StarCraft: Brood War

StarCraft: Brood War
Front cover of the StarCraft: Brood War installation CD
Developer(s)	Saffire Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)	NA Blizzard Entertainment PAL Sierra Entertainment
Designer(s)	Rob Pardo (lead designer) Chris Metzen (senior designer) Peter Underwood (technical artist) Matt Samia (cinematic director)
Platform(s)	Mac OS, Mac OS X, Windows
Release	NA November 30, 1998 PAL March, 1999
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

StarCraft: Brood War is an expansion pack released in 1998 for StarCraft — an award winning real-time strategy computer game. It was co-developed by Saffire and Blizzard Entertainment. The expansion pack introduced new campaigns with new map tilesets and new music, in addition to a numbero of extra units for each race along with several upgrade advancements. The campaigns continue the story from where the original StarCraft ended, with the sequel StarCraft II continuing from after the conclusion of Brood War.

Nine million copies of StarCraft and Brood War have been sold since its release, making it the third best-selling computer game in history (behind The Sims and The Sims 2). It is especially popular in South Korea, where professional players and teams participate in matches, earn sponsorships, and compete in televised matches.

Gameplay

The developers of the game stated they designed the levels with the consideration that players had defeated the original StarCraft without cheats. One Gamespot editor commented, "much must be complimented on the brilliance of the game but even veteran players will assume the levels to be near impossible to beat". The missions are no longer straight-forward and a greater deal of strategy must be placed in every tactic one uses. Enemy waves are now even smarter and use tactics more often and quite effectively. Unit costs and abilities were fine-tuned so that not only were "rushes" no longer practical, they were also discouraged in favor of combined forces of different units. Despite the difficulty, it generously extends gameplay and prepares players for online play.

Like StarCraft, an exemplar campaign - Enslavers II: Dark Vengeance - showcasing the methods of creating a custom campaign for Brood War is available. However, it is not included in the release and must be downloaded separately from Battle.net.

The expansion pack introduced several new units to the game for each species. Each race was given an air-to-air attack unit and a ground unit with unique abilities: the Terrans acquired a combat medic, the Zerg were given a unit capable of attacking whilst burrowed and the Protoss were allowed to produce the specialist dark templar units from the original game and to use these to create an archon with special abilities.

Story

Plot

Episode IV

Following Tassadar's sacrifice, the Zerg on Aiur are in disarray, but still bent on their genocidal rampage. Except for some Protoss forces, commanded by Captain Raynor and Praetor Fenix, who stay on Aiur, the player, as Protoss Executor, helps Prelate Zeratul, Judicator Aldaris, and Praetor Artanis to lead the Khalai survivors' retreat to Shakuras, the secret homeworld of the Dark Templar, by using an interdimensional Warp Gate. However, despite the efforts of Raynor and Fenix, who close the gate, the Protoss are followed there by the Zerg. The Protoss leaders meet the Dark Templar Matriarch, Raszagal, who tells them of an ancient Xel'Naga Temple which can scour the Zerg from Shakuras. After scouring the Temple grounds of two Cerebrates, the Protoss reluctantly join forces with Sarah Kerrigan, who claims that she is no longer under control of the Zerg, but that a new Overmind is growing on Char. Kerrigan asks for their help to kill it before it reaches maturity. However, Zeratul decides to retrieve the Uraj and Khalis, two ancient crystals infused with the powers of the pure Templar and Dark Templar respectively, which must be recovered to channel the energies of the Temple. The two crystals are discovered and the Overmind is crippled to slow its development. During the battles, a Terran fleet from the distant United Earth Directorate intervenes, and Aldaris, troubled by their alliance with the Queen of Blades and Raszagal's trust in her, gathers supporters from the Khalai refugees from Aiur and declares an uprising against the Executor's forces and the Dark Templar. As he is about to reveal why he staged the rebellion when confronted by Artanis and Zeratul, Kerrigan assassinates him and she is banished from Shakuras. The two crystals are then joined in the Xel'Naga Temple on Shakuras by Zeratul and Artanis, and the Executor holds off the Zerg forces while Artanis and Zeratul channel the temple's energies. Once all the Protoss forces are inside the temple, the two energies fuse and destroy all Zerg on the planet, thus saving Shakuras.

