CIS 587: Assignment 1Computer Game EvaluationPran MukherjeeBasic InformationCIS 587: Assignment 1Computer Game EvaluationStarcraft and Brood WarPran Mukherjee9/24/01Basic InformationStarcraft is a real-time strategy (RTS) game designed by Rob Pardo and Chris Metzen, and produced by Blizzard Entertainment in 1997, with the Brood War expansion in 1998. It’s available for Windows 9x and Macintosh machines. It originally sold for about $50 (expansion for $30), but at its current five years of age both components can be bought for $25 total. The minimum system requires a Pentium 90, 16MB RAM, 80MB drive space, and 2X CD drive (slightly higher Mac requirements). While most games have “minimum requirements” that’ll just barely allow the game to run, the requirements listed above actually dowork just fine. Almost any video card is acceptable, since the game is fully 2D, and a sound card, though nice, is optional. Controls are via mouse and keyboard.Game Summary:Starcraft follows the usual 4X-style gameplay (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate), but with a twist. There are three races to play, and the gameplay iscompletely different for each one. Other RTS games have different-looking units with generally the same gameplay, but each race in Starcraft offers a unique styleof play. The Zerg are a horde-like biological race that overwhelms the enemy with numbers; the Terrans are technologically savvy, mobile, and have very strong defenses; and the Protoss are psionic, very high-tech, and have small numbers. Sometimes a single Protoss unit can wipe out dozens of Zerg, and thisis reflected in their build cost and time as well as the amount of “control slots” they take up. More on all this later.The installation was very simple: put the CD in, wait until autorun pops up the install dialog box, click Install. Installing Brood War on top of Starcraft follows the same procedure. For the Starcraft installation a CD key is required, which is found on the CD case, but Brood War doesn’t require a new one. Note that with Brood War installed, it’s still possible to play in “Starcraft mode” without the extra units, tilesets, and so on. No one I know has ever bothered, though, since BroodWar truly makes the game come alive.The controls are very intuitive. For any unit or unit-producing building, the commands available are listed in a box in the bottom right. Each command has a little icon and the keyword, with the equivalent keyboard command highlighted in yellow. It’s best to learn all of the keyboard hotkeys, since this will increase player reaction time by at least a factor of two. However, for new players the learning curve is very friendly. Left-clicking anything will select it, with double-click or box-selection allowed to select groups, and right-clicking activates the most-used commands such as move, attack, gather resources. It would be nice to have a popup window listing all the possible keyboard commands, but thisfeature was not included, and would be rather lengthy since each unit has separate abilities and ALL abilities are hotkeyed. Since the requisite hotkey is highlighted, it isn’t essential to have a list.As is common in RTS games, Starcraft has a long single-player campaign mode,with 10 missions for each race, for a total of 30. (Brood War comes with 30 MORE missions!) The missions are basically a training mode, with each one allowing the use of new units and concentrating on teaching the player how to effectively utilize those units. The story arc starts with the Zerg invading Terran space with a Borg-like desire to assimilate new life. The Protoss quickly ally with the Terrans, but with betrayals, backstabbing, and assimilations on all sides eachrace gets a chance to go up against the other two. The campaigns are fairly well-scripted, both in a story sense and in a level-design sense, and sometimes when you think you’ve succeeded at a mission, new objectives come up by surprise.The game truly shines in multiplayer mode, where up to 8 players and computerscan fight in modes like melee, free-for-all (no alliances), team games with multiple people controlling the same units, capture-the-flag, and the catch-all “use map settings” mode, where pre-scripted events occur. The included map editor allows creation and scripting of new maps, which download automatically when one joins a game. Blizzard has provided a free online meeting place calledBattle.net, complete with chat channels, open game listings, and automatic patchupdates. LAN, modem, and direct cable connection are other multiplayer options.The scoring engine is somewhat difficult to fathom. At the end of the game, you either win or lose (in most modes it means killing off the enemies’ buildings), but the scoring may not reflect that. The scores are displayed in clean, easy-to-read bar graphs with numerical scores on the bars, but where those scores come fromis the foggy part. The primary categories for scores are Units, Buildings, and Resources. Subcategories include units built and killed, buildings created and razed, resources gathered and used. Obviously, kills and razings are good, but it’s hard to tell whether making less buildings or units is better than making more,or what weighting is placed on tech-tree placement of the units.The art and sound in this game are outstanding. Given the lack of 3D, one mightimmediately suspect bad graphics, but the 2D unit animations, weapon effects, and spells are excellent, and the third dimension (for flying units or area spells) istaken into account by obscuration. With the fixed isometric view, a third dimension wouldn’t have added anything. The only real problem is the fixed 640x480 resolution. The music is a great backdrop, and adds an appropriate ambience without distracting the player. The sound effects are simply awesome, from the authoritative boom of a siege tank cannon to the sarcastic shuttle pilot responses. Each unit has at least three responses, and the buildings also have sound effects associated with them when selected. There’s also a nice warningfeature that states “We are under attack” when a building is hit, and a quick tap ofthe space bar will take you to the site of danger.The game can be saved at any time, even multiplayer games, and with the latest Brood War expansion a game replay can be saved at endgame. This allows players to view the game from any or all points of view, including that
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