6 Reasons Why Starcraft is the Manliest Game on Earth

It all comes down to skill. Whether you are into baseball, soccer or archery there are varying factors within the boundaries of the game that determine what a player may do at any given moment. To win is to have a deep understanding of these factors, being able to exploit them to Your benefit and to do so better than your opponent.

That is skill, and depending on the type of competition/game/sport you are taking part of, the potential for skillfulness (i.e. the amount of things, moves or combinations you can do) can be wide or narrow. This series of posts will explain why the more than a decade old computer game Starcraft: Brood War is the most skillfull form of digital competition that exists, and why that indeed makes it the manliest game of earth.

1) Balance - the key to making an ever-challenging game. This post will explain why Starcraft, more than any other computer game in the world (according to me), is so well suited for professional competition in the same manner as any regular sport. The very same conditions that exist on the soccer field or baseball court - equality between all parties so as to guarantee that only individual skill can give players the upper hand - exist in Starcraft, and here I will tell You why and how.

2) Clarity through graphics - why less is more when things get hardcore. Starcraft does not look like a spring chicken, but that’s because it’s more akin to a Velociraptor. This post will show why the simple, unobtrusive and above all clear graphics of this game are what enable professionals to play Starcraft to the point where it becomes a sport.

3) Professional Korean Starcraft. An introduction to eSports-scene of the Holy Land, with details about the different tournaments and leagues. Raw awesomeness, basically.

4) ‘Foreign’, i.e. semi-pro Starcraft. The rest of the world explained, and why Starcraft outside of South Korea is a unique phenomenon in its own right, which rocks to its very own and special tune.

5) Enjoy Starcraft as a spectator - where and how.

6) The Rebirth of online gaming - Starcraft 2. The Next Step in digital mass entertainment is coming, and The Sequel will set the standard. Read on to find out why.

With this series of post I wish to give any newcomer or returning oldtimer a good understanding of what competitive Starcraft and eSports are, according to me. Based on this information, Polygon reVue aims to dig deeper into these and related topics, and help showing why playing computer games with a vengeance is a cool thing indeed. Lastly, I’d like to put in a sexist disclaimer - when I say that Starcraft is the Manliest Game on Earth, I mean it in the sense of ‘highest possible ability to kick ass’, which certainly is something gender neutral. TossGirl says ‘aye!’

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Tagged as: esports, starcraft

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Zera 10.09.09 at 3:20 pm: I love SC but, in all Honesty:

God of War is the manliest Game on Earth.
2 kneff 10.09.09 at 6:35 pm: Well, I respect your point of view - God of War is damn good game, though I of course consider Starcraft to be just a tad more manly Both are very much worth wasting your time and life, though
3 maps 01.14.10 at 11:13 pm: I think map rotation plays a big role too.

The game wouldn’t be so fun if maps weren’t changed so often. (thanks to Korean tournaments)
4 kneff 01.15.10 at 10:03 am: I absolutely agree - the Korean mapmakers reinvent the balance of the game every season, without that feature Starcraft: Brood War would not have survived half this long. If I remember correctly, Tasteless & Artosis said in some broadcast that since the dawn of Korean progaming up until last year there have been over 250 different maps in use for professional SC. Apparently, though I am less sure of this, the Warcraft 3 scene has had less than fifty, which is not to say that that game is any less good, but that Starcraft has been so strong for so long due to the diversity of new maps several times a year.