I just discovered Starcraft, and it's pwn.

victor

victor

Antediluvian as Feck
Orderite
Since my computer has been running a stone-age theme lately (see my "where did my memory go" thread in The Order), I've been going old-skool. As I wanted to find out whether my pc could run ANYTHING, I downloaded a Starcraft demo. It was great. I had never played this game before actually, partially because of bad experiences with the Warcraft series. I'm going down to the store to buy it, before it vanishes from the face of the Earth entirely.

2D pwns 3D so hard.

Also, it has this sweet Fallout feeling to it, for some reason. Resembling graphics, or maybe it's the gore. Anyway I made a custom soundtrack with the music from Fallout 1 and 2 instead of that dumb techno-crap. :P
 
so you have discovered the awsumness of starcraft :twisted:

starcraft will never go outta style, tho beware if you want to play online you must download some patches, if your comp sucks it will take an hour.
 
The singleplayer is pretty nifty, but the multiplayer is just "haha I know in what order to queue my buildings and I can click my mouse and touch my quick keys faster than you". It's like a ultra fast version of Monkey Island but without the story and the jokes, thus it sucks.
 
My experiences with battle.net are rather poor - logging in takes at best 10 minutes and everytime the game list refreshes I want to turn that $$^^$ off.
 
Starcraft on Battle.net is worthless as far as strategy goes. If you don't play a rush tactic, you lose. Brainless. Just build the cheapest unit over and over and over and constantly feed them into the battlefield. Boring.
 
Thats if all you play is money maps, the original game maps and what not offere slightly more of a challenge.
 
Well.. just look ;)

There's an object with the Holy 13 on it somewhere in the game - on the wasteland or ashworld type of map. If You can't find it in the game (I don't remember which maps it is on, but Protoss Campaign 5 seems like a good guess - nearby the mission objective), try loading the map editor, then browse through the Doodads palette...
 
yes money maps are cheap, so dont even bother. i think some people dont like starcraft because it takes a little skill and a good computer.
 
Starcraft is very... unsophisticated. It's a well-balanced, but a rather unchallenging and mediocre RTS. If you want a real man's strategy game, go with Sudden Strike series, Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, Warhammer: Dark Omen or Blitzkrieg. But if you seek ultimate realism, Close Combat series and Total War series are best RTS games ever made. Nothing more satisfying than when you crush an entire squad of Allied tanks with two well-placed Tigers, or when a village is turned into ashes by a salve of sixty missiles from a Calliope rocket launcher (fired in a matter of seconds...), or when an enemy Sherman can't fire because its angle is to steep, or when an overwhelming enemy force surrenders because your Tiger scared the shit out of them... If you are also insane on top that, no game can beat The Operational Art of War. It's a turn-based game that simulates every single detail of warfare. Play only if you are into career of a professional army commander.
 
Come on , SC's got its years. In its time it was the best of its kind - now it still holds some appeal to hardcore fans. Plus, it had mighty fine music and sfx...

But that's just the wrapping. In the very core, it's what you said - an RTS, no more, no less. Battle Isle 2 was much more sophisticated when it cam to warfare simulation...

I never heard of The Operational Art of War, but the name alone intrigues me... Might give it a try when I'm completely blazed :D
 
I think part of the appeal of Starcraft is it's sheer sense of style. The human unit's hardsuits are perfectly situated between cartoonish and realistic. The game doesn't take itself to seriously, at least with the unit responses, and the voices are excellent. The Zerg are good "organic" aliens while the Protoss are good "ultra-high tech" aliens.

It may only be an average RTS, but it's the style of the game which really shines. Not to mention the excellent cinematics and rather good storyline.
 
Theres always Cossacks if you want massive battle. The missions arent that good and it gets a bit annoying trying to destroy every building but its still a damn good game.
 
Shadow of the Horned Rat had terrible controls. I found its high level of difficulty had a lot to do with this. I don't know if the creators of the game were trying to recreate the chaos of war by making it so difficult to issue the correct commands, but the game could've been better in this respect. Plus, having to baby your units through every motion because unit AI sucked was made more irritating because of the poor controls. Other than that, it was pretty good game.

Anyways, taken as a whole, Starcraft was the best RTS of its time IMO. Great storyline, very nice visuals, good gameplay, great sound effects, style, a well thought out background, good maps and missions, decent difficulty (which could be controlled), variety, etc., etc., all these elements, when put together, made it better than other RTS's that might have had certain aspects of its game superior to Starcraft. It's similar to what made the first Deus EX so good, although there were many superior FPS, RPG's, and Adventure games on the market.
 
