[JemyM]

Starcraft: Brood War
The is the expansion to one of the most familiar of PC RTS games.
First time played. This mini-review is without nostalgia.
10 years old, have it stood the test of time, or is it simply too old to be enjoyed?

Story
Starcraft had a superb story, well acted characters, plenty of twists that you don't see coming, told through FMV cutscenes between maps or in-game through voiced dialogue. In the story department Brood War doesn't dissappoint. This is even a game that can be enjoyed by people not that familiar to RTS games thanks to the story.
This cannot be stressed enough, Starcraft is a really fleshed out world. Each of the three forces, Terran, Protoss and Zerg is unique to their character.
Terran are the militarized humans, that behave a bit like Starship Troopers. The most known human in Starcraft, Jim Raynor, barely appears in Brood War, instead the campaign have more focus on the "Earth Defence Force", who are something like a semi-villian.
Protoss is an advanced alien race that is very religious. They act with honor, but sometimes act like zealots, and their main unit is even called "zealot".
Zerg is an alien lifeform with a collective mind, somewhat inspired by Alien. Theese aliens have the focus in Brood War, and is lead by the primary villain. I won't spoil who the main villain is here, in case you haven't played Starcraft, but this is one villain to remember.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
Brood War looks exactly like Starcraft did.
The game is 10 years old, with obvious impact on graphics, but it actually doesn't look that bad. The 2d art is well done, the forces are superbly designed and characters have animated portraits. The FMV sequences uses very old 3d software and you can see that they aren't as beautiful as modern blizzard games, but they are still nice.
Sound is excellent. Almost every unit type have unique voice to it, and it's funny to click them many times since they often say funny things if you do.

Gameplay
Starcraft is by my opinion unmatched when it comes to RTS gameplay. Brood War expands this with a couple of new and really useful units. Terran gets medics, which means that troops can finally be healed up to full again if they get hurt. Zerg gets "lurkers" who can dig into the ground and act as a defense, shooting up lethal spikes from the ground. Each race gets flying units specifically used to waste other flying units.

This is a very balanced game and especially the later maps can be quite challenging, still it works great. The final map is insane, it took me 8 hours to complete the damn thing. However, my only real nuisance is that when things get crowded, forces tend to get stuck in eachother and behind buildings. This was so annoying that I eventually begun researching transports early on to get stuck forces out from there.

Final Verdict
Starcraft have aged well. Even for a new player, Starcraft is a really great game, in fact, this game is even better than most new titles. Sure, the graphics have aged a bit, but the gameplay and the story is among the best out there.