My story, well this is the first PC game I owned. Obviously I played games before in friends computers, and owned console games, but this was my first PC game.

artofwar420

evilfremen

Except for getting rushed, this was the most LAN fun I've ever had.

ElNini

mizeriq

mizeriq

Been a long time since I played the mission, so I don't remember too many of the specifics.

Scatter Photon Cannons along the tops of the ramps at the entrance to your base, and place a few clusters along the inside of the wall to watch for air attacks and drops. You'll need to rebuild some of your defenses every now and then, especially if you get attacked by Reavers, so make sure you stay on top of that.

Once your defenses are solid, start teching up. Units, upgrades, the works. Dunno what kind of army you like to use, but a mixed force of Zealots, Dragoons and Scouts works fairly well for me. The Scouts are especially good for taking out Reavers harassing your Photons.

You'll probably run out of resources before you're ready to attack; fairly sure there's a resource patch off to the right of your main base that you can use. There's also a small enemy base in the right corner, so you should take it out first to give you a better income and close off attacks from that direction. Once you get that far it's just a matter of building up and attacking.

GhostWhoWalks

RTS have never been my forte, but even losing I have fun with this. happy b-day SC!

...anyone know how to beat that damn mission?

wef

Translated from Korean: Happy birthday!!!

And looking forward to celebration another 10+years with the sequel...

jinpei05

You could literally get your command center 1 square from the minerals for a quick (and dirty!) jump on minerals. :)

kwan

My most memorable moments come from finishing both Zerg campaigns in the original game/expansion using nothing but 8 or 9 squads of zerglings, 1 or 2 squads of hydralisks, and a whole bunch of defenses when they were away.

Nothing like seeing a 110-count zergling rush.

RPharazonius

We used to play sc every day after school (this was in the 2002-ish area). I still play from time to time with any of my friends who are willing. I was never much for the random battles with strangers, though i have softened up to the idea with Matchmaking processes that somewhat match skill levels.

StarCraft was a huge part of my gaming life, and I can't wait for sc2 to blow me away! (and if it doesn't, at least I've got the original to fall back on)

Crawl to China

I <3 Terran & `Slayers`_Boxer

Verum

jaisin

Captain Impulse

So after they told me about king-maxi and his friend who I forgot but his real name was Alex. So I decided to see what the fuss was about since those two are better players than I. They were holding another game and I joined with a random ally. He told me not to pick Terrans (he and his friend were Terrans) and we started, it seemed to be normal but the research costs were much lower and they were faster to complete so after I started attacking about five minutes into the game and killing his units but he had battle cruisers. Not just one but 8, so while my dark templar were killing his tanks I had my goons kill his battle cruisers but he used a yamato cannon on them. A cruiser was able to shoot more than one out at a quick pace. So clearly there was something biased against me and my ally. So while my goons died and he finally detected my dark templar he started to laugh at me saying how I was a noob and a loser. He talked about how he was superior to me and my ally and that he was so great, part of a master race. Well my ally had corsairs and beat back the cruisers to counter my anti air weakness. I forget what happened next but we over ran him with his advantages. At that point he was screaming about how he says we were losers, it is obvious we had no lives. He told us how were were stupid chinks who played nothing but Starcraft all day. Then he and his buddy disconnected after wards. I forgot what kind of snide comment I made but at the time I thought it was quite good.

I congratulated my ally and he told me that his friends had also been beaten by these two so he had to see what the fuss was about.

That is my best Starcraft experience ever. I wish at that point we had replay saves for games. It was before the patch that the feature was added. Also I forgot where the screens for the game are but I took screen shots of the fancy language he used.

datafox

Tiger-Fever

The point that you're trying to make is that, because it's almost unavoidable, why try to prevent it? And the point I'm going to make right now is that we SHOULD try because it's idiotic. Particularly now because the entire point of the article and this comment thread is to reminisce about this game, not try and compare it to other games. If you don't like Starcraft, this thread is not for you. Move on. Ever heard the saying "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"? That pretty much says it all.

We're not here to have a debate about preferences and who's more of a jack-ass. We're here to talk about Starcraft, period.

Having read some of your comments, I can see that you're a very intelligent person. So how about you put some of that intelligence to use and try to avoid being such an instigator, huh? You did indeed come in here and make a thinly veiled comment about how you hate the direction Starcraft nudged the RTS genre in, and DaiMacculate was well within his rights to call you out, and his analogy was fairly accurate. If you didn't have anything nice to say, maybe you should've changed your mind about leaving a comment.

