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StarCraft II
57%
Imagine a game of chess. Now, imagine playing five chess games at the same time, as fast as you can. That would only scratch the surface of the skills you need to play StarCraft. When StarCraft came out, in 1998, it became one of the highest-selling PC games ever made, and it set a high bar for the real-time strategy genre as a whole. By the time the sequel arrived a decade later, StarCraft had become a professional sport in South Korea. Here, as in the original, Terrans (human space explorers) are locked in battle with two alien races: the Protoss and the Zerg. StarCraft II sees to it that you have fun regardless of your skill level, so even if you've never touched the original — or any other RTS game — you shouldn't be intimidated. Does the feel Firefly-meets-Mass-Effect atmosphere feel cliched? A bit. Blizzard has honed the mechanics of the strategy genre, and StarCraft II's graphics are most impressive, but the developers haven't managed to make us care about their characters as much as the resource management. There must be a way to re-create the intrigue and suspense of a complex, multi-faceted war without resorting to cookie-cutter sci-fi caricatures and tacked-on cutscenes between each mission. Then again, people don't play chess to look at the pretty pieces, so perhaps it's fitting that StarCraft's story should take a back seat to the gameplay. READ MORE: Review: StarCraft II, by Maddy Myers
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