Ancient Oldie said:
very nice visuals
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PWAHAHAHA!!! If you call 640x480 with 256 colors nice, then I must salute your modesty.

all these elements, when put together, made it better than other RTS's that might have had certain aspects of its game superior to Starcraft
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Better than other RTS's of its time, yeah. Except for Total Annihilation (superior to Starcraft in everything except story and setting, and let's not forget it's several months older), Dark Omen (superior to Starcraft in everything), Close Combat II (a whole other league, but what the hell), and just about every other RTS that was released at that time.

It's similar to what made the first Deus EX so good, although there were many superior FPS, RPG's, and Adventure games on the market.
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I agree 100%.
 
PWAHAHAHA!!! If you call 640x480 with 256 colors nice, then I must salute your modesty.
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Citing specs as if though they're the benchmark that all graphics should be measured by is pure bullshit, especialy if the graphics are well executed, take complete advantage of their resources, are creative, and have talented artists like in Starcraft. Also, you can do a lot more with 2D art with less resources, unlike 3D. It's one of the reasons why 2D games have a much longer-lasting aesthetic appeal then their 3D counterparts.

Better than other RTS's of its time, yeah. Except for Total Annihilation (superior to Starcraft in everything except story and setting, and let's not forget it's several months older), Dark Omen (superior to Starcraft in everything), Close Combat II (a whole other league, but what the hell), and just about every other RTS that was released at that time.
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Total Annihilation is better in many aspects, and it's the other RTS that was arguably the best at the time, but it had a weaker plot, and I liked the graphics in Starcraft better. Although the gameplay was better, I have to admit that I had more fun playing Starcraft.

However, you must like the taste of sweaty orc-balls the way you constantly cite the Warhammer games as being better. Dark Omen, if anything, is worse than its prequel in several ways. Although it did improve the graphics a bit, they're in no way better than Starcraft's, unless you like shitty 3D pixels and horrible texturing. Plus the shitty controls and terrible unit AI is still there. To top it off, what little SOTRT had going for it was eliminated in this sequel. Not only was the nonlinearity removed, but its extreme difficulty was eliminated by way of giving heaps of gold and items after each mission. This eliminated the micromanagement and value that each unit had in the previous game. I remember the countless times I had to restart a mission in SOTRT because my units took too much damage for them to fight effectively in the next mission, but it was well worth the pride I felt once I beat the game.

Face it, the best game that the Warhammer franchise ever produced was Shadow of the Horned Rat, and even then, it wasn't the best in its respective genre.
 
Citing specs as if though they're the benchmark that all graphics should be measured by is pure bullshit, especialy if the graphics are well executed, take complete advantage of their resources, are creative, and have talented artists like in Starcraft. Also, you can do a lot more with 2D art with less resources, unlike 3D. It's one of the reasons why 2D games have a much longer-lasting aesthetic appeal then their 3D counterparts.
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True, but however you look at it, Starcraft was visually pretty mediocre. It didn't look any better than, say, Dark Reign or KKND, both 2D RTS games, and both considerably older and developed with lower budget and by less experienced companies. Not to mention that TA was technologically WAY more advanced (it had a real 3D engine, for Chrisakes), with MUCH better and more detailed graphics, a ton of awesome particle effects and supporting resolutions up to 1024x768.

However, you must like the taste of sweaty orc-balls
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What, you don't?

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Dark Omen had ugly graphics because it utilized a 3D engine at time when 3D graphics on PC was still in its humble beginnings. But even though everything was pixelated and looked like shit, 3D terrain was awesome, allowing features such as line of sight, using relief to gain strategic advantage, setting up ambushes in forrests and other cool things Starcraft didn't have. Whether or not Dark Omen was inferior to Shadow of the Horned Rat is irrelevant, because it rocked nonetheless. I'm also awaiting a comment on Close Combat, an RTS clearly superior to any other of its era. Even with a 2D engine, brilliant developers of Close Combat managed to simulate elevation and slope, thus allowing implementation of angle and line of sight. Clearly, TA, Close Combat and Dark Omen belonged to a new, more advanced generation of real time strategies, in which strategic approach was more rewarding than mindless tank rush, unlike Starcraft (and later Tiberian Sun, another overrated RTS), a representative of the "old" generation where terrain was basically a flat chessboard and game is won by the player who manages to build his base, get hold of most resources and amass most units in least time, and then use his newly acquired army to crush the opponent with one of few unbeatable tactics.
 
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