StarCraft (1998)

Another Blizzard classic. I remember my 15 year old self thinking "Warcraft in space? Geez what a stupid-ass idea" and then wiping tears off my face at the ending. The non-symmetrical playable races were such a breakthrough for me at the time. I was so accostumed to Warcraft 2 and Age of Empires that getting a game where each race required its very own, very different strategy was incredibly refreshing. I tried to replay it like two years ago and for some reason I got bored really quick, but in my youth years baby this game was a freaking JAM.

Reviewing two classic Blizzard games in a row really makes you wonder the incredible, long gone heights and the unfathomable current lows of that company. Sadge.

I like the overall aesthetic design of the game. Those 90s cinematics in the campaign look very cool and old school. The story is not bad at all, especially considering the overall bad writing in the industry at the time. The game is of course historically very important, but I am just judging from my experience today. I played Starcraft 2's campaign last year.

The controls of the game are pretty terrible, as many know. Units move in a very strange and imprecise way, their pathfinding is weird and they constantly block each other in weird ways, which feels unsmooth and unnecessary (even Warcraft 3 still fights with this bad movement design at times). I know the game is old, but I am not taking that into account. Moving units around simply feels clumsy and clunky. That means one of the most basic gameplay mechanic of the game feels bad.

You cannot shift-queque your workers properly, you cannot shift-queque researches. Your control groups are limited to a very small number of units. There's plenty of other fairly inconvenient things that have not been taken out in the remaster.

I guess it's because these inconveniences add up to more actions you have to perform, ultimately making up part of the difficulty and e-sportyness of the game. I understand that, but it's overall pretty annoying to play it as a casual.

I see the importance of the game and believe it must've been awesome in the 90s, but it didn't age well. It's one small step before when RTSs became more polished and streamlined and thus still playable today. Can't say I was having fun with SC 1, it's simply a little too old.