Starcraft

Warning:Purchasing of this game may cause loss of sleep, alterations in eating habits and bodily harm at the hands of family members when you tie up the phone line trying to get in "just one more game". Starcraft is a real time strategy game from Blizzard, but despite the name it is very different from its previous Warcraft titles. The main differences fall into the realm of more units, more races, a more advanced technology tree, and of course far better graphics and multiplayer action.

Graphics...In the era of 3-d acceleration and mandatory 3-d cards, Starcraft is a refreshing change. The game is played from a slightly skewed overhead perspective, and while the graphics aren't exactly breathatking like in Unreal, they are very crisp and clean. All of the races have their own unique units that are easily differentiable. The units are well animated and the explosions are sharp, but the game is not so graphics heavy as to cause undue lag during internet play. And if there is lag, turning off the sound and unit animations will clear things up in no time at all.

Sound...Again the sound is nothing breathtaking but it gets the job done with no problems. It is never tinny or muffled, and unless you are a true audiophile you can not complain.

Control...Control here is spot on and flawless. The control is intuitive and there is never and excessive mouse clicking to get anything done; this proves to be a good thing in multiplayer mode. Also a useful feature is the ability to assign hotkeys to your groups of units, so sending a fleet of battlecruisers or a legion of templars to attack the enemy can not be easier. And you have the ability to que production orders or set rally points for the units, so you can never complain about shoddy controls.

Gameplay...I'll start off describing the single player game. Here you can select from one of three races: Human Terrans, biological Zerg, or cyborg like Protoss. Each has its own unique story line and sets of missions, and the single experience does provide good fun, if only for a brief time.

The real meat of the game comes in from the multiplayer aspect. Never before have I had some much fun with a RTS. Blizzard provides a free service to use Battle.net, and you can always be guarenteed to find an oppenent at any time of the day. Nothing in the single player game can prepare you for the thrill of competing against another human. The ability to determine what path to follow in development provides endless variety, and almost anyone can come up with a strategy that works for them. Each race has its own "ultimate weapons" like the Zerg defiler, Terran nuke, or Protoss Arbiters. The only problem is the action can come so fast that you may not have enough time to reach the stage where you can use those weapons. There are a variety of modes to play in Starcraft, from melee to FFA to greed. And with the ability to create your own maps, you will never have to play the same level twice. I most compliment the players map designers, they have obviously invested alot of time in creating fun high quality maps. Luckily, there are only two things that can dull this experience: Lag and Rude players. Lag can be addressed by turning down animations and sound and resetting the network. Bad players on the other hand are another story. If you ever host a game and set rules like no rushing or prohibiting a certain race or unit, you can bet that half the time one of the players will not listen. There is nothing that you can do to prevent this, just avoid that player in the future. Luckily the game is so good that it is worth any minor conflicts with fellow players. On the whole I highly recomend this title to any gamer, whether you like strategy games or not.

Also if you want some great tips for beginners and advanced users alike, go to yahoo and search under Starcraft. There are tons of helpful sites there that contain everything from maps to strategies to clans.

Graphics...8

Sound......8

Control...10

Gameplay..10

Overal.....9 A good high quality game that everyone should enjoy

-Madgraduate