StarCraft Review

For PC

Rating: Awesome

NOTE: This review is based on the single-player version of 
the game.

  From Blizzard, the makers of WarCraft 2, comes StarCraft, 
one of the most innovative and enjoyable real-time strategy 
(RTS) games of all time.  First of all, StarCraft has a 
story line that is more in-depth and believable than most 
RTS games.  A sizable portion of the manual traces the 
history of each of the three species in the game- the 
Terrans, the Zerg, and the Protoss.  The Terrans resemble 
humans more than the other two species since their ancestors
were genetically enhanced humans.  The Zerg are bug-like 
creatures that are mostly weak individually, but can be 
built in mass quantities, thus making them a force to be 
reckoned with.  The Protoss are the most technologically 
advanced of all the races, and the one that most gamers will
find to the "coolest."  For the sake of the learning curve, 
the game recommends that you play as the Terrans first, 
then the Zerg, then the Protoss.  Each species has 10 
missions to play through, for a total of 30 missions. One 
of the things that makes StarCraft so great is how finely 
balanced all three sides are.  Most companies have trouble 
balancing two different sides in an RTS game, but Blizzard 
has managed to balance three different sides extremely well 
with no one side having an unfair advantage over the other 
two.  The resource management system requires you to build 
"worker units" to harvest plentiful crystals and gas mines in order 
to have the resources needed to build lots of units.  
Worker units are cheap, too, so you can build lots of them and 
use the resources they gather to build tons of units in 
no time if you're good.  The interface is also extremely 
well done.  A bar goes across the bottom of the screen at 
all times, which contains all the available options 
depending on what you have selected.  It's hard to explain, 
but easy to get into once you start playing the game.  
The interface is brilliant and it allows you to accomplish 
many complicated tasks in a very small amount of time.  As 
I mentioned before, the story line is another strong point 
of StarCraft.  I really like how Blizzard integrated the 
story line into the gameplay so well, with special 
character's faces popping up in the middle of missions at 
times to make comments or give you instructions.  The 
mission briefings in between the levels also get the story 
line across very well, with multiple characters talking to 
each other and arguing quite frequently.  One other thing I 
really like about StarCraft is how it seems to allow you to 
have just the right amount of units at your disposal at any 
given point throughout the game, without having too many 
units to the point of being repetitive like in Total 
Annihilation.  The graphics in StarCraft are good, but not 
revolutionary, and the music is great, but still no match 
for good old C&C: Red Alert.  In typical Blizzard style, 
the units all have witty comments to share whenever you 
click on them.  Many of these are funny and add to the game,
but I think Blizzard took it one step too far by making 
units say something every time a new one is built.  
The repetetive drone of "You want a piece of me, boy?" 
whenever a new marine is built gets annoying quickly, and 
there's no way to turn them off without turning off all the 
sound effects.  Still, this is just a minor complaint in 
what is otherwise a great game, and a game that no fan of 
real-time strategy games should be without.  If you're still
wondering whether StarCraft lives up the hype, the answer 
is definitely a big and loud, "YES!"

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