StarCraft 1 Review: The Original StarCraft Game

cf.: History of 1990s Computer Games.

StarCraft 1 Review

Developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in 1998 on Windows PCs, StarCraft 1 is a real-time strategy game notable for evolving RTS gameplay, controls and presentation to the point of mastery.

StarCraft came out three years after Blizzard's own WarCraft 2 and two years after Westwood's masterpiece, Red Alert. And while the WarCraft franchise lost round one of the RTS bout to the Command & Conquer franchise, Blizzard won the second round thanks to StarCraft.

Undisputed, Blizzard then claimed the RTS Champion Belt via the Brood War expansion.

A ponderous review of StarCraft would cover RTS basics along with the concepts StarCraft has in common with its predecessors, but I have already covered RTS basics and commonalities in my reviews of seminal RTS games such as Dune 2. Thus, instead of rehashing I will only cover StarCraft in so far as it notably differs from its predecessors. And since StarCraft represents a genre culmination rather than a revolution, this review will not be a long read.

It is inarguable that StarCraft was one of the most polished and professional game releases of the late-90s. The game oozes design and coding expertise while not feeling overdone. In nailing every aspect of RTS design square on the head, Blizzard practically exhausted the genre by 1998. Or so it was that back in the day I felt no need to play RTS post-Brood War.

StarCraft Species: Variant Playstyles

The main thing that stands out is how different StarCraft plays based on species chosen. In Command & Conquer and Red Alert both GDI/Nod and Soviet/Allied faction playstyles were largely conventional (which is not a criticism), but there is a yawning gulf between the humanoid Terran, psionic Protoss and insectoid Zerg playstyles offered by StarCraft.

For example, the Terran playstyle is akin to the GDI/Nod or Allied/Soviet conventional militaries that advance technologically, but the Zerg playstyle concerns evolution and mutation of insect-like aliens as well as "the creep", which is an ooze that covers the ground and expands outwardly in real-time as hive colonies are built on its edges.

On the other hand, Terrans (being humanoids) have the flexibility to build anywhere on level maps. And some Terran buildings can take off via thrusters, slowly propel themselves over the map and touch ground again once a safer or more suitable position has been found. Due to their soak, such moveable buildings can be employed as supertanker decoys: the enemy fires upon the building while the Wraiths, Valkyries and Dropships slip past, unscathed.

Take a second example. In C&C/RA, to repair a building one simply clicked the repair icon followed by a building. And units in need of repair parked in a repair bay (cf. Mammoth Tank).

But in StarCraft the mode of repair depends on species:

• First, Terrans employ mobile, mechanized Space Construction Vehicles (SCVs) to repair mechanized units and buildings (and the rate of repair stacks with each SCV assigned). In addition, Terrans gain Medics for infantry in Brood War.
• Second, Protoss units and buildings cannot be repaired but have regenerating energy shields and access to shield batteries instead.
• And third, Zerg units and buildings have innate biological regeneration, which is slow and steady.

Conventional units offer some surprises as well. For example, Ghost infantry units can immobilize fleets of behemoth battlecruisers, cloak themselves to prevent being targeted by other units, and then proceed to annihilate the fleet. It is a surprise because one would think a few infantry units would be no match for a dozen battlecruisers, but they actually eat them alive providing the relevant research has been conducted. And yes, both of those units are Terran: due to factional rivalry some missions involve inter-species battles (f.e, Arcturus' Sons of Korhal versus the Terran Confederacy). [1]

Even though species playstyles vary greatly and grant clear advantages and disadvantages under different scenarios, they are finely tuned in balance when set against each other. It could be said that Protoss represent quality, Zerg represent quantity and Terran occupy the middle-ground.

StarCraft enforces balance by restricting what players or AI could (by rights) build. For example, in some missions players or AI may not have access to a certain unit, upgrade or building. Specifically, in one mission players cannot build air units (no Starport) whereas in another both players and AI can build Tanks, but only the player can acquire the Siege Mode upgrade for the Tanks.

Efficient StarCraft play is highly dependent on micromanagement via hotkeys. However, one needn't be expert in hotkey usage to succeed: marquee selection and screen-scrolling suffices. That said, hotkey usage results in much better end-mission scores (naturally).

The Original Zerg Rush in StarCraft 1

The term "Zerg Rush" is known even to non-gamers. Here is the original Zerg rush that triggers at the end of the 3rd mission of the Terran campaign, Desperate Alliance:

It is actually possible, though not so easy, to nip the above Zerg Rush in the bud by taking it to the Zergs early in the mission (which has a 30 minute timer).

