Review: StarCraft and the Brood War Expansion Set

By: Kirk Hiner writing as Jack Jose

Genre: Real-Time Strategy

Format: CD

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment

Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment

Minimum Requirements: PowerPC, System 7.6, 16MB RAM, 640x480 display supporting 256 colors, 2X CD-ROM (4X for cinematic cut-scenes), Brood War requires Starcraft

Network Feature: Yes

3Dfx Support: No

Retail Price: $29.95 each

Availability: Out Now

Okay, if Garth Brooks can pretend to be Chris Gaines, then I can pretend to be Jack Jose. In fact, after I'm done with this review, I'm going to emulate Garth even further by playing baseball for the San Diego Padres. But until then...

"Doctor, I never liked mythology. I don't blame Mrs. Marble...at least not entirely. It's just that I could never get what it had to do with anything. Also, I've spent a lot of time playing Starcraft lately instead of whatever it is I should be doing. And while I'm confessing, I may as well admit that I have watched a full episode of 'Touched By An Angel.' "

"Why do you tell me this, Kirk Hiner writing as Jack Jose? Are you ashamed of these things? I know I'd be."

To answer the good doctor, a little. I mean, doesn't everybody like mythology? Yet no matter how it is presented, I can't get as engaged as most. And so it was with the mythological element of StarCraft. I couldn't pay much attention to the framework story that surrounded the battles. It was pointless, the kind of plot you get from Pepsi commercials featuring a lip-synching second grader between possessions of a Steelers vs. Browns football game. Except that in the football game you are happy to have a break between the carnage.

All this changed once I made it to the Brood War Expansion Set, but I'll get to that later on. First, Starcraft.

In this real-time. futuristic war strategy game, each scenario has a specific goal to be attained, generally in the form of "kill _______ and keep _______ alive." Its primary attraction is that for most of the campaigns you can determine the composition of your force instead of merely being assigned one. Paul Simon once romanticized that "There must be fifty ways to leave your lover." Well, like love, we all dream of war in our own way, and Starcraft provides plenty of choice. You are generally given a command center into which you must hoard resources, and from there you must build the factories, barracks, starports, or other necessary buildings to create your army. This additional level of strategizing "above" the battle is engaging, and prompted me once to make a new plan, Stan, replaying a level in which I had been successful, not something I normally do in these long games. Both the number and variety of units you can create is large. In this way you can build to suit your own style of war, whether you like to slip out the back, Jack, drop off the key, Lee, or run a cloaked ghost in to target a nuclear attack on their command station...uh...Nathan.

However, it is this amount of choice that also makes this game difficult to master. It's not to be confused with Myth or chess (a popular board game) where you learn the pieces and the moves easily but spend the rest of your fascination learning how to best apply those moves. Instead, the choice is so broad that frequent pauses to consult the guide interrupt much of what should be the most exciting play. Additionally, the complexity increases as new abilities arise deeper in the game, though the pace of these "advancements" eventually slows. As you are learning these new abilities and weapons, you also have to control the production in a very hands-on way. In the barracks, for instance, you can choose to create one of three "soldiers:" a marine, a firebot, or a ghost. Each takes a different amount of the two resources you continuously mine, but you can only order the barracks to make up to five, in any order and combination. When it has made those five it stops and waits for your next order. I found that frustrating, especially when I was engaged in a battle that was not very close to the barracks, so I had to continually return and order five more. This same complication arises for weapons upgrades and the creation of ground and air weapons. It seems minor, but it makes a drawn-out battle harder to win.

Additionally, the Myth player in me found the controls a little less than intuitive, although that soon faded. Looking at the full-board map in the lower left corner will often help you determine just what it is that you are to destroy when the directions are less than clear, and moving the buildings closer to the action, which you can do relatively easily, helps alleviate some of the production concerns mentioned above. Like other group-combat games, it seems that your troops never pick the right enemy to target, and that some troops simply choose not to engage, even when the soldier next to them is being shot. However, when they battle without my command, they usually do well (unlike in other strategy games such as Age of Empires). You can also build your SCVs, the builders and miners, into positions where they can't get out, but I don't consider this a drawback. In fact, I found it oddly entertaining for the first few scenarios.

With that said, I remind you that I spent a lot of time playing this game. Intelligent planning and mind-numbing destruction makes a pretty well balanced combination. I recommend reading the player's manual after a level or two, to firm up your knowledge and better use your time within the next scenario. Ignore the mythology and the new words beyond what you need to know to fight each battle.

Until you get to the expansion set, that is.

Brood War is just what expansion sets should be: more of the same with something different. The biggest difference is that the story becomes entertaining, and darn near pertinent. The opening cinematic is as engaging as any I have seen, making me partial towards some characters that I had only cared about in the past because I had to keep them alive to complete a level. I will certainly never abandon a marine again.

The new weapons at your disposal make it as much like a new game as an expansion, although I still cannot escape the feeling that I'm being manipulated by the story instead of being the one manipulating events.

Notably different early on is the lack of visual help given on the full-board map. And, as in the original, some of the objectives are left to guesswork. But if you found StarCraft engaging and were disappointed when your final adventure drew to a close (instead of relieved that you could finally put the disk back in the box to make room on your desktop for your MacAddict disks), then this is worth your time and money.

The whole StarCraft experience, through the original and the Brood War Expansion set, is rich and visually entertaining. It's a strategy game that works like a sim game up close, and is engaging for both the alien bloodshed and the strategy required. Blizzard has proven conclusively with this and games like Diablo that they are a creative force to be reckoned with. In fact, had Blizzard had Mrs. Marble as their mythology teacher, I'm sure they would've received at least a B; or, in other icons...

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February 09, 2010