Top 50 Video Games: Number 18

#18: Starcraft
System: PC
Publisher: Blizzard
Released: 1998
Players: 1-8


A thriving Protoss base.


Starcraft is one of the games against which other games in its genre are judged. This is because everybody's heard of it, everybody knows it and well, it's a terrific game. It's the highly anticipated follow up to Blizzard's huge hit Warcraft II. It looked like it was going to be "like Warcraft - but in outer space!" It turned out to be a lot more than that. While Warcraft had 2 races who were largely mirrors of each other (ie - our side calls it an archer, your side calls it an axe thrower, but it's really all the same) Starcraft had 3 races who were each totally unique and distinct in look, feel and play style.

Of the 3 races, the Protoss are my favorite. They are a futuristic race of machine people. Unlike the other races they have shields (as do their buildings) that you have to break through before you can do any permanent damage to them. A shield is basically a second life bar that replenishes over time. The protoss units are expensive and slower to build but are stronger and more durable than the others. I tend to play defensively and build in a slow, methodical manner which makes me well suited to the Protoss race. Next are the Zerg. Jimbob was a big Zerg fan (I never got very good with them.) The zerg are nasty little alien bug creatures that can be produced cheaply and quickly. On average their units are weaker than the other races, but 50 weak units will destroy 20 strong ones. The Zerg usually win by overwhelming their enemies. Last we have the Terrans - the name for the humans race in this game. They're pretty much balanced between the other two races and you can play them like you would any typical RTS game. They can build their buildings anywhere while Zerg have to build on the creep (the purple shit that secretes from their base) and the Protoss have to build near their energy pylons.


Terrans attempting defend against a rush of zerglings. The Terran player is pretty screwed at this point.


Blizzard games all have that intangible Blizzard quality about them, and this one is no different. Starcraft has personality. Everything in the game has its own distinct look and feel. The units each play a small assortment of sounds when selected and the voice acting really is superb. I generally don't like sci-fi things, but Starcraft quickly won me over. Prior to playing Starcraft, my only experience with realtime strategy was with Myth and Age of Empires II on the PC, and with Warcraft II on the Playstation. My first impression was that Starcraft was hard. I never really got into the game until I played it with Jimbob. I remember asking what the difficulty was set to after getting my ass reamed by the computer player. "Starcraft doesn't have difficulty settings." was the reply. It took a lot of ass kickings, but I finally got pretty good at the game and I became a better RTS gamer because of it. Starcraft was one of our regular games between Jimbob, his father and I. Countless afternoons were spent dropping nukes, swarming with carriers and "living for the swarm."

Starcraft's balance is its best feature. Each race has it's own unique style of play and no one race is really stronger than another. Starcraft, the Brood Wars expansion (awesome) and strategy guides for each are available all in one box set for $20. For fuck's sake, buy this. People have been bitching, crying and whining for a sequel to this game since its release. There is a game called Starcraft: Ghost in development for the XBox. It's going to be a stealth/action game set in the Starcraft universe, and its been in development for 2 or 3 years now. But goddamn it we want a real, proper RTS sequel for the PC. Of course, when it comes to a game as loved as Starcraft (it's still heavily played online to this day) making a sequel is tough, but if anyone's up to the challenge it's Blizzard.