And before this turns into a flame war, how about we agree that some things were said that shouldn't have been, forget about it, and move on. Please.

GhostWhoWalks

goldwings

kiigan

I think one major factor in the game's success among my circle of friends was the "spawn install" option. It just made it so painless to get a little LAN game going, so effortless to introduce friends and loved ones to the game. Girlfriends feeling annoyed at being neglected could easily be brought into the game and shown the ropes as Terran, thanks to the spawn installer. Before you know it, they'd be asking when the next LAN sesh was happening!

Another big factor is the fact that it ran on bloody everything, even when it came out. We'd have all sorts of crappy PCs hanging around, some people on Macs, some people running it through Linux (VMware) too and it always just worked. For quite a while I was even playing it on a Pentium 75mhz, on Battle.net via 56kb dialup. It worked fine!

The great thing about it is that despite being a fairly experienced player, I'm still always learning new stuff about it all the time. We watch pro Korean matches with English commentary on Youtube, like watching sports. We're always trying out new build orders, new counters, new strategies, and just trying to become better players. Also I honestly find the StarCraft community to be very nice - plenty of older, more polite, thoughtful people who appreciate a good game and don't act like obnoxious idiots. Going from something like Halo 3 on Xbox to StarCraft is such an eye-opener. Last person I beat on Battle.net thanked me for a great game, complimented my strategy and asked for another match. When was the last time you heard that on Xbox Live?! :)

Anyway it has honestly helped keep a lot of my old friends in touch with each other - we still play online regularly despite being spread out all over the globe now and having families and stuff. We use Skype for voice comms during the game, have a chat and a laugh while we play, and if we lose we lose as a team, to better players and there's nothing wrong with that. Watch the replay, learn from it, dissect our mistakes.

I honestly think StarCraft is as good as videogames get. That may not be true for everyone, but it has definitely been the case for me.

kiigan

The classy thing to do would be bang the clown in the laundry room while everyone was eating cake? Why? Because clowns need love too.

Balloon animals notwithstanding, it's no substitute for spin cycle.

deathbunny

Phlycheez

Sure, I've got one.

Back in the day when my pals and I played Starcraft almost every night over Battle.net, none of us had the inclination to go and challenge other people, so we mostly played free-for-all and top vs bottom matches against computer teams, almost always on BGH. One night, we decided to go all-out and pit our team of three players against 5 computers.

Now, there are two funny things about computer players on BGH and other money maps. The first is that, once they get going, it's rather hard to stop them; with their infinite resources and perfect macros, they'll just keep pumping out units and sending a steady flow of them at you until you break. The second is that, with teams of comps, they have a tendency to all gang up on and rush one of their opponents early on in the game. So, unless your teammates are quick to come to your defense, getting rushed by a dozen Zealots, Marines and Firebats, and Zerglings 5 minutes into the game is instant death.

So my two friends spawn in at the bottom left corner of the map, right next to each other, and I end up alone at the top right corner. The player in the bottom middle is quickly attacked, so he gathers up his survivors and establishes a makeshift base with his companion in the corner. And then all hell breaks loose.

While I was subject to a few minor and easy to drive off attacks, over the next HOUR or so, the two in the corner are subjected to one of the most brutal sieges I have ever seen. Uncontested, the computer team easily takes control of the rest of the map and begins to send a constant stream of attack waves at the bottom left corner. The two players managed to hold out through a combination of Photon Cannons, Lurkers, High Templar and more...but they're pinned down. There's no way they can break out on their own.

Now during this time, I was bouncing back and forth between Zerg and Terran, and had recently established a good production routine for a Terran army of mixed infantry, so in the meantime, that's exactly what I was doing. Once I had reached my maximum unit limit, I knew what I had to do. Sound the horns of Rohan, cause here comes the cavalry...

Beginning from the top right corner, my horde of Marines and Firebats plowed their way straight through the center of the map, annihilating anything and everything in their path, including the handful of enemy bases they encountered on their way. They just kept on moving and destroying until they hit my allies' defensive line, at which point they turned around and headed for the nearest enemy home base. With my production in full swing and the near-limitless resources of BGH at my disposal, I sent my infantry war machine on a constant warpath, demolishing half of the opposition by the time my allies had developed enough troops to join in on my offensive.

