Review by: Pete Hines
Published: June 28, 1998

You are about to read of one of the most brief game descriptions I’ve ever had to write. Insurrection, an add-on for Starcraft created by Aztech, isn’t anything other than “more.” It’s simply more campaigns, more missions, and more multiplayer maps. You won’t find additional heroes, new units, or any else of the kind. Accordingly, the scope of the expansion is really left up to what the creators were able to do using the campaign editor and a little imagination.

When you install the game you have a choice of which of the three campaigns you would like to install, as well as the multiplayer maps. You can also choose to install everything at once if you wish. Once you install Insurrection you are basically done with the CD, because you need to use the Starcraft CD to play. This also means that all of the original music and game FX are still present. Except, of course, for the voice FX that were added in with the new campaign mission briefings and for the in-game triggers when heroes speak.

The game features three new campaigns, each with 10 missions that are woven together by a storyline. While none of them is really intended to continue the story in Starcraft (that’s reserved for the Starcraft: Brood Wars expansion by Blizzard) they do generally follow in the same vein. The Terrans can’t seem to get along, the Zerg want to eliminate the Terrans and stop the advance of the Protoss, and the Protoss just want everyone out of the way. The campaigns are set up to be played one after the other, like in Starcraft. However, all of the individual campaign missions can be found in the folder so you can not only jump around between campaigns, but can play any of the 30 missions anytime you like.

There are also 102 new multiplayer maps that range in size and scope. The number of players included can range from 2-8 and may have any combination of human and computer opponents. If you just want to play some different single player missions for practice, you can choose the Melee mode and go up against as many computer opponents as you’d like on the multiplayer maps. You’ll find that the maps offer a number of different challenges that are grouped into several categories. There’s a number of variations that play with resource amounts and locations, which essentially force combat in early stages.

Also, many of the maps offer interesting strategical challenges because of the way they are set up. Emil and I played a number of them and noticed the common theme of locating players in a position that is either unaccessable by ground units, or accessible through only one location. The big question to answer is whether a bunch more maps and missions does an expansion make. This is especially pertinent because unlike some games (e.g., Dark Reign, Total Annihilation), the campaign editor was released with the original version of the game and therefore numerous missions and maps were available from the Web almost immediately.