Here is the second Zerg rush that triggers at the end of the 9th mission of the Terran Campaign, after the Protoss fleet has been wiped out by the player's Terran force. The Zergling horde rushes into the base in overwhelming numbers:

 

StarCraft Presentation

In addition to playstyle each of the three species campaigns has its own story, narration, sprites, maps, music and FMVs. Also, each species has its own HUD or "heads-up display". The narrative for each species is interrelated as well, fleshing out the StarCraft story, characters and lore.

The presentation is A1. In 1998 no game presented itself better than StarCraft. While to my mind they are superfluous many players would have appreciated the animated unit portraits because they give the units more character or personality.

StarCraft is displayed in square-pixel 640x480 resolution (4:3 aspect ratio) in 8 bit color depth (256 colors). cf. cRPG History for more info on the merits of limited color palette ranges.

StarCraft's 2D graphics are stunningly drawn and slicky animated. And the viewport scrolls smoothly over battlefields as dozens of unit, projectile and explosion frames are drawn every second.

Along with Red Alert StarCraft represents the pinnacle of 2D action-gaming on computers (past or present). Yes, Red Alert and StarCraft are better games than Diablo 1 and much better than Diablo 2. 

Red Alert is not as graphically evolved as StarCraft but Red Alert is two years older and runs on Windows 95 or MS-DOS with no DirectX, yet Red Alert plays just as smoothly and as quickly in MS-DOS or Windows 95 as StarCraft does on Windows of any kind, from 95 to 11.

As with WarCraft and C&C, StarCraft's campaigns are sweeping yet short. Every time I completed WarCraft and C&C campaigns, I felt like I was just getting warmed up, like the games didn't show me enough of their potential. StarCraft is no exception: veteran gamers can steamroll its 58 missions in a few evenings.

Being arcade-action in nature RTS campaigns are not as satisfying as the more meditative TBS campaigns that can go on for weeks, months or years. But we must bear in mind that, in respect to replayability RTS is geared for multi-player and mods.

And we can also improve our single-player scores by playing more efficiently. Yes, you beat the game. Congrats. But would you show your scores to friends?

cf. StarCraft 1 Revolution.

StarCraft versus Command & Conquer

• Command & Conquer and Red Alert play faster and are harder than StarCraft even when playing C&C/RA on the easiest difficulty setting. StarCraft does not even have difficulty settings. And as for speed settings, they are tailorable in both games. I replayed StarCraft on the highest speed setting yet still beat the game easily, even though my reflexes are sloth-like nowadays. On the other hand C&C/RA owned me over and over unless I was drinking coffee.
• C&C/RA have a far better soundtrack. I don't think anyone would argue with that.
• It is easier in C&C/RA to differentiate between buildings. In StarCraft, too many buildings look alike.
• There is more variation in StarCraft gameplay due to the profound differences in species. Also, there are three species to C&C/RA's two factions.
• [Subjective] I much prefer the realistic, military spartan color scheme of C&C/RA to the colorful aesthetics of StarCraft. While raw and gritty in presentation, C&C/RA graphics are easier on the eyes.
• C&C/RA do not have built-in cheats. Short of extracting and editing their data files, there is no way to cheat in C&C/RA. Casuals cannot extract and edit data files. Therefore, casuals don't play C&C/RA; it just sits in their backlog gathering dust because they can't quickly "beat" the game by cheating. But StarCraft has lots of built-in cheats like WarCraft. Along with their bright and colorful graphics, cheats are what helped make Blizzard RTS more popular with the masses than it would otherwise have been.
• StarCraft is more complex in terms of buildings and unit behaviors, but that didn't translate into better tactics or strategy. And StarCraft does not require more skill to play. I'd love to see someone play the MS-DOS version of C&C/RA on Ironman, Hard difficulty and Fastest playspeed. But StarCraft Ironman? Not interested.
• In C&C/RA you only have access to one raw resource (Tiberium/Ore) whereas in StarCraft you must employ mineral crystals for smelting and Vespene Geysers for fuel. How does adding an extra resource make RTS better? If the argument is that vespene is rarer and compels players to explore more of the map, just make the mineral fields rarer instead of throwing minerals about maps like confetti.
• Presumably for game balance reasons, sprite size and/or CPU restrictions, you can only marquee select and control 12 units at a time in StarCraft (3 more than in WarCraft 2), but in C&C/RA you can control 63 simultaneously, yet it doesn't break the game.
• Due to the added complexity of units and their upgrades and special abilities, StarCraft offers more than C&C/RA in terms of combined arms tactics (a common focus of wargames such as Panzer General). What that means is that no unit "owns" everything. There is no god unit. Instead, units excel or perform poorly based on specific situations. And each unit is far more effective with the right support.
• StarCraft 1 units can be upgraded, sometimes to a 3rd tier, but C&C units just are what they are. This is another contributer to StarCraft playstyle variability. For example, in playing Terrans one might build towards elite infantry, vehicles or aircraft depending on scenario. However, Blizzard had already pioneered upgrades in WarCraft 2.
• The StarCraft heroes are cool. I always liked seeing how many kills General Duke could amass in Norad II with upgraded armor plating and laser batteries. But again, WarCraft 2 pioneered heroes.
• So again, upgrades, abilities and heroes are not StarCraft innovations but rather mere reapplications of and incremental advancements on pre-established designs. [3]

