Taste-Test: StarCraft: Ghost

Okay, I admit it. I’m a shooter/RTS freak. Can’t get enough of either. So when I determined StarCraft: Ghost would be playable on the E3 floor, naturally I called dibs. If those guys at the demo station before me didn’t get out of the way when I threw a few elbows, well, it’s their fault for having crap reflexes.

First, some backstory: you play as Nova, a female Terran Special Forces elite psionic soldier, or “Ghost”. Armed with a canister rifle, pistol, special Psi and Ghost abilities, and a wonderfully form-fitting jumpsuit that should sell a few extra units, you must follow the orders of your handlers as you investigate into the presence of a psychic reagent known as Terrazine Gas. The gas is a chemical that has drawn the attention of not just other Terrans, but the rest of the StarCraft universe’s race family – the Zerg and the Protoss.

Okay, time now for the actual hands-on stuff. The level I played had me sent to a Terran refinery that Terrazine was not only suspected to be present, but minions of the Zerg as well. Moving about, two things were very apparent to me almost immediately. For starters, the control scheme was very intuitive – move with the analog stick, aim with the C-stick, shoot with the right trigger, duck with the left, A, B, X, and Y control reloading, weapon changes, jumps, and other such as-needed actions, while the D-pad controls Nova’s psionic abilities. Regrettably, there was little to no chance to really try these out given the run-and-gun style of combat mandated in fighting the Zerg, though according to reports from Blizzard sources, they’ll be life-and-death when going up against the telepathic Protoss.

What came next was the graphics. Nihilistic did a fantastic job with the scaling, turning a world known only from a top-down RTS view into a believable third-person shooter. Zerglings are no longer just little critters but fleshed-out beasts with lots of teeth that can come out of absolutely nowhere. However, it didn’t stop me from remarking on how…cartoony everything looked. The environment, the Zerg, everything looked like it stepped out of something Disney put together for after-school. Even Nova’s hair had this kind of blocky nature I’ve only seen in Jax (?) games. Now, this is a problem and it isn’t. It isn’t, in that the quality of the work done by Nihilistic is very good, the graphics are pretty. However, any veterans of the original StarCraft – like me – that were expecting the same kind of graphical gritty realism that is Blizzard’s calling card will be sadly disappointed.

The overall mechanics of the game were pleasing, though. Keeping in line with the oft-lamented “Zerg Rush” mentality, you’ll be able to pop off one shot at a Zergling one-on-one before it goes running looking for friends. Early on in the level, it wouldn’t find many, if at all. However, later on in the guts of the refinery, it would be rare to walk through the pipes and sludge and not trip across three to five of them coming at you all at once. Little touches with Nova don’t go unnoticed as well – things like, when activating a switch or some other control in gun mode, Nova will not lower her weapon, rather triggering the control with a solid kick. Fitting for a special operative, you know?

Blizzard promises much more than was shown in the demo – from the Lockdown and Cloak powers given to Ghosts in the original StarCraft game and more, to even better landscapes when Nova infiltrates Zerg colonies and the Protoss homeworld. I can only hope because going on just the demo, there’s nothing really significant to set Ghost apart from the other third-person shooters out there.

Mike Twomey