| #35 | StarCraft/Brood War |
|---|---|
| guessed by | UnderwaterFunktown |
| platform | Windows |
| release year | 1998 |
| developer/publisher | Blizzard Entertainment |
| genre | real time strategy |
| links | Wikipedia |
| download for free | |
| past years | 2021: #33, 2020: #28, 2019: #25, 2018: #25, 2017: #25 |
Starcraft is a historic game. It mixed the formula for real time strategy in a way, which was wildly successful. It was also the game, that spawned e-Sport leagues starting in Korea. It was a mainstay in LAN-parties for more than a decade. The included map editor created a lively online community sharing new creations. Blizzard supported that by releasing the Map of the Month for a long time. Among the user creations were maps that started the Tower Defense genre. Blizzard introduced the expansion Brood War, which added a lot of content and kept the game alive for even longer. I think it is fair to say, that the gaming world today would look different without StarCraft. Although far from being the first RTS, Starcraft kinda became the blueprint for this genre going forward in many regards.
This game was a lot of fun to play. At college a group of friends often met to play StarCraft matches locally in the LAN. And without them I played the single player campaign. Which was doubled by Brood War.
The game has a sci-fi setting with three warring civilizations, humans and the alien races of Zerg and Protoss. Each faction has their own research tree, own units and specialties. Again, reasearch and unit types were extended by the excellent Brood War expansion.
I did like the personalities of the characters that were created for the game and the story of fight for freedom and betrayal (in the human campaign). Raynor kinda felt like my reliable companion and rooted for him and Kerrigan. The campaigns for the alien races were - more alien, it was harder to connect to the characters introduced. Still it all formed a picture of a galaxy in conflict.
If you want to play it today, you can download the original game (well, with a lot of patches that came over the years) for free from Blizzard, or you can purchase the remastered version. Either way, it is a great classic game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-00uQzXyujI
Last edited by Mnementh - on 27 November 2022
