conquer have that not quite cartoony but still somewhat flat look to them, yet are also well detailed so that everything does pop into view.
Rescuing some guys, I manage to find and then even use their old stuff to produce new units, including some guys armed with flamethrowers. I believe the mission called for everything that moves to be dealt with...
Oh. That's not too good. I'm using Zerg tactics, but I'm not Zerg. Back to the barracks.
Well, we've got the resources, so yeah, back to the barracks again...
Success. At cost. But who's keeping track?
The plot so far is that... aliens are... uhh. Well, I don't know, but there is in-fighting amongst the Terrans, which I wasn't expecting after two or three missions. Also unexpected is a cutscene out of nowhere, staring two guys running over an alien before being overrun themselves - not that you can see that from these screenshots.
After that - and I'm still not sure what the relevance of it is - or the opening cinematic where a salvage ship gets absolutely destroyed by something else - is a snap back to the mission objective screen, with its animated heads and scrolling text. It displays the information and some plot fluff, it's fine.
But that's not fine though. Not right now. I need breaks from the screen every hour, don't you know?
Frustrations
I stopped it there for my first stint through StarCraft, and I was trying to assess what I thought were its problems. The only one that sprang to mind was the sensitivity in the camera when you moved your mouse to the screen edges to move it. I'm faaaiiirly sure that can be dealt with in the settings, so my grumbles with StarCraft are, therefore... none?
Final Word
Nothing yet at least, but I intend to play more StarCraft - especially as the Zerg - in order to form a much better opinion. From what I've seen, however, it's possibly the best RTS I can remember playing. Possibly.
I like the look, and the ease at which you can get up and running in-game, and the simplicity of the menus and your actions, and the speed of it all is lovely. I like the idea of these three forces being so different from one another that you have to think a little more when facing one or the other. I'd like to find out what the plot actually is, and if it's worth following along with, or if the appeal is in the gameplay only.
But those mission objective screens are, certainly in my mind, competing with the masterpieces of cinematography that are the C&C cutscenes. Those have been rooted in my head since childhood, and when all you get here is text, audio, a static screen... eh. I'm just ticking off objectives at that point, rather than engaging with a story.
Maybe that's just me. As I say, I want to spend more time with StarCraft. Probably nowhere near enough time to step up to the plate and challenge anyone else to a game of StarCraft, but that's fine by me.
It's a juggernaut of the genre nowadays, and it's origins are free to explore. I recommend it.
Fun Facts
Revealed to the world at E3, it didn't get the reaction that the developers would have wanted, being seen as little more than "Warcraft in space". One complete overhaul later, introducing three unique factions, and StarCraft reappeared to rapturous applause.
StarCraft, developed by Blizzard Entertainment, first released in 1998.
Version played: StarCraft, PC, 1998.