When playing a game, performance issues cannot be ignored. The game requires(minimum) a Pentium 90, 16 MB RAM, SVGA Video Card and a Quad-Speed cd-rom drive(for cinematics). We tested the game using a K5-133 with 32 MB RAM, an SVGA Video card, and a 16X cd-rom drive. Except for the loading before the game, there was never really any slowdown(lag) in the game.

Blizzard did a good job in making their music and sound effects so good, that it really makes the player feel the game. The screaming of the attacking Zerglings, the rude voice of the vulture pilot and the spine-chilling chants of the Archon are all in stereo.. Though they have the one of the greatest cinematics(cut scenes) we've seen, the graphics in the actual game was quite disappointing . It would have been pretty good if Microsoft's Age of Empires(AOE) had not been released months earlier. Compared to the crisp and detailed graphics of AOE, it

was a bit dark and blurred to look at and the lacked the "clarity & crispness" which made AOE a hit. However, they did a pretty good job in making their graphics look fairly good in a relatively low resolution(640x480).

Will gameplay compensate for SC's relatively low resoultion?

If you'd like proof try playing Age of Empires or Red Alert using this resolution. Game performance may have been the main priority of Blizzard here. The new 3D panels too, were pretty good to look at. When we started the game, it wasn't quite as intuitive as it seemed

to be(maybe because we've been playing AOE too much). After two whole hours of experimenting we finally got its "feel", and started playing seriously. We started playing the campaigns( 3 of them, 10 missions each), their storyline was very good plus they had very impressive mission briefings( speech and video included ). But one thing that frustrated us was that it was outrageously difficult. Missions reminded us of Warcraft 2's Dark Portal. Sometimes we had to repeat a mission several times. Finally after two weeks we finally finished the whole game. After that we tried the custom game, as expected it was harder than the campaigns. We frantically looked for difficulty settings and to our dismay found none. We had no choice, we had to step up and try to beat the computer(we never really did, ...for now). So if you really are planning to buy this game be prepared for a really good challenge. After all isn't that what computer gaming about? Searching for the Ultimate Challenge. This may prove to be one of the most challenging games ever. With outstanding sound and music, superior gameplay and concept , challenging AI opponents and fair graphics this definitely is a game you wouldn't want to miss playing. And with its free access to Battle.Net you will never run out of opponents to battle with.