StarCraft: Difference between revisions

...and several tie-in novels and books. There's also a board game, which was released October 2007.

 

 

''StarCraft'' was one of the first games to become popularly used in professional gaming competitions, [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|particularly in South Korea]], where ''StarCraft'' matches are played out ''in sports arenas (occasionally jumbo jet hangers), with [[Serious Business|giant televisions displaying the action and simulcast on nationwide networks!]]''

** Note that some strains of Zerg are actually derived from various species that the Swarm encountered and consumed throughout the Galaxy. The Hydralisks were once the herbivorous Slothien herd animals, the Mutalisks were Mantis Screamers, and the Leviathans used to be peaceful [[Space Whale|Space Whales]].

* [[Bug War]]

* [[Crapsack World|Crapsack Universe]]: The individual factions all suck one way or the other, the only genuinely nice, trustworthy people are the individuals with no real power.

** Terrans act somewhat like locusts, moving from world to world to drain the resources and most of their standing military consists of mind-controlled convicts. Of their governments, the Confederacy was corrupt to its core, the Dominion is slightly better but compensates with its Emperor's extreme narcissism, and the UED are [[A Nazi By Any Other Name|Space Nazis]].

*** The lesser governments are the Kel-Morian Combine and the Umojan Protectorate. The Kel-Morian Combine has been compared to massive criminal organization, and is said to practice slavery. The Umojan Protecorate is apparently the only good government, but it is undeveloped and supposedly has a large spy network.

** The Zerg want to achieve perfection... by absorbing every other being they encounter, until they're the only race left.

* [[Critical Existence Failure]]

** Zerg are Subversive, with lots of small, fast, weak units suitable for a [[Zerg Rush]], all the [[Suicide Attack|Suicide Attackers]], and lots of [[Body Horror]], [[Hollywood Acid]] and [[Combat Tentacles]]. Their structures must be built on "[[Meat Moss|Creep]]" and result in the consumption of the [[Worker Unit]] used to build them (it [[Organic Technology|grows into the building]]), but all Zerg units and buildings have [[Regenerating Health]] and will heal [[From a Single Cell]], and the other two races can't build on creeped territory. Where a few Terran and Protoss units have [[Invisibility Cloak|Invisibility Cloaks]], almost ''all'' Zerg ground units can [[Wall Master|"burrow" underground]], allowing them to ambush, recon and heal. Finally, because of the way Zerg build units<ref>The other two races can only build one unit at a time from their production facilities, and each facility is limited to a single style of unit: barracks can't make airplanes, for instance, and airports can't make soldiers. The Zerg have only one facility that can build ''any'' type of unit currently available, ''three at a time''</ref>, they can develop their resource operations a ''lot'' faster than the other two races, rarely [[You Require More Vespene Gas|Requiring More Vespene Gas]], and can generate new armies at an instant, in case there's been a [[Total Party Kill]] or you've found some [[Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors]] openings to exploit.

** Protoss are Powerhouse, focusing on an [[Elite Army]] of expensive-but-powerful soldiers. They have impressive [[Psychic Powers|psionic powers]] which they have combined with technology ([[Magitech|psytech?]]), the best [[Squishy Wizard|Squishy Wizards]] in the franchise, and some units which are completely-automated robots. They have [[Deflector Shield|Deflector Shields]] which regenerate over time, supplementing their already-high [[Hit Points]]. All Protoss buildings must be built near a "[[Construct Additional Pylons|Pylon]]." They can't be built outside a Pylon's radius, and they stop functioning if all nearby Pylons are destroyed. Pylons also raise your [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]]. [[Weaksauce Weakness|They are the Protoss' least-durable building.]] Having said that, the [[Worker Unit]] simply opens a [[Portal Door]] (through which the building teleports) and then can wander off to do other things, instead of having to stay temporarily (Terran) or permanently (Zerg), so it's relatively easy to plunk down a whole new batch of Pylons if things go south.

