StarCraft: Ghost


 * This article is about the game. For the novels, see StarCraft: Ghost: Nova, StarCraft: Ghost Academy and StarCraft: Ghost: Spectres.

StarCraft: Ghost is a tactical action game for video game consoles, announced on September 19, 2002 was under development by Blizzard Entertainment and Nihilistic Software. The game is based in the world of StarCraft, a popular real-time strategy game for the PC.

Blizzard, known for computer games, took a step in a different direction by developing it exclusively for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 video game consoles. A GameCube version was also planned, but it was canceled in November 2005.

StarCraft: Ghost was put on "indefinite" hiatus in 2006. Blizzard employee Rob Pardo suggests that StarCraft: Ghost had failed but could be brought back; Blizzard has explained that the game was never announced as canceled or dead and it is simply focusing on other games. The console division appears to have been canceled; Blizzard has no plans to reopen it and that this point in time, no-one is working on it, Blizzard having its hands full with other projects. At the World Wide Invitational 2008 Rob Pardo has suggested that the game was a "miss" and so was canceled. Frank Pearce has said that Ghost was a cool idea but no one is working on it, and that it isn't even on the radar.

Gameplay
Much of StarCraft: Ghost's gameplay centered around a single-player campaign, in which the player controlled Nova, a Ghost agent. The game was stealth-based, meaning Nova would frequently stealthily approach objectives, using darkness, shadows and cloaking to avoid detection. However, the opponents could sometimes use decloaking devices to detect her. In addition, opponents who couldn't see her would still try to hunt her down if they detected her in some way.

The player would need to solve simple puzzles in some parts of the game in order to bypass security "locks". For instance, in order to bypass Zerg security, Nova must match her psi energy with the system code, and the player must work out color wave patterns to simulate this.

Nova was capable of a wide variety of combat moves, including climbing and sliding down ziplines. Nova can use techniques such as "dangle snipe" (in which she hangs from a pipe with her legs and snipes an opponent) and also make instant stealth kill attacks in a mini-game in which the player uses different button combinations against different opponents. Nova can even kill an opponent by forcing a grenade into an opponent's helmet and then sealing it shut.

In addition, a variety of vehicles played a role in the game, some of which could be directly controlled by the player; Nova could direct other vehicles to strike enemy targets.

Nova was typically equipped with an AGR-14 assault rifle and a sniper rifle, but could carry a variety of other weapons and grenades. She sometimes used the psyblade, a melee weapon designed using Protoss technology.

Nova has powerful psionic abilities, including cloaking, psionic sight (which enables her to see heat signatures through walls) and psionic speed (which quadruples her speed).

Multiplayer Modes
Several multiplayer game modes were available, such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, King of the Hill and Capture the Base. The latter, also known as Mobile Conflict, involves two teams of up to eight players each using Grizzlies to capture a mobile platform. Another game mode was Invasion, in which players attempted to take control of resource nodes for points, gaining more powerful units which could be used to destroy the enemy base.

In multiplayer mode, players could play (as Terrans) Light Infantry, Marines, Firebats and Ghosts. They could drive or fly Vultures, Stingers, Siege Tanks and Grizzlies. As Zerg, they could play Zerglings, Hydralisks, Infested Marines and Mutalisks.

New and changed units
Several new units are being added which were not part of the original StarCraft game
 * Terran Grizzly
 * Main article: Terran Grizzly

The Grizzly is a fighter-bomber which carries passengers.
 * Terran Stinger
 * Main article: Terran Stinger

This six-wheeled Terran jeep fills a role in between that of the Terran Vulture and the Terran Siege Tank. It has a crew of two and is equipped with a heavy assault cannon.
 * Terran Light Infantry
 * Main article: Light Infantry

Light Infantry are security guards found in various Terran installations, they are equipped with lighter armor than Terran Marines.
 * Terran Spectre - the result of genetic experiments conducted on ghosts using terrazine gas.
 * Seeker Droids - these small robots prowl installations. They can revealed a cloaked Ghost to other units.
 * Protoss Vindicator - formerly known as the Purifier, little is known about this unit. It carries a single, large "lightning gun" on its arm. The Vindicator does not move while firing the ranged weapon.
 * Infested Marines - capable of firing poisonous rounds from an "infested" Gauss rifle, in addition to its suicidal explosion ability and a claw attack.

In addition, a number of original StarCraft units will also be changed, some to better suit the multiplayer version of StarCraft: Ghost.
 * Terran Marine - in addition to their standard issue C-14 "Impaler" Gauss rifle, Marines can now carry flak pistols and grenades.
 * Terran Firebat - in addition to their standard issue Perdition plasma-based flamethrower, Firebats can fire napalm rockets, of the guided or unguided variety.
 * Terran Ghost - Ghosts will wield an assault rifle/grenade-launcher combination as their standard weapon. The assault rifle is less powerful than the C-14 "Impaler" Gauss rifle. This weapon is different from the original C-10 canister rifle. In addition, Ghosts can use the BOSUN FN92 sniper rifle (which is, again, different from their long-ranged canister rifle from StarCraft), a special lockdown device, and the psyblade (a psionic melee weapon developed using Protoss technology).
 * Terran Vulture - the Vulture is armed with a powerful laser or grenade launcher.
 * Terran Siege Tank - equipped with plasma cannons.
 * Zergling - virtually unchanged from StarCraft, has a bloodlust ability.
 * Hydralisk - also virtually unchanged, but now has a melee attack.
 * Mutalisk - fires a bio-plasma attack and can pick up ground units to drain them of life.
 * Overlord - some have been locked into tanks or enhanced with cybernetics.

