by:	June 08, 2005

Story: It has been four years since the Brood War Conflict ended within the ravaged Koprulu Sector. In that time, Sarah Kerrigan, the self-styled Queen of Blades, has become the undisputed ruler of the zerg Swarm - and the most powerful entity in the galaxy. Emperor Arcturus Mengsk, Kerrigan's sworn enemy, has rebuilt much of his Terran Dominion and consolidated a new military force despite the ever-present threat of the zerg.

Hands On: I sat down with StarCraft Ghost, I played 20 minutes of the game. I played after another player stopped the demo, and I picked it up where he left it off. I battled a few creatures, and roamed a little to see the scenery of the level. I also battled a big mini boss of sorts.

Gameplay: You use two analog sticks in this game, just as other first person shooters, but this time, you will be using more than one button for occasions such as a busy war, or a boss battle. One of the most notable features of the game is the psi powers, where you will need to acquire psi energy in order to use Nova.

There are three Nova abilities:

Cloak: I’ve seen this in action before playing, it looks like you’ll have some stealth missions, in the demo, I saw the character turn invisible for a short while. I haven’t gotten the chance to use this ability, but from what I saw, it’s effective for sneaking through the enemies.

Speed: This is one ability you will be using more often then the cloak ability. It allows you to go into “bullet-time” slow motion vision (the game blurs for this ability), but you’re actually running faster than the enemy, this means that you will be able to dodge the bullets, projectile attacks, and more. If you want to dodge the enemy fire, and at the same time, shoot, you will be able to. I found this feature to be the most intriqing part of the game.

Vision: If You’ve seen a lot of Sci-Fi movies, or at least played Red Faction, Metroid Prime series, or other Sci-Fi first person shooters, you will know what this vision is. I’ve used this ability once or twice, but you will use this for every room you finished searching, and aiming to search the next room. You can use it when you have enough psi energy in your disposal. There is no restrictions as to where you can use it, unless from my observations, you enter a building disabling any psi powers.

In this vision, the whole screen goes pitch black, but the only thing that aren’t pitch black are the enemies themselves, and yourself. The vision allows you to see who, or what is behind the walls.

You play in third person perspective, rather than a first person shooter, as the game controls like. You will roam the game into a technical – filled with techy machines across the rooms, and corridors – they’re a graphical feat, kinda like Metroid Prime, but a bit more polygons here and there.

Speaking of weapons, In the demo I played at E3, I’ve only gotten to use one weapon, the Gauss Rifle. In addition to using psi energy towards Nova Abilities, you can use psi energy towards these weapons. I didn’t get to see how the psi energy worked on weapons, but from what I could gather up, I was able to observe that you could use the psi energy towards more ammunition, or upgradable powers of the weapons.

Overall, I feel like this could be a hit title; the controls make you feel like you’re part of the game, at least that’s what it did for me. Ghost made feel like I want to play more. I guess what I am trying to say is that StarCraft Ghost immersed me into the game just like the StarCraft series has immersed millions.

For more information on StarCraft Ghost, read about our previous preview of the game.

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