 

StarCraft 1 Criticism

As with most real-time games there are pathfinding issues in that units sometimes have difficulty navigating through built-up bases. Moreover, units can actually get stuck between buildings in such bases, which means you need to force-attack and destroy your own building to free them or clear paths to plot-critical exits.

Watching units move in the opposite direction you clicked or simply spin on the spot is extremely aggravating: from Diablo to WarCraft to StarCraft, Blizzard's pathfinding routines are lousy.

Also, StarCraft unit sprites overlap on the playing field to the point that several will be stacked on top of each other. Unit sprites should never overlap in such games. Imagine if a shoot 'em up lacked collision detection? It would be castigated.

It is funny how RTS gets away with poor pathfinding and sprite overlap. Clearly, the genre is not held to the standards of classic arcade-game genre such as shoot 'em ups.

The AI sometimes forgets about its units. Sometimes you will come across a few units that are just sitting in a remote region of the map, twiddling their thumbs. This happened in the original WarCraft as well (1994). Units whose groups have been decimated should head back to base or at least attempt to flee.

Guess three years was not enough time to fix the AI or pathfinding routines in Blizzard engines.

Thus, I suppose I should deduct a full point from the score I give StarCraft in cRPG Reviews.

StarCraft's user interface does not display time elapsed, killcount or current mission name and number. In addition, StarCraft does not even give you an overall score upon campaign completion.

The Brood War expansion introduced a major issue as well: that of repetitive gameplay. Some of Brood War's missions are boring marathon-length slogfests in which players amass 800+ killcounts while they wipe out every last building on a sprawling map to satisfy the mission objective.

Also, it gets tiresome when the AI constantly picks out and exploits the smallest holes in player defenses, map-wide, when it could not possibly know what those are because it does not have units in that area yet bee-lines its forces to that exact location from the opposite end of the map.

At that point, StarCraft just becomes Whac-A-Mole.

StarCraft 1 Conclusion

StarCraft exhibits mastery of RTS design, coding and aesthetics, but it doesn't do much new, it mostly expands and refines. [2]

 

That said, there was nothing left to do except expand and refine because no fewer than five great RTSes preceded StarCraft.

On a technical level, StarCraft featured ultra-smooth avatar-anchorless screen-scrolling that leaves most computer games of the 1990s in the dust. StarCraft also shifted around more and higher quality sprites than most other 90s games. Unit sprite anims need to be taken into account when timing attacks, too.

For me at least, StarCraft marked the end of RTS much like SMAC marked my final foray into TBS. And that is perhaps the best compliment I can give such games: they represent a finish line, an end.

***

[1]

There are of course counters to cloaked ghosts, but it is not the purpose of reviews to spell everything out.

[2]

Red Alert came out two years before StarCraft and yet is comparable to StarCraft in terms of coding, design and gameplay.

In terms of single-player replayability Red Alert wins due to its difficulty settings, but the two games are about on par in respect to skirmish map and mission counts:

• Mission count: RA = 62 missions / SC = 58 missions)
• Skirmish map count: RA = 24 skirmishes / SC = 44 skirmishes)

In addition, almost every aspect of Red Alert's combat balance and difficulty is easily moddable via one (extractable) *.ini file whereas Blizzard's bundled StarEdit does not suffice because SE is only for map editing (= you need 3rd party editors to mod StarCraft).

[3]

I may review Westwood's Tiberian Sun (1999) in the future. Technically and graphically it is on par with StarCraft (and is a fairer comparison for Westwood), but since Red Alert holds its own versus StarCraft regardless, I don't feel a pressing need to do so.

StarCraft 1 System Requirements

StarCraft is playable on IBM Compatible PCs installed with Windows 95, 98, NT or XP operating systems, powered by Pentium 90 MHz processors, 16 megabytes of RAM and 80 MB HDD. DirectX 2.0 and SVGA graphics are required.

Note that StarCraft was CPU-hungry compared to WarCraft 2 but Blizzard made some optimizations via patches and a CPU throttling toggle.

Back to: Real-time Strategy Games PC.

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