Through various other games, I've had similarly epic comebacks. But I will never forget that one moment as I watched my highly underrated infantry storm straight across the map in a tidal wave of destruction that turned crushing defeat into glorious victory.

It's just too bad I don't have replay of it.

GhostWhoWalks

Polywhirl

On a related note, if anyone wants to play some good old 'Craft, leave your bnet name on my kotaku page.

残心

It's only when I came back to it, 10 years later, after having sampled many more modern RTS games, that I finally "get it." Kinda late, now.

Oh well, I was always more into FPS games, anyway.

DeBurgo

Zippidydoodaa

<3 Zerg

Jon-Claw

Its like going to a kid's birthday party and telling him you always liked that kid down the street a lot better, how much taller and better looking he was.

Classless even if every word is truth.

That's all I'll say, SC deserves better than this, which was again my whole point...

DaiMacculate

PathRifter

The amount of time I dedicated to that game for the next few years lead my father to stop purchasing all videogame related materials for me for five years. I would have probably done the same if I saw my 10 year old glued to the computer 24/7.

Siegeman

It wasn't stealth anything. Yeah, I don't like SC as much as TA. But it really did change everything about the genre, and my not liking a game genre doesn't invalidate it.

The only point I had to make is that it wasn't just a popular refinement of the genre, it was an innovator and changed the way RTSes were made.

How would you like me to stealth 'pull your head out of your ass'?

deathbunny

Maximus9

Oh right, you say that when you WIN the game. I can't even beat my friends, much less Koreans, lol. SC and Goldeneye are probably the only games that I loved SO MUCH in spite of sucking at them.

Spiffyness

CarbonatedWater

...

I hated the first game. Hated the shit out of it. And through no real fault of the game other than its inability to adapt to my playing style, which is 1) point 2) click 3) pray. I forgot my build queues, could never remember the tech trees, and was constantly pissed off by my marines making out or humping each other or whatever it was they were doing in the corner that prevented them from going up the damned ramp. I never got the hang of micro-management. I never got the hang of macro-management. I was, however, good at two things: building massive armies of the most useless units for the particular enemy/terrain, and then sending said armies directly and efficiently to their deaths, without being distracted by objectives or plot points. I was also pretty good at sucking maps dry of all precious resources, without really accomplishing anything. I think I made a tank once.

I wanted to like it, I really did. I just never was able to accept the fact that a Korean fetus could beat me with its vestigial tail. The problem is that, unlike most other games I suck at, I wasn't able to write it off as a poor or inaccessible game... I KNEW the problem was with me, not it. So naturally I developed a deep, burning resentment that led to promiscuity, heroin, and many failed and unfulfilling relationships with tattoo artists.

Maybe the reason I'm excited for the sequel is that it gives me a new, fresh chance to show the old bully who's really boss. And when the crying is done and the blood is wiped away, I'll sell my computer and buy an abacus.

MisterSleep

I love the no-cd patch and I'm still trying to figure out how to best use you with my new Logitech G15 keyboard macros..... any suggestions people?

Maximus9

Sweet Tooth

On this particular day, we started early in the morning, well, early in the sense that it was 10a.m. on a Sunday, at any rate, there were 4 of us playing and me and my partner formed an alliance and took them out around the 45 minute mark.

Then what proceeded was probably the longest god damn game of Starcraft i've ever played. Since we were both relatively new at the game and thus had no idea what the fuck we were doing, and since resources were sparse on the map we were playing, we ended up having a back and forth match that lasted probably around 8 hours before I took out all of his main base and he had to admit defeat.

I don't think I've ever been stuck in a deadlock like that since then.

Tizlor

squidboy007

Maps that were like, fastest, 7 players versus 1 computer... making it difficult for allies to defeat computer until finally you're ready to unally and defeat them all or lose trying.

So satisfying to unally someone and then phase in a bunch of units to their base with an arbiter... having a ton of defenses set up for everyone's stupid all-out offensive against me in retaliation. Their forces would get wasted on it, and they'd have little resources to rebuild.

Harmatia

Lords knows I will lose many a year more when your offspring hits our computers. Oh how I loath you....

Where the hell are the SC2 pre-orders Arrrrrgggghhh!

-itis

Agies

KamuZ

Only thing was, Ryan forgot nuclear missiles ALSO got the speed and price cut...

