Starcraft: Best RTS to Date

For those who don’t know, RTS stands for Real Time Strategy and StarCraft is an old gem. StarCraft was released on windows in 1998 and on mac during 1999. So yeah, it’s old. It was released by Blizzard and comes with unlimited free online play via battle.net.

In the StarCraft universe there are three unique races. This is the biggest reason why StarCraft is the best RTS to date. These three fully playable races are completely balanced. It is all about skill level in this game. You cannot just pick the best team and automatically win. All the teams are balanced and have their own strengths and weaknesses. This is great for online play because it means everyone is not playing the same race, but instead there is a near even distribution of players for each race.

Online play for StarCraft was quite strong for a long time and still is in some locations (such as Korea), however due to the age of the game online play has really dropped off. Never the less, when playing online there are lots of options. You may play games using the standard rules, or you can play Use Map Settings (UMS) maps. These maps are created by the StarCraft playing public for the playing public. Each of these maps has different objectives and altered rules making a unique experience for the gamer. So even after playing Starcraft for hours you can still find something you have NEVER played before.

StarCraft is not only a great multiplayer game, but also a great single player game. The single player campaign has many scenarios each different from the last with priceless cinematic rewards occasionally. I still remember the “I got your Zerg right here” cinematic. The storyline you follow in the single player campaign is amazing, I won’t ruin it for you, but even if you are not going to play the game the story itself would be a worthwhile read.

All these things added together make it clear to me that StarCraft is indeed the Best RTS to date.

Do you disagree? What game do you think should hold the position and why.