Review on Starcraft and Korea's Obsession over it

    

3. A Review.  You are allowed to review anything you want – a book, movie, video, album, game,  restaurant, hotel…. Just about anything.  You should have personal experience with that thing, and supply factual data to dress up your writing (Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon, IMDB, and Metacritic etc).  React to opposing or supporting reviews that might add to your response.  You must include a rating system.  Stars, thumbs, out of ten or our of five, A- or C+ etc.

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The world is asking Korea; why are Koreans so obsessed with the game Starcraft? Though I’m a Korean myself this is not an easy question to answer. I first met Starcraft when I was 7 and almost grown up with it. It was the first computer game that I ever encountered and if I recall myself playing it, memories of me figuring how to beat missions and computers is what pops up. It was truly an enjoyable game, even for my elementary self. Now I assume most Koreans felt like this when playing Starcraft. But why? How has such a normal game such as Starcraft become so loved in Korea?

           

    The game Starcraft was first published on the ancient year 1998, by Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard is famous for many games such as the Diablo series and Warcraft series but it has not ever gotten a more popular hit than Starcraft. This has to be thanked to Koreans for buying 4.5 million copies of the overall 9 million copies worldwide. At the time of its publish, it was viewed as a overall good game but it wasn’t that special          Here are some reviews given by critics at that time.

Gamers' Temple    96

“One of those rare games that is not overly complex, but provides a challenging and fun gaming experience. It never seems to get old or boring.”

Yahoo! Games  90

“You get a fun, instantly appealing, easy to play-hard to master real-time strategy, with character and an endless amount of playability. “

Cincinnati Enquirer   80

“It won't win any awards for originality, but it's good enough to shrink your nightly sleep to just a couple of hours.”

1. Graphics and technical components   ★☆☆☆☆

           It is possible to understand the popularity at the past but how is Starcraft maintaining its grip over 13 years in Korea? The graphic and technical elements of the game are ancient, 2D isometric screen with low quality graphics and physics engine giving awkwardness, sound play and out of game add-ons from the 90s. Even the entire size of the game file is only about 700 megabytes while today’s games like Call of Duty, Modern warfare 3, going way over 20 gigabytes. I give it  one star for graphics and technical components for this game.


2. Game play   ★★★★★

           While Starcraft carries simple game play and graphics it’s a game where you can fall really deep in. It’s one of the games very easy to learn but much harder to master. Macro strategies combined with small micro controls makes Starcraft very addicting. Starcraft is a game where bad players can hardly beat computers while pro gamers can beat average players 3:1. The more players enjoy this game; they obtain new skills to excel in this game. I think this is the most crucial factor in Starcraft that led to its popularity, very simple game play while having the most complicated skills to master to be good at it. Koreans just loved it even till now. Thus I give it over 5 stars for game play for this game.


3. Influence on Korea   ★★★★★

In 1997 Korea met the IMF foreign exchange crisis and it was in dire need for some economic boom. In 1998 Starcraft just did the job fueling 15thousand jobs and 900 million dollars into the Korean economy. Scattering over 20,000 thousand PC rooms in Korea, now starcraft isn’t just a game but a culture for Koreans. It has gone so far that Starcraft has become a symbol for Korean males, if a Korean male does not know or is unable to play Starcraft he is likely to be teased that he is not a Korean. Pro-gamers, PC-rooms, game leagues giving massive amounts of prize money, these all game from Starcraft. I give it 5 stars for influencing power for the impact it gave to Korean culture.

Here is a Starcraft game play of the famous pro-gamer lim yo hwan.

Starcraft is still growing its power over Korea due to the new Starcraft 2 released in 2010. Starcraft 2 is a 3 part series starting with Wings of Liberty. I have played and is enjoying Wings of Liberty now and look forward for the latter series.

Trailer of Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty