🚀 go-pugleaf

"Spork" <no@no.com> wrote 
> is starcraft still the best rts game out there? 

I don't want to look like a troll, I'm just a honest lurker...

Of course the question ultimately boils down to a matter of tastes. I
greatly admire Blizzard in general and SC in particular, but I think
there are other games out there which at least reveal directions in
which SC could be significantly improved (in SC2 we hope?). Most are
really quite obvious; it's just a matter of the point in time when SC
was released.

1) Graphics. From a *merely technical* point of view, I think there's
little doubt that Age of Kings, Empire Earth, Homeworld and others
have superior graphics than SC. The guys at Blizzard have done the
best they could, and more, given the technical limitation provided by
the low resolution. I think the closest games to SC in this respect
are some of the Command and Conquer series (I recently bought Red
Alert 2 platinum and the graphics style immediately made me think
Starcraft). They have proven more skill than anyone else (IMO of
course) in the "artistic" department. Still SC runs in low resolution,
and is nowhere as detailed, or smoothly animated as AoK.

2) Skirmish. Once you've done SC's campaigns (which are by far the
best I've seen insofar in a RTS), and if you cannot or won't go
multiplayer, SC is ready to be put back into your shelf. AFAIK, it is
almost impossible to play a "random map" or "skirmish" game. Maps are
finite in number and playing against the computer AI is too strong,
bordering on the "impossible to beat". On the other hand, in EE, and
most notably AoK, you can set up a virtually infinite number of widely
different games in random-generated maps that range from islands,
highlands, to the jungle (in AoK: the Conquerors expansion).

3) Scenarios. I don't think SC has a scenario editor, but even if it
has, it is definitely nowhere good as that of Empire Earth. Whether
you really need a scenario editor depends on much the same things as
whether you need a skirmish mode.

4) Micro- and macro-management. AoK, and most notably EE, have greatly
improved on a number of issues which caused an enjoyable (for me)
shift in focus from micro- to macro-management. The list of good ideas
found in those games is simply too long to be discussed in detail, and
there is definitely a great deal of those ideas that I really miss
when I play SC (although, once again, SC was itself quite ahead of its
times in this respect and better, for example, than Age of Empires
(1st), which I think came after SC or more or less at the same time).

5) Richer techno trees. I'm not one who thinks that a game should be
as complicated as possible. Anyway, the richer technological trees of
AoK and most notably, once again, EE, actually open new strategic
dimensions. EE is especially interesting in this respect in the sense
that a collection of "researches" (actually termed "training" of
units) are, more or less, mutually exclusive. So you get to choose
whether you want, for example, your infantry to be stronger in attack,
or move faster, or stronger in defense, etc.; you cannot have it all.
Choosing the right upgrades depending on the actual situation, or
balancing upgrades for different kind of units, poses very interesting
strategical problems.

Of course, SC has also many strenghts on its part, and has in fact
proven to be one of the games that better stood the test of time. The
balancing between widely different races is simply incredible. Yet
*my* personal favorite is, as for now, Empire Earth (followed by AoK
and then SC). (And although I only mentioned those three, I've played
many other RTSs, so a third position is a good one!).

MC