Poll: StarCraft-Is it worth throwing twenty bucks at?

[SquirrelPants]

Well, I'm a huge fan of RTS games, let me say that right off the bat. I thoroughly enjoy Age of Empires, Dawn of War, Command and Conquer, WarCraft, you know, all the good stuff, but I recently got bored with all my games. People have been talking a lot about StarCraft and StarCraft 2, and I was really curious as to whether buying the first one would actually be worth it for me.

So, I just simply want some thoughts on the game and whether or not it's truly as good as it's been rated, from my fellow Escapists.

You are an RTS fan and never tried Starcraft? Shame on you! I suggest you buy Starcraft 1, Starcraft 2 comes out at the end of this year I believe?

But seriously, Starcraft is awesome, you won't find a better RTS out there in my opinion.

I'm 14, all of the good games came before my age, unfortunately. But lately I'm getting into playing older games. It started when I played Duke Nukem(one of my first ten games) and Shadow Warrior(The first game I've ever played) a few months back. Slowly I've been turning away from my silly generic war games, and back toward my old favorites.

 

[Limos]

I have it installed on my laptop right now and I still play it a lot.

Just think, this game is Nineteen years old, it's amazing that it's still as popular as it is.

 

[AntiAntagonist]

I have it installed on my laptop right now and I still play it a lot.

Just think, this game is Nineteen years old, it's amazing that it's still as popular as it is.

It's eleven years old. Still remarkable though.

 

[Nutcase]

I have it installed on my laptop right now and I still play it a lot.

Just think, this game is Nineteen years old, it's amazing that it's still as popular as it is.

Less than eleven years old actually. (edit: AntiAntagonist was faster)

But yes, it's amazing no one has been able to make a game good enough in the same style (so I'm not making a comparison to TA and the like!) to surpass it. Not even Blizzard itself managed to do so with WC3.

 

[Zetona]

I prefer Age of Mythology to Starcraft. AoM's gold edition is probably around $20 now as well. Not only does AoM have better graphics, but the deep tech trees allow for a more customizable gameplay style. The level design in the campaign is also better. Starcraft probably has better gameplay, but I never quite got the hang of it, so I prefer AoM. I don't play multiplayer in either game, but there again I assume SC is better.

 

[12th_milkshake]

I've played this from the very being, no RTS competes and i'm sad to say i've bought 4 copies of the game over the years. The cd lives in one of my drives.

SC2 will be a god send and if you haven't seen the crazies that play pro head over to sc2gg.com for a window into that madness.

 

[JokerGrin]

No, I don't think so. When I played it, the whole game seemed to consist of no real strategy, but just building the correct buildings and masses of troops and just rushing the enemy base. I'm sick of those type of "strategy" games.

 

[The Wooster]

Hey coincidence! I picked it up myself yesterday.

I'm not an RTS fan so I'm not going to get too deep into the mechanics but about four hours in and the old 'build a million space marines' tactic seems to be working just fine, hopefully it gets a little deeper. The story however is great. Sure it's the same old 'Spiritual/Hive Mind/Human' tropes fighting it out but Starcraft really nailed the concept, Civil War inspired twist is pretty nice too. Give it a shot.

its not the same old "Spiritual/Hive-Mind/Human" its the original.

No it isn't. Warhammer had very similar species designs which were made a whole decade before the game came out. Both borrow heavily from Starship Troopers. The idea is old, Blizzard just did it well.

 

[Nutcase]

No, I don't think so. When I played it, the whole game seemed to consist of no real strategy, but just building the correct buildings and masses of troops and just rushing the enemy base. I'm sick of those type of "strategy" games.

Half right, half wrong.

The majority of RTS, including Starcraft, are something like 60% general multitasking, 20% microing your troops, and 20% strategy. And strategy doesn't really factor into it before you can physically perform the other things well enough, at least roughly at par with the opponent. So you need to find opponents close to your concentration and mechanical ability before your strategy can make a difference in the outcome. Humanly possible concentration and mechanical ability levels out at some point, which is why games between pros tend to come down to strategy a lot of the time. The majority of Starcraft players (including me) never get good enough to access the strategy part of the game, which is a shame. That's also why the RTS genre will probably never be my favorite.

Where you are wrong is that unlike in many fundamentally broken RTS, there are no "correct" buildings and "correct" troops to build in Starcraft. Any single thing you decide to build can be countered hard by something the opponent can build, and vice versa.
As for rushing, pro rushes usually target a very specific weaknesses in the opponent's build timing or scouting, often particular to the map, and occasionally hinge on predicting the opponent. In other words, at that level rushes become highly strategic. Mindless rushes virtually guarantee the rusher's loss.