Comments on Brood War
It is indeed a fine game. Blizzard has such high standards for their games that I really do not mind paying them for the games they designed. Let's see how the races are matched up now.
"Turn back time" by Aqua (To listen to a real-audio file, click here)
The craze over real-time strategy (RTS) games
My first ever RTS game was Herzorg Zwei from Sega 16-bit. Wow! It was an absolute blast going head-to-head with my friend. I was only secondary four at that time, 1989. However, I miss Dune 2, which was generally acknowledged as the 'mother' of all RTS games.
How I got involved again in this genre of games? Well, it was the time when I was in South Africa, ironically on a mission trip with FCBC in 1996. At my host's apartment, I saw him playing Warcraft and I was really amazed by the huge amount of strategy involved, the amount of control possible and so on. That was in June. In the period between August to December 1996, I had the opportunity to take part in the NUS student exchange program. I went to the University of British Columbia and in my hostel, my floor mates were playing head-to-head Warcraft 2. After that, I tried a few games of WC2 with
Winnie's computer, who is a dear friend of mine from Canada. When I returned home to Singapore, I got (finally!) a computer of my own and played Warcraft 2, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Diablo and finally Starcraft.To me, RTS games represent the ultimate evolution of chess. Instead of each player taking one turn at a time, everyone plans and moves simultaneously. Furthermore, you do not see the opponent's pieces until they come in contact with yours so that means there is a necessity to scout. Instead of fixed "factor endowments" in the form of 8 pawns, 1 queen, 2 knights etc., you can actually produce more of these units after you collected the necessary resources. To top it all off, indeed the most fun of it all, it is not just one versus one but you can literally have a team of 2 versus 2 or even 4 versus 4.
With all these features, it is no wonder that so many people are playing such games. Starcraft is clearly the best among them so far. Made by Blizzard, the same company who first came out with Warcraft, gives us 3 races to control, each with very different units and strategies.
Of course, there is also another reason, in my opinion, why guys predominantly play such games. It gives guys a sense of power and control. In the SAF, most of us have participated in so many military exercises where, if you are an ordinary infantryman, you just walk and walk for something like 5-6 hours, reached the objective, fire off your blanks and look forward to "exercise cut" and back to your bunks for book-out
J . U hear the General-Purpose Machine Gun firing, sometimes you even hear simulated artillery shots, like "Silver, first shot out" etc. These seem so meaningless to you because you have no idea what is the overall plan of battle.In an environment like Starcraft, YOU are now placed into a commander role. In games like Red Alert, they even had a real-life video briefing with actors telling you what are the objectives of the mission. You have the responsibility now to make strategic decisions on how to overcome the enemy. Should you go for a "rush" usually only basic troops like the Protoss zealots? Or should you wait until you get some advanced troops like the high templars or the Reaver? Whereas in the SAF, you are only the zealot, here you are the Commander and you co-ordinate attacks usually using a combination of troops. I guess it is the feeling of being in command, formulating the overall plan of attack, and micro-managing your forces to achieve victory, that gives guys the thrill of playing such games.
There are, of course, girls playing Starcraft too. Those gals whom I know in b-net are Morgan, Jade/Mystique as well as Nikita. They are impressive players too
J .|
Comments on Brood War It is indeed a fine game. Blizzard has such high standards for their games that I really do not mind paying them for the games they designed. Let's see how the races are matched up now. |
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Protoss
My favourite race! BW has only served to enhance it. I am beginning to put less priority on zealots and more on dragoons, to kill those lurkers. Of course high templars and their psi storm are still necessary. I rarely make reavers nowadays. What a pity though that I just managed to master the art of dropping a reaver and putting it back into the shuttle with just a slight delay, before they released that 1.04 patch
J . I am also beginning to use carriers for longer games due to their enhanced capabilities and cheaper costs.As for the new units, the corsairs are a welcome addition. My friend, Maxx, knew how to 'dance' his mutalisks around to avoid my psi storm. So, with those corsairs, I have another way to deal with those irritating mutas
J . Engage them with corsairs and then "crackle, snap, pop", my storm will finish them all off. With their disruption web capability, terran defenses are so easy to crack open now. No more of those newbie terran players with those annoying bunkers and siege tanks.I usually produce only about 4 dark templars, for early game rush or base defense. Not much good when detectors are swarming all over the map. Dark Archon has limited use. I will put one of them with 2 normal templars in a shuttle when raiding a base. Feedback will be a good spell to use against the Protoss opponent's templars and Dark Archon. Maelstrom will be useful for the zerg.
One thing for sure though, the protoss high templar is still my favourite unit. I launch sneak attacks at those probes, drones and scvs with psi-storm. In every major attack I wage, either on land or on air, there is always a shuttle with 4 templars accompanying the attack. With them, no matter what kind of opposition I encounter and in how many numbers, a few well-placed storms will even the odds for me
J . For any budding protoss players, I will give one advice, "When in doubt, more templars!"More in-depth descriptions of my 3 most used Protoss units, the zealot, the high templar and the corsair, can be found
here.