Pong and Beyond

350th played so far

Genre: Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 1998
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment

Here we are – another fifty games done! And on my pick, I decided to go for pure indulgence (although it made sense for the stats too).

We’ve enjoyed Warcraft II before (I did at least) and I’ve been looking forward to playing Blizzard’s later RTS sequels. I’ve played through (and finished) Starcraft before, so there’s no real secrets here – but man, it’s good to get into it again.

Our Thoughts

Although these days it feels like Warcraft III – and many other games – did this better, the way the story was presented in this game felt (and in a way still feels) like such a step up. Rather than a bit of scrolling text or short intro movie with a single character talking to you that doesn’t really effect the gameplay much, the intros – mostly talking heads, with different characters switching in and out to tell a real story that threads on – feel a lot more immersive and real.

Their contents is reflected in the levels and – even more interesting – during the levels, as they develop, your objectives sometimes expand or change to change things around. At first you may just need to find someone in a quiet level, then that person (represented as an actual unit) asks you to help out defeating an enemy base – or something similar.

Standing out for the game at the time, the choice between the three armies isn’t one you make at the start, with just some stats swapped out. Instead, you play them in order – humans, Zerg and then Protoss – with a story that goes from campaign to campaign. At times it runs as expected, but the twists are enough to keep you interested. It gives far more of a reason to play through the game and try all of them.

Another part of this are the differences between the armies. All following from their thematic background, Zerg have small critters grow into living buildings, improving by mutating.Humans build and train warriors, with buildings that can move around at will. Protoss warp buildings in instead, having to stay near energy pylons. Units are similarly aligned.

How well this works is shown in the longevity of the game. Blizzard continues to patch it until 2009 (removing the CD check a few years earlier) and tournaments are, as far as I know, still ongoing, although the sequel may have changed that. Still, that longevity is a testament to how well the game has been designed.

Final Thoughts

When we get to Warcraft III, we get a game that, once again, does things slightly better, this will change slightly, but Starcraft is a game that, to my mind, changed what an RTS could be and upped the ante for everything I played afterwards. It has story, it has nice graphics, it has a good mix of gameplay concepts. Still amazing, even after all these years. Jeroen kinda tackled everything major here but what I can add is that this game caused me to add Starcraft II to my future list (okay I know this is a lame comment but it’s true).