Saturday, August 4, 2012

My Broodwar Story

It's been a long time since I last posted here. Been almost a year! This time, I'm going to be emotional, just this once.



The Era ends... on August 4

The game that I had loved for more than a decade is finally closing the curtains. As the successor finally rising at its peak, the legend becomes memories.


While we are waiting for the final showdown between the almighty Toss, Jangbi and the terrorist Terran Fantasy, let's do a time travel... back to the glorious part of Starcraft Broodwar.



I got hooked to the game when I was I think 10-11 years old. My cousin played the game first as an alternative to the boring CnC Red Alert 95 and I find it fascinating because of the cheats(believe me or not, by the time I started I only know "Show me the money"). Since there are three factions: the Protoss, Terran and Zerg, I overlooked the balance of the game thinking that Protoss would be the best to use in that game. I liked how the Protoss came to have quality units and didn't like the Zerg for its creepy appearance and difference in mechanics.

Yeah I find the Carriers amazing at first.

The game itself has a balance on it's own. Before I used to think that Protoss can own Terran while Terran own Zerg then Zerg own Protoss. Then I thought about the boring strategy that I used in Red Alert: defend, camp, produce and attack. It is successful but I find it boring until I played the game and ended up losing about 4 minutes because the AI zerg's early attack. After my first LAN game with somebody, I realized that you've got to think of a strategy.

Art of 4pooling: cheapest way to win

Then I went on a spree on the PC Bangs(internet cafe in our terms) and even was known in our area as "The Starcraft boy" due to knowing all cheats and bringing down most of the ace players. I even thought more on the game than my studies! The term "comsat" in our games actually rose due to me calling those players looking at the other players screen while playing. 

Then online gaming era came to the Philippines. Despite of the majority playing Ragnarok Online and the like, I still sticked with BW due to the level of competitiveness is somewhat different from those games. I realized that I can play BW online and started an account with 12W 49L for the first month(that was in Asia Channel). I even played some custom games on it! 

One of the best Protoss plays ever
When I started watching videos in Youtube that I realize that although BW is an old RTS game, there's still people who loved the game. The first BW video that I saw is Reach owning IloveOov with a Mine Daebak. 

While I was checking other youtube videos, I saw the 2004 pimpest plays #1 Arbiter Reloaded(It was 2005). I ended up not satisfied because it only showcased the end part. So I checked the SCLegacy website and I discovered the existence of TeamLiquid. Since then I watched out the best BW games in my life, discussion on the strategy and "PROGAMING". I even dreamt of being a progamer but my work killed that dream. Since my interest for those gamers namely NaL_rA, Boxer, Reach, Kingdom, Gorush, Yellow, Julyzerg and IloveOov(I thought this player sucks ending up victim by Reach and Boxer, but hell, I was really wrong) 


The younger generationdefinition of Terran, Protoss and Zerg


The time has passed and another era of Broodwar progaming had dominated the scene, the TaekBangLeeSsang era. The younger version of the aforementioned players. These players sparkled the awe of the audience in Korean and international Starcraft fans by dominating the tournaments. I am merely spectator that time due to work and seldom tried playing like these guys but heck, even a local can beat me to it.


I stopped playing after the last PC bang that has BW closed down. Even the SC2 release, I find myself loving the BW. and the passion of the game is still burning, if I get the chance to play the game, i'll enjoy every minute of it.


Today's "Last Starcraft Broodwar" will include the legends, The Emperor Boxer and the Storm Zerg Yellow. Be sure to watch it!