‘Starcraft’: the hardest game ever

The sheer amount of micro and macro actions required to play Starcraft at a high level is almost incomprehensible.

I started playing “Starcraft” in hopes of gaining some extra brain cells and perhaps even more agile hands. I soon realized that the only organ that got bigger through playing “Starcraft” was my heart, through increased blood pressure.

The game of “Starcraft” has three main races — Protoss, Zerg and Terran — that each specialize in one aspect of the game. Protoss creates high-tech units armed with energy cannons to eviscerate their opponents. Zerg creates hordes of cheap units that they swarm your bases and army with. Terran creates guns, and if that doesn’t work, they make more guns.

“Starcraft” can be broken down into two “simple” components. First is macro. In order to macro well, players must balance the expansion of their economy with the creation of new units perfectly. Without a strong macro, you’ll be stuck using two zerglings (the weakest unit) against an opponent armed with maxed out stats and a big ball of death that will roll over all your bases.

The second is micro. It’s all about controlling units to evade enemies and outposition them. Microing is not about controlling just one unit to weave in and out of enemy range — it’s about maintaining perfect control on each of your 30 units while still flanking and surrounding opponents from behind. Microing at any sort of acceptable level requires at least four hands, which sadly I do not possess.

Trying to manage the construction of units while disembodied voices scream “Your units are under attack!” is like trying to juggle six flaming bowling pins while dodging flying knives. Look away from your units for two seconds, and an energy ball of doom from a Protoss reaver demolishes all your marines. Look away from your production for five seconds (so you can not lose your entire army) and suddenly your opponent has 20 more units than you and three extra bases.

Another thing is the pathing. Since “Starcraft” is an incredibly old game, none of the units have proper pathfinding. This means that a newly produced Thor could get stuck on a stick that’s in the way. And then, when another Thor is produced, it gets stuck on the same stick. Then the enemy arrives and you’re stuck wondering when your Thors will finally arrive, unaware of the hidden menace of the stick.

Thankfully, though, you can blame everything on how overpowered Protoss is. Lost against a player since you didn’t do anything for the first 10 minutes? Protoss OP. Walked all your units into lava? Protoss OP. Lost against Terran? Protoss OP.

“Starcraft” is without a doubt, the hardest game ever.

The numbers say it all. Pro gamers get up to 450 actions per minute, which means they press more than 7 buttons per second on average. These button clicks aren’t just moving a champion to the left or right by a pixel in order to look cool. They’re genuine, meaningful clicks designed to outpace their opponents.

While it’s true that overall, the difficulty of competitive video games has increased, it still stands that “Starcraft,” the esport that kickstarted it all, is the hardest.