I'm not much of a gamer. (Unless, of course, you ask M. -- I'm sure she'd tell you that any bit is more than enough.) I'll occasionally go through a phase in which I'll pick up the current generation of consoles and buy the big hits. But my attention span is pretty short with these things -- I tend to get bored playing a single-player game unless the game design is extremely compelling. (For example, the last three games I played through to the end were The Legend of Zelda, Wind Walker, Super Mario 64, and, um... Super Mario Bros?)
But my all-time favorite gaming experiences were with real-time strategy games like Warcraft II. I liked the challenge of competing against a human rather than an AI. More so with strategy games than with first person shooters, though -- multiplayer Halo and old-school Marathon were fun, but eventually the charm wore off. I prefer a game of chess or go over a deathmatch, I guess. Also, the current generation of games seems to emphasize online matchmaking over playing against people you actually know. Personally I'd prefer to be able to sit down after a strategy game and talk about the match, rather than simply pull up a new anonymous opponent. (I don't play online chess or Go for the same reason, unless it is pre-arranged against someone I know.)
What got me thinking about this was this article on the original Starcraft in 1UPs Crucial Classics series. The article reminded me how much I actually liked playing against real people. I'm sure that the newer generation of RTS games (does Warcraft III count as newer generation?) introduce new and exciting features, I'm afraid that I don't particularly need new or exciting features. In fact, I'm not sure I need that many features at all. I'm more in it for the tactical challenge -- not so much for the control and screen management challenge. More like chess, only with sound effects.
Anyway, the point being that Amazon is selling Starcraft and expansion pack bundle for $20, and I'm sure you can find it used somewhere for a tenth of that. Although I believe you need a valid, unused key to play on Battle.net., so it might be worth just buying a new copy. And I'm willing to bet it will run on my PowerBook, given that the game was originally released in 1998...
So, a game of Starcraft sometime, then? It's frequently considered one of the top 10 games ever made -- I'd like to remind myself why that is. And, quite likely, to prove that it still is better than almost any other game made in the last five years. Write me or comment if you're up for it. I figure I'll have an hour to play sometime next week. (Hmm, that might be why I don't do this much...)
And not that I expect a huge response to this post anyway, but Blizzard's Starcraft site has a link to a downloadable demo of the game if you just want to try it out.
[Image copyright Blizzard, no doubt.]