First released in 1998, StarCraft is one of the most memorable real-time strategy franchises in video game history. In a typical game, players control one of three races: the human Terrans, the technologically-advanced Protoss, or the rabid swarm of the Zerg. They amass resources to build structures, research developments, and build up an army of soldiers to crush🐟 the opposing player. It's a game of economics and conquering.
StarCraft has become a huge sensation, particularly for professional gaming culture. This is because the gameplay is so demanding. Players have to multitask between maximizing the micro play of their units, while also continuing to amass more units. Despite this (or in light of this) arguably, some of the most amazingly impressive professional plays of all time were in StarCraft games.
Over almost two decades, a plethora of changes have graced our favorite RTS. With its sequel and handful of expansions, many players actually debate as to whether StarCraft has changed for the better or the worse. Read on for some of the many ways the game has improved, as well as popular criticisms of its changes, particularly between StarCraft I and II.
15 ♌ Better: Cohesive Ranked System
It was StarCraft II that introduced me to the fun of video games with competitive national rankings. Ranked games are an integral subject for the StarCraft community. With this system, players are mainly matched up with each other if they are within the same range of skill, and it has only improved with each update. Meanwhile, the first StarCraft ꧟had a primitive and practically unusable ladder system that just can't compꦏare.
In SC2, players engage in placement matches to determine their where they are within several leagues, each with their own divisions. In the current ranking system, players can place between Bronze and Diamond, or aim higher to be a Master or a Grandmaster. They do thiꦰs through a series of p🐻layer versus player matches and amassing ladder points through wins.
14 Worse: Nostalgia Factor ✃
One of the biggest advantages of playing StarCraft over its sequel is its (possibly excessive) nostalgia factor. It's hard to deny that StarCraft: Brood War was a hell of a lot of fun for many of the old and young alike. While many RTS games of similar gameplay were a fantasy theme, StarCraft had a science-fiction setting, allowing players the opportunity to command space꧅ships and control alien races.
But why doesn't SC2 incur the same level of nostalgia? It's likely that it's because it's a sequel. It may also be because it's still fairly new. But with its many added improvements and facets, it's also so much more complicated (which will be explained further on). StarCraft II just isn't the memorable classic that its prede꧒cessor 💦was.
13 Better: Great Custom Games ꦜ 🔴
While some players miss the freedom of unregulated custom maps in the older days of StarCraft, I'm deeply enthralled by the variety of minigames available to SC2 players. There were times when I stopped playing actual SC2 games altogether, and devoted my time solely to my favorite custom games. There are even custom games created by Blizzard for the sake of improving one's skill in real ra�๊�nked matches.
With a deeply comprehensive map editor, one had a huge array of customization for creating an expanse of high-paced minigames or beloved oldies using units not available in real matches. To name a few of my favorites over the years, players could enjoy games of vastly different types: like Mafia, Squadron Tower Defense, Airstrike, or Raynor Kart. Even when I'm tired of StarCraft, I can't get tired of its many 🎃fun-filled options in the Arcade.
12 ꦉ 🌄 Worse: Expansion Handling
Blizzard may have really mishandled the way they divided the StarCraft II expansions. The first StarCraft had a story campaign that split into three episodes in chronological order, but each from a different race's point of view. The expansion, StarCraft: Brood War, followed suit with its own three episodes co💜ntinuing from where the first campaign left off.
On the opposite end, each expansion for StarCraft II is the entirety of each race's campaign. The first SC2, Wings of Liberty was a beautiful gift for Terran players. But Zerg players had to wait three years for their campaign in Heart of the Swarm, and then Protoss mains (like myself) had to wait another two and a half years on top of that for Legacy of the Void. So much time had passed, that it was difficult to scrounge up the motivation toꦕ pay for another full game.
11 Better: Efficient Control Of Units 🌼
The original StarCraft allowed the player to select a maximum of twelve units to control at once. This was not only frustrating, but made gameplay a lot more difficult. StarCraft 2 improves on this, ಞno longer h꧂aving players need to worry about the maximum. It even allows for players to control multiple buildings at a time, something that wasn't possible before.
Another facet of controlling your army in StarCraft is the use of control groups. Originally, after the player has selected their units, they could save this selection with a hotkey as a control group. In SC2, the amount of control groups increased, and a (much-needed) small icon is visible for ea﷽ch of these hotkeys indicating the contents of each control group.
10 🧸 Wors🦂e: Sound And Art Design
StarCraft keeps to its sci-fi theme with the sound effects and art for its various vehicles, weaponry, and alien clicks and growls. All of his comes in themes, as the indica🐼tions for successful construction or training, as well as the user interface, was aesthetically tailored to which individual race the player has selected.
I've found that many loyalists to StarCraft: Brood War were critical of SC2's sound effects and unit design (though, this sounds heavily nostalgia-based to me). And players like the darker and more unified color palette, and the representational sprite art. Indeed, while playing StarCraft, there is a huge deluge of different alerts, explosions, and the screams of your army as they die. And SC2 tends to overdo it on this front.
9 🌺 Better: Impro✅ved Speech
StarCraft boasted a couple dozen voice actors, mainly for in-game units, but a few for campaign mission briefings and instructions. Meanwhile, StarCraft II had over sixty talents to voice the litany of characters, alerts, etc. botᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚh in-game and in cutscenes.
It isn't just quantity, but the voices fin SC2 were higher quality as well. This isn't only because of higher microphone quality as technology improves, but also performance. Players bid farewell to unclear (and sometimes racist) voice clips, and now had even more tailored to each unit. Though, sℱome argue that they've lost some personality and soul due to these changes.
8 💫 ꦡ Worse: Convoluted Lore
One of the most beloved things about StarCraft was its story and lore. Tꦜhe connection between the three races seemed like realistic intergalactic relations during wartime. There wasn't even full cooperation among the races with each other, which led to intriguing conflict and dynamic plot twists.
Admittedly, as the lore expands after the original StarCraft, it gets more confusing. Players had to adapt to alien points of view and theiꦬr different futuristic cultures, which was fun at first. But eventually, it lost the appeal of the unknown. As more details fill the plotholes, there became more to pick at. Worst of all, with the higher mass of lines voiced, though there are many great dictations, there were also more lines in the script that felt cliche and uninspired.
7 Better: Customization 𒀰 ꧒
Before, all the player could do before a match was pick their race and color. But StarCraft II gives its players a more unique experience for every account. It offers a huge achievement system to try to complete, and also allows the player to display their favorite achievements on their profile. Some achievements reward players with decals for their units. Others can provide icons for their account, which constantly appears next to their username💮.
Even the campaign allows for customization. In between story missions, players can modify and upgrade units between missions. They ca𒈔n also decide between differ💧ent mercenary organizations to be available for hire in-game.
6 ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Worse: ꦫFocus On Workers
The economic macro aspect of StarCraft is one of the biggest factors in𒉰 deciding a𒁏 match. Players build dozens of worker units to gather minerals and gas as the resources used for the production of everything. With this in mind, it's a good strategy to destroy your opponent's workers, in order to drastically slow the production of their units and halt the advancement of their civilization.
StarCraft II extravagantly increases the importance of workers, as well as increases the myriad of ways to go about this worker harass. There are so many ways that it ends up being fairly easy to use cheese (use cheap tactics) to win games this♛ way. The competitive play ends up placing an excessive focus on this. Blizzard seems to love this aspect, but honestly, it gets extreme🐲ly tedious to constantly rebuild the workers, as well as find ways to defend your worker line, while also having a huge need to even out the worker kills. Wasn't I aiming to play a game about building and controlling an army?