Rediscovering StarCraft: Six Mods for this Classic RTS

Time to mod-up and revisit Starcraft, an RTS legend that has aged like a fine terran wine over the years since you first played this game. This classic game maybe blowing out eleven candles on its cake this year but you would never know this RTS game was advanced in age. Mod support for Starcraft has been slowing down lately, but people are still adding to this game every day.

Blizzard has recently announced that Starcraft II is on the way and this will certainly get Starcraft's mod-community working overtime and give them a welcome boost of energy. Until Blizzard actually ships Starcraft II for you to play with, why not spend a little time playing a few of the best mods for the original Starcraft, to get yourself in the mood for the new adventure.

Aeon of the Hawk is a five map adventure by designer Metathrom for StarCraft fanatics and takes place in and near the Terran colony planet of Athlys III. Aeon of the Hawk was developed in 2004 to be an extreme challenge and similar in many respects to the extremely challenging Flame Knives (read the section below for information on Flame Knives). Aeon of the Hawk is an adventure for the gamer who loves a great story, with loads of graphical additions and well-written dialogue with funny and entertaining references to Star Trek and the first StarCraft adventures. Bring your A-game though, this addition is one of the hardest I've tried, and I rate if as expert level. All the ground scenarios are intense wars of endless action, with you desperately trying to fight off waves of enemies.

Brood War Artificial Intelligence Project is recommended for StarCraft fanatics who are tired of beating-up on computer generated opponents. The home-made version 3.1 includes nine of the top gamer-designed AI scripts for StarCraft and Brood War, as well as a useful program to help you get the mod up and running. Once these mods are up and running, the Zerg, Protoss, and Terrans start to get a lot more intelligent and their choices become a lot harder to predict. These mods make the old maps that you played until you lost interest, now seem new and entertaining again. You can also try out the tutorials available at the mod designers website on how to make your own AI scripts.

The Shadow of Space has only been available for StarCraft fanatics for a little while and is recommended for gamers who haven't played StarCraft before or very little. The first scenarios are simple and begin by introducing you to a few concepts at a time and then build up in complexity and size as you learn. This game takes place in a different universe than the one in the original StarCraft and is a complete change from the one you remember. The Shadow of Space takes place during a war between two human empires called the Thies and the Zeards. The ten missions included have you interacting with zeard treachery involving renegade Protoss and nasty Zerg and only start to get challenging near the end of the mod.

A need-to-play StarCraft mod for any fanatic, Gundam Century is an unofficial adaptation of a popular Japanese anime series featuring great-big-robots. Designer Stuart Ng built this mod around the concept of modifying the groups involved in the game from the Terrans and Protoss to the Earth Federation and Neo Zion factions of the Universal Century Gundam timelines. In Gundam Century the buildings and units have been changed to Gundam-style, along with their skills and appearances, but with the same old StarCraft fun.

This epic StarCraft mod is a huge adventure by Metathrom that takes place on 14 large and well-designed maps. Flame Knives: Special Edition was added in 2004 and includes new dialogue for the characters, additional sound effects, new unit graphics, and spectacular cut scenes. The action takes place around a story line that involves the forgotten history of the Protoss, so you'll be playing the part of these aliens or the nasty Zerg, but the fun is the same. Environments include tight canyons on icy planets, deep space atmospheres, and the new tilesets make these new settings feel new and inventive. A very challenging and difficult mod to undertake, this mod is recommended for the expert level gamer.

Legacy of the Confederation is a three-part, 28-mission StarCraft mod that's the best of the mods played. A gripping tale that was even better than Brood War, this mod takes you down a different road than the official expansion, so gamers who have played Brood War can forget about Brood War and be entertained by a story about the Terran Confederation's war to rid the universe of all Zerg scum. The missions are devious and well balanced, art design has stayed close to the original look, and outstanding voice-acting an audible effects have improved the sound quality.