Take Red Alert and multiply it by 50 and you get the best selling RTS to this day.
Starcraft(SC) dates back to 1998. When Blizzard brought another one of their infamous online games to the fans with tons of gameplay opportunities. Diablo was first on their list. Starcraft exploded in sales the day it was released. RTS stands for Real Time Strategy. Which is like a giant war in the palm of your hand, literally.
Starcraft is a game that involves three very powerful races. The Terran(humans), Protoss(aliens) and the Zerg(bugs). There's a few movies that kind of relate to this in some ways. Like Alien or Starship Troopers. But Starcraft is all about strategy and tricking your opponents(tricking the CPU is a little tougher). You duke it out on dozens of pre-set maps with any race you want. All you have to do is conquer. Heck, you can make your own maps if you're skilled enough. And UMS, which I'll get into later.
Starcraft really turned into something else when Broodwar came out. This was an expansion of Starcraft. It added 3 new storyline single player missions for each race. Continued on from the original 3. And there are new units for each race as well, which really change the way you play the game. Stats are tinkered with, especially if you play online. There used to be lots of updates, but now it's all compressed into one. If you played offline for a number of years, the updates will be a big notice, but they're for the better.
Gameplay - 10/10
I'm not even sure where to start. Starcraft is just so indepth it's godly. Each race, each and every unit and spell is so nicely equalled out. No race is superior over another. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. It's all about how YOU play. And mastering this game is near impossible. I mean, even to this day Starcraft is still the most popular RTS game there is. And people actually make a living playing at Tournaments believe it or not.
Where to start with Starcraft is simple, single player campaign. By starting off with the Terran your first couple of missions will be kind like boot camp. You'll learn how things work, how to build units and what not. Mine crystal and gas and attack enemies. After a couple missions you'll actually get involved in the dirty work. The thing with missions though is you're restricted to a certain tech level. It increases as you play more missions so don't be discouraged if you can't use a Battlecruiser to rain destruction on the first mission.
Outside of missions, the gameplay really falls into online. If you don't have online, god I pity you. Sure you can play computers in up to 8 on 8 action, but against players is where the real competition comes in. You start off with a basic command center and a few miners to get going. As you play the objective is to increase your money count, build an army and take out your enemies. Sounds simple, no? Wrong. You might think you have a bad ass defense one minute, but then suddenly an invisible unit is killing your men! Oh no, you forget to have a missile turret or an observer to locate them with! Yes, one single unit can completely cause mayhem on your plans. As messed as that is, it's your fault for not being prepared, haha.
Each race is balanced in ground and air units. Along with defense. Units are upgradable until level 3. Attack strength and armor level increase each time. A team with lvl 3 upgrades compared to lvl 1 is a HUGE difference. Don't plan on lvl 1 surviving unless they have huge numbers in their army. Some units have special abilities as well. Take the Ghost for example. He's a special ops guy. He can lockdown mechanical units and prevent them from doing anything for a given period of time. He can also cloak himself from harm and launch the dreaded Nuclear Missile. This is easily the most powerful weapon in the game. But it's not impossible to prevent it. You just have to be prepared. Ghosts are weak and if found, take less then a second to kill with a strong unit. Just hope that red dot doesn't disappear before you kill him or run for the hills.
There isn't really a restriction to where you can build, except obviously water, cliffs and some built in ground oddities. If you've ever played Red Alert or Command & Conquer, Starcraft is somewhat similar in this aspect. Gameplay as well, but very different overall. The terrains range from grasslands, wastelands, snow, desert, space and a few others. There's lots of unique features with every map. You could almost create your own history of a map just from it's layout. It's pretty interesting.
Oh and did I mention you can create maps earlier? Oh yes, that's right. When you've played this game for a while, map making sounds really fun about now. Rig a map in your favor and have the ultimate base with a perfect defense. I mean, who wouldn't want that? There can be up to 8 teams on a map and you can make some huge maps. Up to 256x256. Which literally takes the fastest units a couple minutes to cross. This is like a large scale war. And the cool thing about Starcraft is nothing is ever "paused" in the game, everything goes on at once. And it can be quite tedious to control everything, give new commands and build more units at the same time. This is one thing most people have difficulty at. Computers have no slowdown on this. This is why they suck.
Map creation isn't limited to just vs. maps either. You can create missions or UMS(user made scenarios) which literally can be anything your imagination can dream up. You can change every aspect. Unit names, their stats, what their limits on upgrades and abilities are. Make up events to happen at certain times, create whole new games inside of Starcraft itself. You name it, you can probably do it. It might take a while to "learn" it though, have fun!
Now online is where Starcraft really starts cookin. From here you can literally join games made by hundreds of other players. Ranging from 1v1, comp stomps, UMS or ladder matches. You can also chit chat on Battle.net(the server SC takes place on) with thousands of players. This game is almost 10 years old and there's still a quarter of a million people on the server at peak times of the day. Which is astounding. Just think of it, 250,000 people on B.net. Playing one of a few games. SC probably being the most popular.
When you start going against other players, your skill you thought you so finely honed in offline play, will now look like newbie play when you go against experienced players. They'll definitely teach you a few things about strategy and it's real good to stick with this for a while to get used to the new way you'll be playing for the rest of your gamin time. Make friends, create teams, dominate opponents, keep a record and strut your skills!
Controls - 9/10
I'm usually not a fan of computer games, but Starcraft is birds eye view AND you can do everything from the mouse if you wanted. Most of the unit moving around and selecting units involves the mouse. Shortcuts to quick build stuff or jump from one spot on the map to another is what the keyboard is for. Or creating groups to quickly send troops one way and another batch from another location. All together Starcraft utilizes the keys very well and makes it quite easy to play.
Storyline - 9/10
The storyline is very impressive. Starcraft is like a world of it's own. The single player campaigns is where it's all it. And playing them in sequence won't confuse you down the road if you get BroodWar before playing the original first 3 campaigns. It may seem weird to play each race at a time, but as you play all 3, the past events in the other missions will make sense as you continue on. The objectives range vastly from utterly destroying the bad guys, keeping someone safe to massing an army for a future mission. They really test your skills, as strategy is a MUST to completing these missions.
Graphics - 8/10
As old as Starcraft is, the graphics are pretty damn impressive. I mean, nothing compared to Xbox360 games or something, but for such a large scale game, it works out damn great. With literally an infinite amount of action going on in game, you can imagine how messy it might get with graphics or frame rate. However this isn't the case at all. If you have a fairly decent computer, it'll run fine. And games that can do this is pretty dang rare. That's a lot of action going on! Oh, the blood and guts are great too. Gotta love that blood, mmmm.
Sound - 9/10
Every unit has like, 5-8 different unique things they say. It's pretty cool. Double clicking on them gets them to say something interesting or funny. It'll keep you entertained if you get bored in a mission or in game waiting for something to happen. There's practically a voice for everything you do. Whenever you select units, there's a voice. When you start missions, there's voices. When you get attacked, you know it. Even a damn Nuke has it's own warning!(thank god it does) All in all, you're bound to find a few things the units say a good laugh. *cough*Observer*cough*
Replay Value - 10/10
There is no end to this games fun. You can play it forever. With online capabilities and thousands of people to game against, not to mention the amount of UMS games people have created is just insane. You have all the missions to beat, maybe some CHEATS to figure out for your offline enjoyment and 3 different races to master! Heck, become good enough and engage in tournaments to make some cash. Who knows, maybe you can make a living from playing a video game. And maybe I'll see you online someday. ;)