Herald of the Stars
Amidst countless new titles, Real Time Strategy’s crown jewel remains an eternal gem from the past
The Three Factions of Starcraft 2; The technologically advanced Protoss aliens, the Feral Zerg Swarm, and the gritty, adaptable human Terrans.
By Nguyen Thanh Tung
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Starcraft 2 is a game about character; a gang of space outlaws struggling to find refuge in a rapidly changing solar system guided by their gritty, idealistic leader Jim Raynor. There are other main characters, such as Sarah Kerrigan, Jim’s former lover turned enemy, and in the latest expansion Jim’s ally now the main protagonist, Artanis.
On his epic space adventure, he is joined by the hot-headed Tychus Findlay, the haunted Emperor Arcturus Mengsk- once a brother in arms now turned arch nemesis, whose son Valerian Mengsk takes up arms alongside Jimmy as he hatches his own ingenious plans for intergalactic domination.
The command centre on the battlecruiser as you fly through space where all of these colorful personalities interact is easily the strongest aspect of Starcraft 2’s campaign. Sometimes you will see them chatting, dancing, drinking, playing a game of Poker, or updating you with the latest situational reports. They are swapping stories and bantering with you around the large holographic map table.
“It has consistency and quality,” said Gemini, a Grandmaster Starcraft 2 player and content creator from the United States. “There is no other Real Time Strategy games that is managed and consistently balanced as Starcraft 2. There’s nothing else like Starcraft 2 so the community has become one big family that sticks around to celebrate it.”
With Tychus nursing his drink, making wisecracks and Valerian brooding, sharing his machinations the game has a brilliant way of making all these characters interact, revealing more about the story as you fly from planet to planet while helping you learn more about who all these characters really are, deepening your emotional investment and make the circumstances that come with making certain choices in game much more impactful when you have to do something that may kill one of your companions on a mission.
Two Protoss clans battling it out in a massive aerial dogfight of lasers and graviton beams.
With over 20 years of expanding world-building and stories, quality of life improvements and a continually updated user interface system, Starcraft 2 offers an extremely rich and time-tested Real Time Strategy experience that is unmatched by the overwhelming majority of other games out there. Played with a keyboard and mouse, the game is forgiving enough to be run on most operating systems, both for Mac and PC.
“The single biggest reason that Starcraft continues to thrive is accessibility. Starcraft 2 is a game which strongly adheres to core principles and contains well-designed mechanics which maintain interest and attract new players such as affordance, appeal to all player types, reward systems and feedback loops, to name a few,” said Mister Creighton Olsen, a professional Starcraft 2 commentator and analyst currently residing in South Korea, where he oversees help with casting the prestigious Global Starcraft League tournament.
“Starcraft 2 is intrinsically exciting and immensely complex, but still beautifully accessible,” Mister Olsen added, “personally I have always been very bad at video games, but the design of the game allows social players like myself to still be a part of the community.”
Starcraft 2 is a masterful balancing act, it plunges you into its desolate treacherous darkness of space and is punctuated by raw, satisfying combat as you control your armies and build up your bases to overcome the enemies on each planet. There are powerful, quiet moments sandwiched between jaw-dropping spectacles and the game ends on such an “Oooh” moment, that through all the adventures, the tough missions and even more emotional cutscenes, you will be left at the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next.
Overall, a solid nine out of ten.