WarCraft in space...right?

Type of game: Real-time strategy

Created by: Blizzard

Published by: Blizzard

In Starcraft you can play with 3 races: The Terrans, the Zerg, and the Protoss. The Terrans are the cool technological, country music-lovin’ humans. Their strong points are the cloaking technology, their powerful Marines with their draided Gauss Gatling guns and their frontline-combat Goliaths. Some units like the infantry unit Ghost and the air/space-born craft the Wraith can cloak. This is a very usefull option, because you can make suprise attacks upon the enemys base. But cloaking takes up a lot of energy, and the units energy recharges very slowly, so subtle use is recommended. The Terrans are the race that are more accessable, because they are closer to other races or parties in other real-time games. The second race are the Zerg. They are a slimy, squeeling, crawling, insect-like bunch. The original Zerg were innocent bugs, but by inhabiting and assimilating other, more advanced races, they’ve become real Aliens, like in the movie. Ruthless, violent and sometimes sadistic are the key words to discribe the Zerg. Their leader is the Overmind, the collected thoughts and wills of the Zerg. But in time, he began to grow an own will and he became a very strong and powerful entity. The Zerg are well known and feared because of their unique organisation and structure building, their cruelty and speed. A unit must be "unpopped" from a larva. Depending the unit, there will come one or two units out of the larva. Drones are the workmen of the swarm. They can mutate into a building. Buildings and structures however must be built on creep, a slimy ground which covers the original ground.And another cool thing: A Zerg queen can infest Terrans so hey will be enslaved to the will of the Zerg. The third race are the Protoss. It’s an old, highly evolved people, who have already suffered a lot ofcivil wars. They support upon their advanced technology and their Psi-powers. The High Templar for example is an infantry unit who uses the Psi-powers extensively. They have an ability which is called a "Psionic Storm". When you unleach it on you enemys, you can assure that they’ll be fried, , baked and barbecued with a nice charcoal-black color. Another great advantage of the Protoss are their shields. They must be depleted before you can harm their actual bodies.

The graphics in Starcraft are of high quality, yet I’ve heard a lot of criticism because Starcraft still uses the old bitmap engine. And to them I say: Put a sock in it you good-for-nothing SOB’s! Ok, a real 3D engine would be cool, but not everyone has a Pentium 333 with 64 MB Ram and a Matrox Millenium with 8 MB! And besides, the units look very good, because the programmers used sprite filtering, so you don’t see the "blocks". In Red Alert for instance, who also used a bitmap engine, you saw them. The cutscenes are spectacular, and very sharp, compared to the movies in Wing Commander V (Video compression) and Red Alert (Interlaced). Music is excellent, with very good tunes for each race. When you select a Marine for example, he says something like "Yes?, Outstandig! or You wanna peace o’me boy?". You also can see a small video com-link on you command screen.

EP sez:

StarCraft is WarCraft in space. but it's much more than that. Starcraft is without doubt the best real-timer of this time. The difference and briliantly designed races, the sphere and the killer addiction (why take drugs if you have Starcraft?) are the strong points of the game. The bitmap engine may be a negative thing, but a lot of people will be releaved that Starcraft didn’t turn out like a second Total Annihalation. And now I suggest you buy the game, or I’ll send down the Zerg!

(c)1998 Erwin's Pages
Erwin "Reaper" Husin

Score

Gameplay: 9

Graphics: 8,5

Music: 8,5

Addictiveness: 10

Overall: 90,5%

Links

> Erwin's Pages Satellite: StarCraft
> Official Blizzard StarCraft Fansite
> Blizzard