I've never been an RTS man myself. I've always preferred games where you shoot dudes, not games where you tell people to shoot dudes. However all the footage of the Starcraft 2 beta has me seriously considering getting a rig and investing some serious time into it when it comes out, but  since I've never played starcraft before I thought it would be a good idea to try out the original before some Korean guy makes me cry.  
 
First off the opening CG movie has well...dated, I guess I just had to be there in the late 90s to appreciate it. I went straight into the Terran campaign and found the gameplay very easy to pick up despite me having little to no experience with RTS's before, the HUD layout and controls are perfect, plus the graphics have a timeless style that still looks good. 
 
Now the downside, the AI for path finding is awful. The AI gets confused by simple rocks or obstacles that I have to click several times in order for them to navigate a path correctly. Jim Raynor died stupidly because of this; he got rushed by many aliens so I franticly click to get him to drive away back to my army, only for him to go in the opposite direction :@. The lack of variable dialog can get annoying too, I've only been playing for an hour and I'm already sick and tired of the marines saying the same 3 pieces of dialog. 
 
I am enjoying Starcraft but I feel I will enjoy the newer more technically advanced sequel more when it comes out.

I've never been an RTS man myself. I've always preferred games where you shoot dudes, not games where you tell people to shoot dudes. However all the footage of the Starcraft 2 beta has me seriously considering getting a rig and investing some serious time into it when it comes out, but  since I've never played starcraft before I thought it would be a good idea to try out the original before some Korean guy makes me cry.  
 
First off the opening CG movie has well...dated, I guess I just had to be there in the late 90s to appreciate it. I went straight into the Terran campaign and found the gameplay very easy to pick up despite me having little to no experience with RTS's before, the HUD layout and controls are perfect, plus the graphics have a timeless style that still looks good. 
 
Now the downside, the AI for path finding is awful. The AI gets confused by simple rocks or obstacles that I have to click several times in order for them to navigate a path correctly. Jim Raynor died stupidly because of this; he got rushed by many aliens so I franticly click to get him to drive away back to my army, only for him to go in the opposite direction :@. The lack of variable dialog can get annoying too, I've only been playing for an hour and I'm already sick and tired of the marines saying the same 3 pieces of dialog. 
 
I am enjoying Starcraft but I feel I will enjoy the newer more technically advanced sequel more when it comes out.

Eventually, after much brainwashing, the lack of variable dialog becomes the best part. It's been... what... twelve years since I started playing, and I still love the siege tanks and their, "I'm about to drop the hammer!"
 
Jimmy Raynor never dies. He's just missing in action.

i wanted to play starcraft for a long time now. only played it once at a cousin's house and it was cool, but i  prefer shooting dudes.  
 
your impressions were good to read. i personally find dated games to be well, obviously old feeling but still having a charm. 

This is Jimmy.

" This is Jimmy. "

READY TO ROLL OUT!

You wanna piece of me boy?

" @august said:

" This is Jimmy. "

YES JIMMY I KNOW, IT'S WHY I CLICKED ON YOU! "

My biggest gripe is that the User Interface is actually limiting your strategic capabilities >.<
No MBS to make it easier to create loads of units, no selecting multiple types of mobs and tabbing through em with ease, only 12 units per selection (have fun as a zerg :-P) and the dreaded pathing that demands micro so you don't have half your army left down the ramp.

When you've played StarCraft 2 (or watched a lot of replays because you're not in the beta *cough*) you'll realize all of these things are actually fixed! Pathing is superb, you could even make the claim that it is INTELLIGENT.

Yea, helps soooo much to play a game when it first came out.  I pulled SC out when I heard SC2 was announced.  I thought over all it held up great.  Yea some of those opening videos are pretty ugly now, but they were not back then.  The game still plays as good or better then alot of new RTS games, great atmosphere, great story, great chars.  Ive prob played threw the main game 5-6x, and expansion 4-5x since 1998 and enjoy it every time. It is one of the top 10 best games of all time easy.