Starcraft: Ghost

• Platform: Xbox, Playstation 2
• Published by: Blizzard Entertainment
• Developed by: Blizzard Console
• Release Date: Early 2006
• Genre: Action
• Multiplayer: Yes
• Online: Yes

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Trailers and Footage

Starcraft: Ghost Preview Continued..

Starcraft: Ghost Multiplayer

Blizzard's big bombshell about the game's multiplayer component is that players would not only be able to play as the Terrans but also as the Zerg or the Protoss. Unfortunately, the Protoss were not playable at the event, but the Zerg were and they presented some interesting gameplay opportunities in an action game setting. There were two modes on display: Mobile Conflict and Invasion. Invasion has two teams, red and blue, with each attempting to capture a series of nodes and finally the opponent's base. It works somewhat like similar modes found in other team-based multiplayer games; players must hold a node for a certain amount of time to capture it, and cannot capture nodes unless their team already controls the adjacent one. Mobile Conflict is sort of an insane version of Capture the Flag. Each team starts out at its own base and attempts to gain control of a floating Terran factory hovering above the middle of the map; the factory must them be piloted back to one team's base, where it will start earning points for that team.

Each side has four classes available. Starcraft players should be familiar with all of them except the newly-added Infantry unit. Terran players choose among those Infantry, lightly armored mechanics who can build powerful turret guns and pilot vehicles; Marines, heavily armored soldiers with grenades and medium-range firepower; Firebats, heavily armored troops with short-range flamethrowers and two kinds of guided rockets; and, of course, Ghosts, lightly armored stealth troops equipped with a sniper rifle and a cloaking device who can pilot vehicles, steal vehicles, and Lockdown (disable) enemy machinery. The Firebats' two rocket launchers deserve special mention for being a lot of fun to use. One is laser-guided, and it operates basically like the rocket launcher in a Half-Life game: after firing the projectile, the targeting reticule is used to remotely direct it. The other is remote-guided, and after it is fired the camera switches to a first-person view from the rocket's perspective, where it is player-controlled until it explodes. Blizzard had a video on display of somebody guiding the rocket around incredibly tight corners through a labyrinthine base, eventually resulting in a fatal explosion in the face of a camping guard. Impressive stuff, but I sure couldn't pull it off.

On the Zerg end of things, the units are much more geared to close combat, which is interesting for a game of this type. Most of the Zerg units also regenerate health over time, which helps make up for their comparitive lack of abilities against the Terrans. We've got Zerglings, small, lightly armored, fast units with the ability to burrow underground and no ranged attack; Hydralisks, large medium armored units with a damage-over-time ranged attack, powerful close combat abilities, and the ability to burrow; Infested Marines, Zergified Terrans with a medium range damage-over-time rifle and a suicide explosion ability; and, most surprisingly, Mutalisks, flying units with a ranged attack and the ability to snatch enemies off the ground and absorb their health.

At first glance, it seems that the classes basically scale up linearly in desirability, but after a few rounds it becomes clear that this is not the case. It greatly depends on the mission being fought and more specifically on the specific situation your team is trying to deal with at any given moment. In addition, certain missions require the player to start with the "lowest-tier" unit type and move up after racking up a certain number of points. Terran players must die and respawn in order to change class, whereas Zerg players can do it on the fly due to their mutation abilities.

The Invasion match took place in a sealed-off valley, with what looks like an ancient temple in the middle of the field. The demo event pitted Terran against Zerg, and players were required to start as either an Infantry unit or a Zergling. I played games as both sides, and it was a lot of fun both ways. Blizzard claims to have tried as much as possible to make the game feel true to its Starcraft roots, and in a node-based game like Invasion, that larger scale war-like feeling did come through. Both sides by necessity had to attack in coordinated groups, since nodes must be captured sequentially, and the feeling of participating in a wave of swarming Zerglings overcoming a Terran waypoint is probably exactly what Blizzard and Swingin' Ape were going for. The Hydralisks are appropriately huge, dwarfing the bulky Marines, and the Mutalisk, while a bit difficult to control, is pretty rewarding for those moments when you actually manage to grab some unsuspecting enemy.

By killing enemy units and capturing nodes, players earn more points with which to purchase the different unit types. However, the stationary guns constructed by Terran Infantry are so effective against the lightly armored Zerg, especially in the early part of the game when most of the Zerg units are Zerglings, that many players will opt to simply stick with them for a while. The mode is a lot of fun but it does currently seem to be suffering from balance issues, a sentiment shared by other showgoers with whom I spoke. Playing as the Terrans often felt a bit too easy at times, with the aforementioned turret guns as well as the Firebats' incredibly destructive dual flamethrowers, which can torch more than a few Zerglings at a time. With such disparate play styles between the factions, balance is bound to be an issue, but it's also something Blizzard is traditionally known for, so I'm fairly confident they'll be able to hammer out those kinks before release.

Turn the page to hear about the Mobile Conflict scenario.

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