PC

A Brief History on StarCraft

What a year 1998 was, we saw Bill Clinton and the Lewinsky scandal, Titanic won 11 Oscars, Google was founded, and StarCraft was released. For those of you who have just crawled out of a cave, StarCraft was big, being the best selling PC game of the year. Not only that, but since its release it has won 37 separate awards and has been entered into the Guinness Book of Records FOUR times. Twelve years later and we are finally getting a sequel. It’s been a long journey, so with StarCraft II just days away, here is a rundown of events leading up to its release.

StarCraft, it was a game that defined a genre. Even today I still compare games to StarCraft, but what made it so great? For me the best thing about the game was the story, it sucked you into the Koprulu Sector and got you attached to all the characters. I was angry at Mengsk for leaving Kerrigan to the Zerg, was touched at the sacrifice made by Tassadar, and I actually felt a loss when, in the expansion Brood War, Fenix was killed. It was this that made me play the single player campaign time and time again.

Alien Swarm Free on Steam

The new version of Alien Swarm allows solo-play or online multiplayer to control a squad of grizzled space marines.  Players choose between eight characters, then customize a loadout of weapons and equipment, to engage in top-down shooting action. As players level up they gain access to unlock-able weapons and equipment.

The story and setting should be recognizable to any James Cameron fan: you’ve lost communications with a space colony, and “a Xenomorph may be involved”.  Your marines can weld doors shut, set up auto turrets, and use motion trackers in their fight against the space bugs; it comes a close as possible to being an Aliens game without actually violating trademarks.  It’s all very familiar, but the developers present it so earnestly that it comes across as a loving homage, rather than hackery.

StarCraft II “Ghosts of the Past” Trailer

Dubbed “Ghosts of the Past”, this balls-out-kind-of-campy-but-somehow-kind-of-fitting trailer is the last major signifier that South Korea’s productivity levels will shut down by at least 50% forever and that people will, people who have played StarCraft, somewhere in their lifetime will now get the bloody chance to play its sequel. If you were pretty excited for StarCraft II, you will be really excited for StarCraft II after this trailer. If you’ve no interest in it, claiming the game to be a copy-and-paste job, then, well, you can be grumpy and misanthropic all you want, because the rest of us will be playing StarCraft II.

This trailer covers a lot of ground, going back to Kerrigan being abandoned and Jim Raynor having to live with that. It’s a little unsettling to see Kerrigan a little more… “sexed up” than she was in the first game (Her red braids and her soft green eyes in the original had its own appeal… I, anyway.), but whatever. That’s definitely Kerrigan and that’s definitely a distressed Raynor with some awesome vocabulary, like “OVERDRIVE”. It’s a little silly, but after this long a wait for a sequel, it kind of works. Anyway, enough blabbing. Check it:

“Game Play” Performance Art Show Closes This Week

Do you like video games?  Do you like Performance Art as well?  If you do, the Brick Theater in Brooklyn New York has a Performance Art festival for you.  “Game Play” is running now through Sunday the 25^th, and has a smorgasbord of video game-theme productions.  Over the last week I had the chance to see several of them. 

Theater of the Arcade was written by Jeff Lewoncyk and Directed by Gyda Arber; it consisted of five short plays, each telling the story of a classic video game, but written in the style of a famous playwright.  It was the epitome of absurdist humor. Imagine if you will Asteroids as a tense workplace drama about spaceship pilots in a high-pressure competition right out of Glengarry Glen Ross.  It’s a clever show with inside gags for both gamers and theatre fans, highly recommended for both demographics.

So, StarCraft II’s Multiplayer Scares You?

It’s finally on the cusp of release and considering what gave Blizzard’s original StarCraft its lasting legacy, its multiplayer, there’s the understandable fear of being completely trounced once you enter the online arena. So, I’m here to help with some basic steps that apply to every race in the game. I was once like you; scared, helpless and so intimidated by the multiplayer space that I almost didn’t try out the beta, but here I am, placed in the silver league before the beta closed down just two days ago. If I can do it, so can you. Remember, this is basic, foundation-type stuff. This article only really helps the utterly helpless and/or/and probably/and absolutely retarded.

Razer Naga: Building a Better Mouse

There are a lot of mice using the “More is better” philosophy in their design, boasting more buttons than a person has fingers.  Many of these mice make vague claims of benefits to gamers due to some new design feature.  At first glance the Razer Naga appears to another such gimmicky, over-complicated monster.  With a whopping 17 buttons the Naga immediately provoked skepticism in me, but it eventually won me over.

Facebook Games: Why Do Your Friends Play Them?

With the inexplicable success of Zynga’s Facebook game “Farmville”, the industry has become flooded with developers trying to duplicate the popularity of that money farm. Facebook games are readily consumed by casual gamers, but would any of these apps offer something to the hardcore set?  In this weekly feature we make our way through the minefield of Facebook gaming in the hope of finding something worth playing.