Episode V

The player joins the United Earth Directorate (UED) Expeditionary Fleet as the Captain, assigned to storm the Terran Dominion as well as take control of the Zerg in the sector to eliminate the Protoss, but their high-handed actions quickly make enemies of all the various Terran and Protoss factions as well. During an assault against a Dominion base on Braxis, Lieutenant Samir Duran appears, claiming to be leader of a Terran Confederacy remnant opposed to the Dominion and offers his services, becoming a special advisor to the UED. They also discover the Psi Disruptor on Tarsonis, a powerful device that can disrupt the Zerg's communications and would prove vital in the upcoming conflict with the Zerg as well as a source of conflict between the leaders of the UED. The UED then proceeds to lay siege on Korhal, the throne world of the Dominion and routed its forces in a decisive victory. However, Raynor manages to rescue Arcturus Mengsk in the capital city of Augustgrad before he could be captured by the UED, and they both escape to Aiur where a small Protoss force commanded by him and Fenix were still fighting against the remainder of the Zerg invasion. The UED follows them to the planet but is unable to track them as they escape through the Protoss Warp Gate, their plans sabotaged by Duran, in truth a double agent secretly working for Kerrigan. Though divided by the intrigues of Duran, who turns the unsuspecting DuGalle against Stukov and subsequently assassinates the Vice Admiral, the UED succeeds in capturing and enslaving the new Overmind using the Psi Disruptor, which was secretly preserved by Stukov's agents in spite of Duran's attempts to manipulate DuGalle into destroying it, and gain control of the majority of the Zerg swarms. The expedition force then sends a message back home, claiming the Overmind was planning an invasion of Earth and that Stukov sacrificed himself.

Episode VI

With the UED controlling the most of the Zerg Broods, Kerrigan is severely threatened. She acquires the services of the Cerebrate (the player) by severing its connection from the young Overmind and its renegade brethren, and directs its minions to protect her main Hive Clusters on Tarsonis from rampant Zerg as a result of the Psi Disruptor's signals. Afterwards, she turns to bigger plans. By painting herself as a victim and the combined Zerg-UED as the greater enemy (and through the judicious use of threats and hostages), Kerrigan and Duran gain the reluctant assistance of Mengsk and his scattered Terran Dominion and the Protoss forces that had stayed in Aiur led by Raynor and Fenix. This alliance manages to destroy the UED's Psi Disrupter on Tarsonis. After its destruction, and a resource raid by Fenix, Kerrigan begins her assault on Augustgrad, to liberate Korhal from the UED, as an apparent deal with Mengsk. But shortly after the victory she turns on her "allies" in a sudden ambush, resulting in the deaths of Fenix and General Edmund Duke. Mengsk is left to rule his shattered Dominion without Duke's aid, and Raynor assures Kerrigan he'll be the man who kills her, and leaves following the death of Fenix. After being harassed by the UED-controlled Zerg broods on Tarsonis again, Kerrigan's forces travel to the Dark Templar homeworld of Shakuras and manage to capture Raszagal. With the Matriarch as a prisoner, Kerrigan manipulates Zeratul to help her slay the Overmind controlled by the UED. The Overmind is killed by Zeratul's brethren, and Kerrigan gains complete control of the Zerg. Upon the Overmind's demise it is discovered that Raszagal was somehow under the influence of Kerrigan (presumably psionic mind control), even before Kerrigan's arrival on Shakuras, and was Kerrigan's mere puppet the entire time (something Aldaris had suspected before he was killed by Kerrigan). Zeratul is forced to kill his own Matriarch after the Zerg foiled his attempt to spirit her back to Shakuras via dimensional recall, lest she lives on as the Queen of Blades' slave. In her dying moment, a redeemed Raszagal names Zeratul as the new leader of the Dark Templar. Kerrigan surprisingly allows him to leave Char alive, claiming that she derives sadistic pleasure from watching Zeratul live on in perpetual guilt. After all these events, Kerrigan's Cerebrate defeats the Protoss, UED, and Dominion fleets in a single epic battle on the orbital platform above Char, Kerrigan's new base of operations. She notably singles out the UED for total annihilation, and her Zerg Broods overtake the remainder of the retreating UED fleet bound for Earth, shortly after Admiral DuGalle sends his message of truth to his wife Helena and then commits suicide in his cabin. Mengsk returns to Korhal to rebuild the scattered remains of his Dominion. Artanis and the survivors of his fleet return to Shakuras to rebuild "their once glorious civilization". Zeratul and Raynor went their separate ways and none have ever seen them. The Zerg under the Queen of Blades is now the dominant power in the Koprulu Sector. Yet the all-powerful Kerrigan feels that there is a greater threat looming on the horizon.

Prior to the climactic battle of this campaign, Samir Duran mysteriously vanishes, much to Kerrigan's annoyance. Unbeknownst to her, but revealed to the player in the secret level "Dark Origins", Duran's alliance with Kerrigan was yet another of his deceptions. Secretly, Duran had been conducting experiments on creating viable Zerg-Protoss Hybrids at installations scattered across the sector. Duran is discovered by Zeratul and ends up revealing that he is in fact working for an as-yet unnamed force. He warns Zeratul that the hybrid he discovered is only one of many, and they will bring about the end of the current order.

Reception

StarCraft: Brood War universally received very positive reviews for the new units, multiplayer maps, and "near-endless online play". Brood War was originally released in 1998, and to this day, tens of thousands of players still play it worldwide.

External links

• The official StarCraft: Brood War site at Blizzard Entertainment.
• The StarCraft Compendium on Battle.net