It was nearly eight years ago that I began playing Starcraft with my brother Pete in my apartment in Jersey City, NJ. I had been a fan of Warcraft II, but wasn’t particularly interested in Starcraft because it seemed to lack the humor and cartoon style of the Warcraft series. My brother was visiting from PA and we decided to stay in that night and give it a try. Incidentally, this was also the night I tried my first gin and tonic….

We played for hours and hours. Once I heard the machine gun chorus of my first assembly of Marines tearing into the putrid flesh of a Zergling, I was hooked. Few games have satisfied me more than the massive carnage of each mission’s final assault as I mopped every corner of the map with my troops until nothing was left of my enemy but rubble. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that Blizzard’s sense of humor was intact and was in fact even funnier when set against the melodramatic seriousness of Starcraft’s story and characters.

I remember the thrill of switching to the Zerg after I had gotten tired of playing as a human and how different the gameplay was. The same was true when switching to the Protoss, though they would become the reason why I put the game away without beating it. The Protoss were clunky and difficult to maneuver, especially those Goddamn Dragoons! When pit against the Zerg I felt like a cow in a river of piranha. Frustrated, I put the game away and moved on.

Now eight years later I definitely feel a sense of satisfaction in finally bringing this great game to its conclusion. The last few missions that had haunted me for so long were really not that bad, though they took a long ass time to complete. The final board was an epic that had me controlling both Protoss and Terran bases simultaneously as I maxed out my troop allowance for each race in preparation for the showdown with the Overmind. I attacked it with 24 Zealots, 12 dragoons, 6 scouts, 9 Carriers, 12 Firebats, 12 Marines, 12 Wraiths, and 11 Battlecruisers all in one blow. Chaos insued…

I think if I had tried to do this eight years ago on my second hand Pentium it would have shot blood out of its floppy drive.

Thank you Winter Games 2007!

Now, I’d like to do something different and add another game to my list before beating all five. I have a single player game in progress for Star Trek: Elite Force and would hate to beat the game and not have it count for anything!