Ah, those cutscenes: StarCraft. Best space games to play waiting for Starfield
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- Ah, those cutscenes: StarCraft
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Ah, those cutscenes: StarCraft
- Year of creation: 1998
- Developers: Blizzard Entertainment, Chris Metzen, James Phinney
Strategy in the form of a dynamic action movie
The Koprulu sector somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy in the XXV century is a region not worth venturing into. As a result of increasing overpopulation, the United Earth Directorate ordered the colonization of remote areas. A computer malfunction on one of the colonists' transport ships, Terran, caused them to end up in a particularly remote location. The lack of contact with Earth and any control has resulted in the emergence of many factions and interest groups.
What the Terrans didn't realize, however, was that they were being closely watched by the Protoss, an ancient race of far more advanced aliens capable of controlling psionic powers. Not so discreet, instead, were the insectoid Zerg - a ruthless species seeking total assimilation of all other races and creatures to achieve genetic perfection. When the Zergs attacked the Terrans, the Protoss joined the fight as well, to eliminate the Zerg threat. Thus begins one of the most engaging and atmospheric conflicts in SF worlds, in which long strategic playthroughs with dozens of units on the map seem like the best action movie!
Zergs so scary they're real
If I were born in Korea, I would probably argue that StarCraft 's greatness is based on its great multiplayer mode. But since I definitely like single-player games more, I remember this universe well because of its other advantages. Blizzard is to be applauded first and foremost for skillfully introducing as many as three sides of the conflict simultaneously instead of the standard two armies. Moreover, they were able to both balance them well and make them attractive and diverse. In StarCraft, I didn't ask myself which race to play the game with, just which one first, because each campaign seemed equally interesting. At least in part one, because later the publisher made the decision for us, dividing the sequel into episodes.
On top of that you are bound to appreciate the cinematic nature of the entire story, the efficient narration frame of the cutscenes together with magnificent performance delivered by the voice actors who, as you keep playing, give a full display of their skills. Admittedly, the pioneer of such mission setting in RTS games was the Westwood studio with its Command & Conquer, but Blizzard has taken these ideas and moved them up a notch. StarCraft delighted everyone and managed to make strategy fans out of even the biggest supporters of shooters. Its popularity can be attested to by the fact that in the cult series The Office, one of the characters, Dwight, comes to work on Halloween dressed as Kerrigan, the queen of the Zerg. On the other hand, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian President's Office, Oleksiy Arestovych, in May 2022 compared Russian forces operating without proper weapons and training, relying solely on the number of "volunteers," to a horde of Zerg.
