StarCraft Battle Chest - PC/Mac

I love starcraft ever since 1999. This game is a treasure to have and highly recommended to anyone who loves strategy games.

March 31, 1998 is the day that one of the best real-time strategy (RTS) games ever made was published. I pondering on writing this review since this game is so old, so classic, and so well known that whats the point? I then decided I would, because I STILL play this after many, many years, and it is still so enjoyeable.For those who don't know - I will give you a few reasons why you will want to add this to your video game collection, despite its age.1) Your kids will love it. I have 2 younger sons, age 5 and 6, and they love this game. It doesn't contain the same level of gore as many of the new titles. My kids can play this and I am not worried that they will be exposed to any extremely graphic content. How grateful I am for this2) Your old computer will run it! I have 4 PC's currently in my home, ranging from a new and powerful windows 8 laptop to a venerable (6 years old) desktop with Windows XP and a slower dual-core processor. Every computer in my home runs this with ease. I can virtually guarantee yours will too3) Price is hard to beat. Yes - I am one of those "old fashioned" people who pays for video games - even old ones. Newer games, that are not nearly as well made, sell for $50 - $70 on average. This bundle, with both originals and the strategy guide represents a good value, and you can be happy to make legal purchase of software that will provide a great deal of entertainment. You can provide a great game for all your kids without shelling out $200 for multiple copies.4) Spawn. For those who don't know - part of what made this original game so popular was that you could purchase a single copy, and play on up to 4 PC's on your LAN. Good luck finding any new games that allow this. Not even the newer "Starcraft 2" has this option. Bottom line is - one small investment and you can have LAN parties at home with this. Extreme value and great benefit5) Challenge. Yes, even after 15 years this game still provides a reasonable challenge for an experienced RTS player. For those who have played it - you understand. For those who haven't - please beleive me when I say this is an excellent value, even after all these years.6) Finally - if you care for this at all - this set will represent a piece of gaming nostalgia in a few years, I guarantee it. I highly recommend you play this when you get it, but keep the box, the manual, and eveything else in good condition. I search out old Nintendo games now, and it is hard to define the thrill of having pieces of childhood still hanging around. If you played this as a kid when it was new, and enjoyed it, you will understand what I mean. If you didn't - then just take my advice, buy this, and keep it in plastic for the next 10 years. It will be worth much more than you will pay for it here.Thanks for indulging my post on this fantatic game - happy hunting!

I purchased this game within the week it was released. My Dad and Brother, and several friends also purchased it. The Battle Chest gives you the Starcraft Game, Brood War Expansion, and Strategy Guides which I do not rely on. We still have LAN Games even now (in 2006) with it. Some games never fade or get dull. Those Familliar with Warcraft and Warcraft II, this is basically a 'modern' version of that game with 3 Fully Different races (unlike the Warcraft Orcs and Humans where the only differences were the spells), and is a 'space' setting (most games are actually on the surface of a planet however). Those that aren't familliar with it, basically in a nutshell it is a war game where you build up a base, gather resources, create defenses, and build an offense and plan strategies to take out your opponents, while they are also doing the same thing at the same time. You have a single-player mode where you can play through the games detailed story of the 3 races (Terran, Protoss and Zerz), which is very interesting and full of surprises (and continues in full in Brood War too...which adds new units to the game). Multiplayer...well, doubtful that 2 games will ever be the same, as you can play over a LAN (or Battlenet with players worldwide) with up to 8 players in Free For All, Team Play, and even Player vs Computer. The artificial intelligence is better than that of Warcraft II but still once you know what to expect you can predict the computer opponents. Still single-player campaigns can be tough as you are usually quite outnumbered...especially in Brood War.This game also has very low (compared to nowadays) system requirements so can run on just about anything (Mac and Windows PC's and even is updated for MacOS X through versiontracker's website) and is truly a 'family gathering' game as it seems to happen around the Holidays a Lot...LAN Gaming with the family, can't beat that!

Fun game. It's great to play an action, heart pounding game and be done in 10 minutes. And other times, take over a half hour. Multiplayer is interesting with all the speedy maps people like to play. Plenty of players on there still. Unlike diablo ii, I don't see piles of spam messages, so of the two, I prefer this one on battle net.My friend was able to install this on Vista no problem (fully updated and within the last week or so). Trouble was connecting to battle net with a Sprint 3G mobile card on a laptop. After a bunch of trial and error and searching, gave up. If you're on a mobile card and it works, awesome. It didn't work for my friend's Sprint 3G card. Digging through Blizzard forums, another person was having trouble with a mobile card. A blizzard tech wrote back to that user on the forum that they don't support wireless connections. I wonder if any mobile cards work with this game.There are piles of videos on youtube about getting this game to work in windows 7, vista, etc. My friend didn't have to change any settings to get it to run properly in vista. It just installed and was good to go. Battle net even updated but my friend couldn't join or create any games with the mobile card issue. Windows 7, don't know.You get three different armies and it's just fun. Very balanced. Takes strategy and modification of strategy. Lots of different strategies to try and ways to play the game. You're not stuck always having to use one particular approach.You could get both games with starcraft II when that's available if you plan on getting them all. Check starcraft ii in amazon (or on blizzard's site) for more on how that works.