I played through it on Medium and speed was never a problem, and I'm a slow old man. I had to return Deserts of Kharak because of speed issues. But it wasn't a problem here, which is one of the reasons I loved it: the difficulty came from the units you were fighting and how the AI used them, not how fast I was with a mouse.

Love the music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr2MDSdxcsA&feature=youtu.be&t=4024

For me it was definitely one of the things that made the game very special to me, along with having three wildly different races that were still quite well balanced; playing the three campaigns with different races felt almost like playing three different (but good) RTS games, while in other RTS games the differences between races etc. were more cosmetic.

When you say the story was mediocre, to what are you comparing it? Other RTS games? Other PC games? Woody Allen movies?

As far as games go, and especially RTS games, to me the Starcraft story was quite special and interesting. No clearly defined goodies and baddies (well ok, I guess Jim and some of the Protoss characters were goody-goodies), the "problematic relationship" between Jim and Sarah (after Sarah's transformation) etc., without trying to be weirdly complicated like some stupid Final Fantasy 8, etc.

I have no idea how the story progresses in Starcraft 2, I stopped playing the first episode of it because of the aforementioned "gamespeed problem". Starcraft (2) has become something I dislike in some RTS games, eye-hand coordination reflex games.

Yes of course one can select easier difficulty levels, or even enable cheats I guess. Or watch someone else play it on Youtube for you.

The thing is, I want the challenge from the highest difficulty setting when it comes to unit AI, tactics etc., but NOT it testing my reflexes. For that reason, Starcraft 2 represents something where I don't want to see RTS games going to: reflex games. There are lots of difficult RTS games that don't have to resort to the same.

Same here. The story is one of the things that made the game great for me. On top of what you've written I liked how the story was put inside larger universe/lore without being overly complicated.

Haven't played SC2 yet, but it's on my to do list.

cmon over. I have it loaded up.

Actually, does SC2 ever go on sale? Should I wait for Christmas/Summer sale or whatnot to catch a bargain?

It sucked before "Cata" too :P

I don't think the story was bad, I just don't think it was told in a very interesting way. It was always this "now watch some talking heads, and now there's a mission". I think Warcraft 3 did way better at making it feel like the missions are really a part of the story. Maybe because they dropped the problem plaguing many strategy games, of the player being this nameless, mute "commander" who sort of exists in the game world but doesnt really have any place in the story.

It goes on sale regularly. The first game/campaign (Wings of Liberty) and the multiplayer are free to play. If you enjoy that lengthy campaign and want more, just wait for a sale.

Just click on "play free now", you can't miss it. :)
https://starcraft2.com/en-us/

Funny. Doesn't look a day over 19. :)

And it is still as great as ever. Well perhaps a little monotonous at times, especially after the campaign variety of SC2. Actually a bit too much variety if I'm honest :P Would've liked a few more 'standard' rts levels in it.

Definitely going to give the remaster a try, but the time commitment to finish the game again puts me off a little bit. At least for now.

Oh! Good old Blizz... gladly we still could play your old games for another 20 years...

The first "episode" was free, or is it still free? That's how I got it, but as said, I stopped playing in disgust.

Maybe I should then just put the difficulty to the easiest and just run through the game, but now that people say that even its story is bollocks, I don't see the point of doing that either. So it wouldn't be either challenging nor interesting for me to play.

I've finished the main campaign (not the expansion pack) of Warcraft 3 once, and frankly I don't even recall how its story-telling differed from Starcraft's... Do you mean there were more triggered story-events within the missions themselves?

If so, I actually prefer the way Starcraft did it. I kinda dislike it how "newer" RTS games, including Age of Empires 3, have lots of triggered story-events within the mission. To me they just interfere with the natural flow of the game, so I guess I prefer the story is mainly told between the missions, and/or when important objectives are reached within a mission (which is what Starcraft also did quite often, IIRC; the story was not told _only_ between missions).

It was not necessarily that I thought the pure story in Starcraft was somehow exceptionally good, like if it was written into a book or something. It was also how you were slowly introduced into each race's lore and "internal logic" while you played their campaigns. Like, when you start playing the Terran campaign, Zergs just seem like some mindless violent monster race, while Protoss are just some mystic aliens from elsewhere.

Then you start playing the Zerg campaign and keep learning about their hive culture, what they believe in etc. And finally when the Protoss campaign starts, you are fully introduced into how noble but hierarchic they are, their internal struggles etc. (I personally thought the Terran campaign was the least interesting, both for its lore and gameplay.)

For comparison, I really don't remember much of the Warcraft 3 story. I faintly recall the different races, but less what their exact lore were, what were the internal struggles and their relations to other races, etc. I have a faint recollection that I found the "orc campaign" most interesting story-wise.

It just seems I found the Wacraft 3 story and lore far less interesting than Starcraft's.

But now to sauna, bye for now.

Who didn't? :(

Bunkers with turrets, the Betamax of Starcraft II choices.