Let me fill you in on one of the great, breakout game sagas of our time. It defined a "console era" of bad music, bad (broken) consoles and bad ists. It showed us that even boastful s could humble themselves to accomplish something of merit. And THEN, after all that other , it made me step back and look at Starcraft as even better than before. And I definitely don’t do that too often. Ok, maybe I do that too much actually. Meh, who the hell cares, just read the review…

As you SHOULD know, the PC game "Starcraft" as well as "Starcraft: Broodwar" come with a "Map Editor" program that allows you to tweak the Starcraft game engine? in various ways. The editor itself allows players to create their own missions and make fun variations of Starcraft to their hearts content. So, when you combine the editor with Tom’s initiative, you end up with "The Tar Pits Saga". I’m sure this took a long time with all the "triggers" and such so let’s give Tom a hand. His unfaltering resolve allowed him to figuratively grapple with the map editor "beast", put it into a cheap ass stranglehold and then beat out an awesome 5 part series. And speaking of the map editor, this only adds to the many reasons why Starcraft is my favorite game of all time. But enough about how much I like Starcraft (I will review it sooner or later)… Let’s dive into this daunting "Tar Pits" review and I’ll try to get you "stuck" on it’s up and coming legacy.

This first mission of the Tar Pits series has no plot. There are no mission briefings or mission objectives present meaning that you need an outside source to tell you what to create and kill to complete the mission. I had to rely on Tom's tips and orders to know what to do when we first played. Luckily I'll tell players what to do in this review. Now I'm sure your're asking why in Sam Hill you have to put up with this in a game but I'll tell you that this adds to the "vintage" gameplay of the first Tar Pits. If you're still mad about this minor problem you have to realize that I'm sure Tom "wanted" to have a mission breifing and objective screen. I'm guessing that these "minor" exemptions were caused by (A) Tom forgetting to put them in, (B) Tom not knowing how to put them in or even (C) Tom not wanting them in the game for some reason be it pure laziness or budget concerns. Whatever the reason, I recommend either utilizing my exclusive coverage to ease your frustration or to grin, bear it and pass it off as "vintageness" like I do.

The missions that make up the Tar Pits series are all meant to be played with 4 people. Tom himself created the player slots with the legendary names of "Tom", "SCP", "Tim" and "Dobro". Each slot has it's own heroes that change from mission to mission. In some missions, if your character dies, you fail the mission. This can really amp up the difficulty level and happens to be present in The first Tar Pits. At the beginning of the mission you and your allies appear with a commando force of units. You'll have to use your dark archons to capture a drone or scv to create a base and use your limited number of units to gain a foothold and protect your base in the enemy choked area. To win the mission you'll have to save at least one of your dark archons to capture a drone and create a hive. Actually, the only way to obtain a victory is for every player to have created a hive. There are also 12 factories as well as a "Transmuter" which must be destroyed for a victory. This road to victory is an additive process which calls for every objective to be completed. Once again, you'll notice that these seemingly unrelated and strange objectives do not tie into a "plot". I guess just try use your imagination and make up a "fun" story in your head... Hopefully, Tom will go back and create a story and add to the maps' greatness "wink" "wink"...

The layout of this mission consists of a central island surrounded on all sides by tar. These tar "rivers" branch out to the far corners of the map. The 4 playable characters start position is located in the upper-right area of the map. Enemy bases surround the area around the starting location. The 12 factories that you'll need to destroy to win are scattered randomly throughout the map. The "Transmuter", whatever the hell that is, is located on the middle island with an elite cadre of guards. The only problem with the layout of this mission is the fact that the map is extremely large, making it hard to quickly move from enemy base to base. The map size also makes it hard to find the imperative factories which need to be destroyed for victory.

In this mission, it's kind of hard to find anything new since this is the first mission of the saga. For the reviews' sake I'll keep innovation up and just focus on the original idea of Tar Pits. I think Tom came up with Tar Pits idea by randomly creating a map and seeing the tar on the map. Seeing the tar probably caused him to think of the name, "Tar Pits". Not very exciting... Hopefully Tom can comment more on the making of Tar Pits and dissuade the ors in an exclusive interview set up by myself. Tom really gyped us by not including a plot so I have to take down the innovation score a little bit on this one. I will say that the original idea and creation of this masterpiece really adds to the score though.

The Tar Pits series is well-known for being hard and the first mission sets the standard. It's makes for a hard play when you have to gain a foothold in the enemy bases while trying to protect your hero and dark archons. After you've accomplished this feat you'll have to defend against some really ed off opponents. Tom set the difficulty of the enemies on the map to "insane". I have yet to encounter a Tar Pits mission with the intensity shown by the comps in the first mission even though Tom has set his later maps to insane difficulty. Something about this map really sets the comps on the warpath. The difficulty bar is also raised in this map when you have to find, which is hard enough by itself, and destroy the 12 factories needed for victory. Tom created the map so that the enemies value some areas higher making it very hard to destroy the 2 factories as well as the Transmuter on the middle island of the map. The Transmuter itself was totally covered with enemy units when we finally got around to taking it out. We attacked with at least 3 teams of battlecuisers and were turned back. Then Tom left and me and SCP somehow destroyed the middle and every factory. This map is the single hardest starcraft map I've ever played and we should definitely applaud Tom for this feat.