Two Minutes of Cinematic Goodness by Blizzard.

Anyone still remember their first encounter with Starcraft? Roughly ten years ago, I’m surprised at how vividly I remember it. Coming from a person that sometimes struggles with “five days ago”, it only adds testament to how significant this game was for a generation who first ran into it in their hormonally imbalanced puberty years.

Nineteen Ninety Eight, Price Club Costco. It looked a lot like the current SNR we have over in the Fort. Exchange the first couple of rows after the medicine isle into two low level tables. Boxed software still common, the tables would be jam packed. Stacks side stacks of Flight Simulators, Encyclopedias (whatever happen to those?), typical skim through content, spare the rare Mechwarrior. It was all very boring until the day happened.

Black and blue, the cover had this shiny gloss, textured to the extent that it almost felt embossed. A velcro dot, held the cover closed. From the perspective of a kid who felt mortified after stealing a Legacy of Kain demo CD “left” on the grocery magazine racks, even opening it was a step too far for my then goody-two-shoes. But eff though, older people were having at it, and curiosity eventually got the best of.

A blue faced alien, sans of features. It, he, was flanked by a scarier one, and an oogle-eyed man in armor. Into the cover spread, and the first thing in my head, past the awe, was.. “This isn’t anything like Command and Conquer.” Out of all the game play pegs on the spread, I remember a particular one catching my eye. A row of marines firing volleys at what looked like a map wide purple surge of Zerglings (more flood like than anything). The entire packaged worked to great effect, as I didn’t make it to the next door Toy’s R Us that day. No Beast Wars pick up that week, or for the next couple of weeks, if I remember correctly.

For a preteen me, pimples on my forehead, sucking at pull-ups and dumbfounded by this thing called girls, Starcraft was it. At a stage in my life where seemed under my control, the satisfaction of being able to Reaver Drop on some suckass on Battle.net told me there was. Just follow the build order, and everything will be alright.

P.S. Do watch the Wings of Liberty Trailer (above) in 720p. It’s mandatory.