StarCraft

1001 Video Games

StarCraft appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Action figures

The game even spawned a line of action figures from Davidson, including a Terran Marine, Zerg Hydralisk, and Protoss Zealot.

Board game

In 2007, a board game adaptation of this game was released, eventually spawning a Brood War expansion set and small promotional bonuses.

Collector's editions

Blizzard originally released the game in three collector's boxes. Each featured one of the three races in the game: Terran, Protoss, or Zerg. The non-collector's box art now used is the same as the box art for the Protoss box.

Development

• The Terran Dropship, in beta stages, had to land to pickup/dropoff.
• Blizzard originally intended to reuse the WarCraft II engine for StarCraft. In fact, they had a fully playable version with the engine during E3 in 1996. Blizzard has also planned this to be their first game to support Battle.net, their free multiplayer service. However, due to criticism of the game at E3 (most called it "Orcs in Space"), Blizzard decided to start over and completely redesign the game and engine. The game was released 2 years later to widespread acclaim.
• The game's files show that some units found in the Brood War expansion were originally made for the base game (e.g. the Valkyrie was originally a Raider unit), and some indication that the Terran Marines were supposed to be able to throw grenades as well.
• The Zerg were referred to as the "Nightmarish Invaders" in the game's alpha build. Later, this was changed to "Zurg", and then altered to "Zerg" to prevent legal issues stemming from Buzz Lightyear's archenemy of the same name from the movie Toy Story 2.

DVD

Blizzard released the StarCraft widescreen DVD which consists of cinematics from both StarCraft and Brood War, digitally remastered for enhanced picture quality.

The DVD features:

• 36 minutes of digital animation
• Exclusive director's commentary
• Original development artwork and storyboards from the Blizzard Film Department
• Cinematic trailers for StarCraft, Brood War, Diablo II, the Lord of Destruction, and WarCraft III.

As of 2002, it could be bought from Blizzard's online store for $14.95.

Novels

In addition to StarCraft Adventures, a pen-and-paper RPG supplement for Alternity, and some unusual short stories published in Amazing Stories magazine (Revelations (1999), by Chris Metzen and Samuel Moore in issue 596, and Hybrid (2000) by Micky Neilson in issue 601), its rich sci-fi campaign setting has resulted in several StarCraft novels being published through Pocket Books:

• Uprising (2000), by Micky Neilson (an e-book prequel)
• Liberty's Crusade (2001), by Jeff Grubb
• Shadow of the Xel'Naga (2001), by Gabriel Mesta
• Speed of Darkness (2002), by Tracy Hickman
• Queen of Blades (2006), by Aaron Rosenberg
• Ghost: Nova (2006), by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Observer

StarCraft is very well known for its UMS (Use Maps Settings) scripted maps. Over the years, one map has taken a 'cult' status and is being played daily on Battle.net by a huge amount of people. "Observer Madness", a fairly simple concept, but extremely hard to master! The "dodgers" as they call themselves, are all gathering in 2 Battle.net channels, one "Observer" on US-East server and one "a2848" on Asia server. They even made a shrine for the map here: http://kickme.to/ob-mad There are said to be over 50 known versions to Observer Madness! and more are being made on regular basis.

Operation C.W.A.L.

A group named Operation C.W.A.L. (Can't Wait Any Longer) emerged on the Starcraft Pilot's Lounge Forum in late 1997. This group filled the forum with stories of the fight between Blizzard and themselves to gain the release of StarCraft. Blizzard enjoyed the fan interaction so much then thanked Operation C.W.A.L. in the manual and used their name in a cheat code.

Rating

The original ESRB rating given to StarCraft was Mature. This was shown on the three collector's edition boxes. However, the game's rating was later moved down to Teen, which is what is now found on all the standard edition boxes.