Nova
The main character of the game is a Terran ghost (psionic espionage agent) codenamed Nova in the employment of the Terran Dominion squadron, Nova Squadron. She used to be a member of the Confederate Old Families, but has since undergone a memory wipe.

Nova's role when the game starts is as a soldier in the Terran Dominion, working for Colonel Jackson Hauler in his ghost squad.

Storyline
The story takes place four years after the Brood War campaign.

Emperor Arcturus Mengsk has rebuilt much of the Terran Dominion and built up a new military, despite having to face the Zerg.

Mengsk and his new adviser, General Horace Warfield, have begun a secret project codenamed "Shadow Blade". The program uses terrazine gas to alter the genetic makeup of ghosts. These Ghosts are transformed into spectres - shadowy superhuman beings bent on executing the will of their true master.

In addition, a Blizzard panel at BlizzCon 2005 revealed that Kerrigan is massing her forces on Char and is strong enough to "crush the entire sector", Mengsk rebuilds the Dominion military with robotics and stolen Protoss technology and has retaken a number of worlds, while Artanis is trying to merge the two groups of Protoss, made more difficult because many Dark Templar hate the Protoss who had banished them from Aiur.

Nova is about to embark upon a perilous mission to uncover the frightening truth behind Project: Shadow Blade - this conspiracy will cause her to question her own identity while embroiled in a struggle between the Terran Dominion and the rebel Koprulu Liberation Front.

The opening video shows a group of Terran Dominion Marines (and a few Firebats) assaulting a Zerg-infested "Vespene" refinery (actually a terrazine refinery) on Mar Sara. Captain Bock leads the group, but is incompetent and refuses to listen to Lieutenant Haggs' suggestion to scout the area first, and when HQ says it will send three Dropships with reinforcements, one with a black ops unit, Bock tries to cancel the order. Bock's forces promptly fall into a Zerg ambush. He pleads for reinforcements, which arrive in the form of the Dropships, one of which is carrying Nova. Two of the dropships are shot down by Mutalisks but the third safely lands, disgorging the black ops unit and Nova.

According to previews of the game, Nova's first mission involves a raid on a Supply Depot on Abaddon, where members of the Koprulu Liberation Front hold a Terran Grizzly they have stolen from the Dominion, along with a captured engineer. Nova is ordered to retrieve the engineer and the Grizzly, but the engineer is murdered before she can save them.

During the course of the story, Nova will visit Abaddon, Mar Sara, Ash'Arak and Vyctor 5.

Fate of the Ghost storyline
StarCraft: Ghost: Nova, the prequel to StarCraft: Ghost, was published after development on StarCraft: Ghost was put on hiatus. It was intended to be published alongside the game (and its release was delayed in an attempt to ensure this).

StarCraft: Ghost "had a killer plot and a really good bad guy," according to Blizzard Entertainment. It was unrelated to the main storyline of StarCraft.

Keith DeCandido is planning to continue on a graphic novel, StarCraft: Ghost Academy based on the adventures of Nova and wants to continue the storyline in a novel entitled StarCraft: Ghost: Spectres, intended to include plot elements of StarCraft: Ghost.

Robert Clotworthy was hired to voice act for Jim Raynor in StarCraft: Ghost. Other characters connected to the major Protoss and Zerg plotlines were not projected to play a role in StarCraft: Ghost.

Trouble during development
Reports indicate that most of the people responsible for the development of the original StarCraft have left the company, and the repeated setbacks and delays for release - it was to come out in 2003.

Release of the game has been postponed six times already, although this is not entirely unusual with Blizzard Entertainment games. Game development started in mid-2001, with a release date of the 2002-2003 winter. During the summer of 2002, the entire Nihilistic Software development team, the original developer of the game, quit en masse.

Following the resignations, Blizzard pushed back the release date of the game to January of 2003, only to push it back to "early summer 2003" in October of 2002. Blizzard went out on the market to look for a new development team, while reassuring their customers that there was nothing to worry about, that Nihilistic Software had merely finished the job they were hired for, that there were no power struggles inside the company and that the game will be delivered on time.

In July 2004, Blizzard Entertainment employed Swingin' Ape Studios to work on the game, later buying the company in May 2005.

The Gamecube version was canceled in 2005.

During the summer of 2006, however, Blizzard announced that Starcraft: Ghost would be indefinitely postponed while they examined the capabilities of the PS3, X-Box 360, and Wii systems.