MiliardoK

I tried making custom rules where any unit that attacked a non-turret building or worker in the first 20 minutes would be destroyed. Unfortunately, I gave up half way, since I had to do it for every unit and for any unit they attacked. I just hope SC2 has a better map editor with better script support, or has a built in ro-rush game type.

I don't have any outstanding moments, but I know that watching an army of hydralisks with dark swarm annihilate a carrier armada is the coolest thing ever.

Tiber

DaiMacculate

William Killer Shatner

Gen16Snes

SkutSkut

Xiedo

Jawajoey

Dark Reign and Total annihilation were out, offering options for controlling AI, and setting up production-based approaches, rather than unit-based ones. Then blizzard released SC and forever determined the direction of the genre. Even the spiritual sequels to these titles, like SupCom have altered their gameplay to focus on a unit-based approach, allowing the true real time strategy game to languish in the ether, waiting for the time when someone will find a way to reintroduce it and offer a new term for it.

As it stands, it looks like the eventual title for the new genre will be 'tower defense'... ah well.

Cheers to you Blizzard. You determine the direction of gaming. For good or ill...

*pounds ethanol*

deathbunny

Gave up 1942 a while back but Starcraft still gets playtime.

yashichi8bit

Foggynotion

Jest

PissedPS3Fan

Ra is on TNG

SAKY

Gam3r

MakeFragNotWar

Vaanelo

kingmanic

IndustrialJones

Gray665

Long story short: We told one guy that he wasn't allowed to rush (we sucked like that), so he massed a huge Zerg fleet waiting for the word. The team of three parasited my SCV, so I ran him across the map to die. He ran into the Zerg fleet just as the other team nuked all of them. Without the parasite, we would have never known that it happened. All three teams (in different rooms in the house) yelled out at once. Two teams cheered, and one jeered. Needless to say, they lost, but a good time was had by all.

LAN parties... I miss them.

Malthius

kingmanic

Ulquiorra Schiffer

I suck at StarCraft the regular game but give me a Use Map Settings game and I'll probably consistently be "the winner" after 2 or 3 playthroughs, so this Tome guy should have had no problem killing me. However, since I knew I would die playing a regular game, I decided to 4-pool and started running my zerglings to the opposite side of the map, completely guessing his position.

Welp, I guessed right and he was Marines, so my first lings made him use his SCVs to attack me, which killed his supply line. My second wave of lings came to kill off his first marine and help destroy some more SCVs. By the time the third wave came, he told me to take screenshots because he was going to give up and insisted that I send him the screens cuz he thought I was using a map hack. He insisted on a rematch too and I just laughed at him for losing to a newbie like me due to the 4-pool technique combined with dumb luck.
Ahh that was the most hilarious StarCraft experience ever.

My second best experience? Playing the map "Long Race". It's you, with a corsair, on a long map, racing other corsairs. That's it. Ahh man I grieved so many people making them download that and play it for 10 seconds.

DaveKap

Seiven

I didn't get to pick which race I wanted on the box. I bought the super duper ultimate $20 edition. Came with loads of Blizzard stuff and Brood War.

Tofu_Survivor

I think this was the first game that brought me into online gaming. It's also the game where I adopted the nickname I'm using now. I wasn't great at starcraft but it was still a lot of fun especially with the custom maps developed. Also nothing beats playing with friends and hearing Nuclear Launch Detected followed by a bunch of swearing.

Jacktherip

What an amazing game though, and Battle.net for all its flaws at the time sure beat hooking up WarcraftII netgames through #warcraft and #macwarcraft on IRC ;)

DaiMacculate

My life for aiur... assuredly.

chungo

"Use map Settings" maps were my favorite. I'd spend hours playing user made RPGs and stuff like Sunken Defense. SC also had the best cinematics ever seen, they blew my little mind.

Best game of all time IMO.

argh

And tell you the number of Koreans that kicked my ass? I'll pass. :P

Bryan

Morberis

Grey Gecko

PS. I went for protoss too. It was the coolest, hands down. And I remember the pamphlet inside the box - with the ad of that graphic adventure orc-based with cartoon graphics. A ferocious botch by Blizzard :D

Vidunder

Woden501

i suck ass at starcraft...so i go no good stories that doesnt involve me looking like a scrub

still i love the game and always enjoy a good match

cant wait to be beaten in SC2

Grey Gecko

InsidiousTuna

MasterOfPastures

Grodoro

DorkimusPrime

KeithCourage

PositivelyJosh

Stormrider