* [[Fantastic Rank System]]: The Protoss have a different rank structure, though only three ranks are ever mentioned in the original game:

** Praetor: Probably close to an Army Captain, Fenix held this rank.

** Prelate: The Dark Templar equivalent of either Praetor or Executor. Zeratul was addressed as such in ''Brood War''.

** ''[[Starcraft II (Video Game)|Starcraft II]]'' introduces cosmetic ranks for any standard unit based on number of kills. For Protoss, 0-4 kills is a Disciple, 5-9 is a Mentor, 10-14 an Instructor, 15-19 a Master, and 20+ an Executor. Zerg equivalents are Predator, Slayer, Ravager Assassin and Metamorph, and while hardly fantastic, for the sake of completion, Terran get Recruit, Corporal, Sergeant, Captain, Commander.

** The Protoss and Terrans have FTL Warp drives, while the Zerg Overmind can use its ''massive'' [[Psychic Powers]] to tear [[Our Wormholes Are Different|warp rifts]] in spacetime.

** Protoss have near-instantaneous precision warps, to the point that their buildings, infantry and ships are not "built" but are warped in from their homeworld or automated factories. Protoss soldiers even have armor that teleports them out when they are gravely wounded in battle.

* [[Fog of War]]

* [[From a Single Cell|From A Single HP]]: '''All''' Zerg units and buildings will recover, if not killed, eventually.

* [[Future Slang]]: The novels introduce "fekk" as a curse word.

** Of course, 'feck' is contemporary British slang.

* [[The Remnant]]: The Confederacy just won't seem to go away after being defeated by Mengsk. The UED still has pockets of forces left behind in the sector. Groups of both go to work as mercenaries. The novels also mention other rebel groups that fought the Confederacy separately...and then went right on to fight the Dominion, since it wasn't any improvement.

* [[The Republic]]: The Umojan Protectorate, which of all the major Terran states seems to be the only one that's consistently "good".

** Justified for the Protoss, who warp in their structures and units already constructed from somewhere else.

** Justified for the Terrans; all their buildings are prefabricated, and Starcraft II's better animations show that the SCV is operating an assembly armature that is included in the building kit, rather than welding the whole thing together by hand.

* [[Schedule Slip]]: Anytime Blizzard issues a release date for a full game.

** The novel ''Starcraft: Ghost: Spectres'' has been delayed so long and for so many times, it's aping the [[Vaporware]] game it's based on.

* [[Sequel Hook]]: Dark Origin. Which is notable due to the level being a unlockable secret. Unless you finished the previous mission within a certain amount of time, the player would never learn about the plot.

* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story]]: By the end of ''Brood War'', {{spoiler|the Confederacy was replaced by the equally rotten Terran Dominion, which was then devastated by the UED and the Kerrigan. The Zerg invaded Auir, were stopped, but killed virtually the whole population first. The Protoss evacuated to Shakuras, but were still devastated and lost their leaders. The UED conquered the sector, but were defeated and wiped out by Kerrigan. The Zerg created a second Overmind (virtually undoing Tassadar's sacrifice), which was then killed. In the end, Kerrigan is the ruler of the sector, and the heroes have been defeated in virtually every way}}.

* [[Shows Damage]]: Type 2 example to buildings.

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism]]: Quickly veers to the cynical side and keeps going until it becomes downright depressing.

* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: Everything explodes. This is most obvious with the zerg, in that killing their living buildings results in the building splattering spectactularly in a shower of blood.

* [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]: The Xel'Naga in the [[Backstory]]. Also, the Protoss ''appear'' to be this at first.

* [[Suspiciously Small Army]]: Rampant, in quite a few missions your enemies have very small armies, or at least small armies that you see. The later missions have larger bases with more troops, but you're still not going to be seeing enemy forces number in the thousands like you would expect from an actual army.

* [[Sweet Home Alabama]]: The Terrans. To the point where a cover of said song appears in ''[[Starcraft II (Video Game)|Starcraft II]]''.