StarCraft

aka: SC
Moby ID: 378

Windows version

The world needs another Starcraft review...

The Good
First and foremost, Starcraft features three unique, balanced, and interesting races. Whether playing as the human Terrans, organic-alien Zerg, or advanced-alien and somewhat-human Protoss, there are a variety of units, and even more strategies, to be utilized for each specific race. Furthermore the single-player campaigns were well structured and enticing enough to make me want to complete all thirty of the missions. This game uses simple, but effective, 2-D graphics (a godsend for those with older computers). Interspersed between the single player missions were some nice cutscenes which, although not graphically impressive, were a nice bonus. Also the ease of playing Starcraft online was a real treat, as there are no third-party software installations necessary to play online, and Blizzard's own battle.net is the means of online play. Finally Starcraft also has a great deal of replay value, as the powerful map editor enables players to create all sorts of maps for online play.

The Bad
As nice as Starcraft is, it's not flawless. My chief complaint is the lack of real in-depth strategy. Starcraft is similar to Warcraft in that both are of the "horde resources and make as many units as possible" type of RTS games. Thus those looking for strategy to parallel games like Sid Meier's Civilization are going to be at a loss. Hence the end result is, to some extent, Warcraft II in space. Also the music is very average and the AI is very, very simple minded.

The Bottom Line
Starcraft is a truly great RTS game, but it is not a flawless one. It's gained a lot of notoriety and has become quite historically important, yet at the time of this review (May, 2004) it's long been outstripped by several other RTS games. Thankfully, because of its age, Starcraft can run on older and low-end systems. I'd recommend getting Starcraft plus its expansion Brood War in the Battle Chest package while its still available.

by gamefan87 (3) on May 8, 2004

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