Starcraft
For: pc
Genre: realtime strategy
Reviewed by: Escee (Brandon)
Developer: Blizzard
Publisher: Blizzard
Released:12.1.97
 
Starcraft. This game has been nominated for so many "Best Strat" awards that its name has become respectably well-known. Almost every gamer has heard of Starcraft, and even now, years after its release, the Battle.net online servers are still full of Starcraft gamers.
 
Graphics
You can't say that Starcraft's ingame graphics are spectacular, but for a top-view strat, the graphics are respectable. The intro and cutscenes are awesome for the time this game came out. The unit profiles are well-done. The detail on the units themselves is a bit low - as you can truly see the major difference between many units on-screen and their CG graphics in the manual. But the graphics are still respectable for a game of its time.
 
Sound
An original soundtrack, and multiple recordings of speech for each unit. I do complain though that there is only one of speech that will be repeated every time you create a new unit. Why can't some of the other lines of speech, the ones you get when you click on the unit, be incorporated into the unit completed event?
 
Gameplay
There are three different races which play completely different from each other. In many games where there are multiple races it only means different units and structures, but in Starcraft it means a completely different method of building things, expanding, requirements, and, of course, the units are structures, as well as attacks for the units, upgrades, and much more. Playing as a different race is a whole new experience. You have to learn the strategies all over again for the new race. And the three races are fairly well balanced, too, and that is pretty damn hard to do when you have such differences in the race styles. Once you beat the single-player, you are ready for multiplayer on the free Battle.net servers. Battle.net is actually fairly reliable as a gaming server (although sometimes it can be hard to find your friends). And you can sign up for the service from within Starcraft - you don't have to go to Battle.net's site to sign up. Good job.
 
Control
The game can be completely controlled using the mouse - which is a plus - but the use of keyboard shortcuts is also essential to the game. You can use right-clicks to move your units faster than clicking on move and then clicking where you want to move. And pressing "b" is much faster than clicking on the build button. Great control.
 
Lastability
Once you beat the single-player game you probably won't play it again, but there is almost-unlimited lastablity in the multiplayer modes - both internet (Battle.net) and LAN - until the game gets boring. Yes, I did get bored with Starcraft eventually. A spawn feature makes it easy to set up LAN parties or network games. The spawn feature means that you can install the multiplayer game on another computer, without that computer needing the SC CD, or a new CD key. Meaning you can use one SC CD for an eight-player LAN game.
 
Ratings