References

• As is tradition for Blizzard's strategy games, humorous quotes can be heard when clicking on a single unit repeatedly.
  • Protoss Observer transmits the voice of Adria the Witch and Griswold the Blacksmith from Diablo. It also plays a fictional German-language ad for WarCraft IV.
  • The dropship pilot's responses are modeled after the lines from the dropship pilot in the movie Aliens.
  • The terran Goliath pilot says some lines from Robocop's ED-209 (which points the similarities in the unit's design and Robocop's ED).
  • A common move quote of the Science Vessel is an exact imitation of "eeeexcellent" by Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.
• The cheat code "there is no cow level" actually refers to the Diablo rumor which stated that one could access a secret level through a cow, the inclusion of this code was the most explicit claim made by Blizzard in denial of this rumor (despite one actually existing in Diablo II).
• The "Medieval Man" cheat code found in StarCraft is a reference to the "I'm a Medieval Man" track from WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal.
• StarCraft contains many references to popular movies or books:
  • A Terran Wraith hero in the Enslavers missions called Tom Kazansky. Lt Tom Kazansky played by Val Kilmer is one of main characters in the movie Top Gun.
  • There is also a Terran Firebat hero called Gui Montag. It is a reference to Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451.
  • Zerg Overlord hero Yggdrasill is named after a computer in the Japanese anime movie Oh My Goddess.

Sales

As of 2000 StarCraft still sold in the top 10, 2 years after its release.

Space

StarCraft is one of the first computer games to have ever physically made it into space. It was sent aboard Shuttle mission STS-96 on May 27, 1999 by Mission Specialist Daniel T. Barry, who is also a StarCraft fan. Another game that made an early voyage into into space was Twigger.

South Korea

StarCraft has become a national phenomenon in South Korea. The game has become so popular there, that it is found on bags of food items (such as potato chips), sticker sheets, backpacks, phone cards, and even in Korean music videos. South Korea makes up the largest portion of the multiplayer fanbase in the world, surpassing even the United States.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • April 1999 (Issue #177) – Best Strategy Game of the Year
  • June 2000 (Issue #191) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • March 2001 (Issue #200) - #4 Best Game of All Time (Editors' Choice)
  • March 2001 (Issue #200) - "#6 Best Game of All Time (Readers' Choice)
• Game Informer
  • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #98 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" Poll
• GameSpot
  • 2010 - "All-Time Greatest Game Villain" (for Kerrigan; users' voting). She defeated Darth Vader in the Final, with 60% of the votes. After being selected by the GameSpot staff as one of the 54 villains to make it directly into the First Round, her other "victims" were Gruntilda (with 77.9%) in the First Round, the Pac-Man Ghosts (57.8%) in the Second Round, Sweet Tooth (67.1%) in the Last Sixteen, Bowser (51.8%) in the Quarterfinals, and The Joker (55.2%) in the Semifinals.
• GameSpy
  • 2001 – #9 Top Game of All Time
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/2008 - One of the "10 Coolest Levels" (for "New Gettysburg" because a plot point within this level proves how StarCraft uses a simple concept and script attacks to be more dramatic than other strategy games with FMV video sequences.)
• IGN
  • 2009 - #16 in the "Top 25 PC Games" list
  • 2010 - #17 in the "Top 10 Videogame Villains" classification (for Kerrigan)
• PC Gamer
  • April 2000 - #2 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" Poll
  • October 2001 - #6 on the "Top 50 Games of All Time" List
  • April 2005 - #7 on the "50 Best Games of All Time" List
  • February 2011 - #86 in the "Top 100 Best PC Games of All Time" list
• PC Powerplay (Germany)
  • Issue 11/2005 - #1 Game Which Absolutely Needs A Sequel (it eventually got one in 2010)
• Origin Award
  • 1998 - Best Strategy Computer Game *The Strong National Museum of Play
  • 2021 – Introduced into the World Video Game Hall of Fame

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Ajan, CaptainCanuck, Cavalary, Chris Martin, enigma, Entorphane, kbmb, Itay Shahar, MAT, Maw, Michael Reznick, PCGamer77, Pseudo_Intellectual, Warlock, WildKard and Zovni.