The Batlord

Why would I choose the Zerg as my race? Easy answer: cause they're ****in' awesome, that's ****in' why, bitch. But I like to bloviate (as Roxy would say) so I'm just gonna ramble on with the long-winded answer. First, I'll explain why I would choose a single race in the first place, then go into why I'm not going with the other two (Terran and Protoss), and then finish up by bloviating some more on just how awesome the Zerg are and why I would make them my home team.

Why choose a race and play them almost exclusively (in multiplayer, obviously)? As my unknowing mentor, Day[9], would probably say, this is a complex ****ing game, and attempting to master two or more races is going to take away from the amount of time you would spend practicing with only one. Maybe some people can master more than one without sacrificing skill with each, but I am not that person, and neither apparently are most pro players, as they also tend to be associated with one specific race. If it's good enough for FruitSeller, it's good enough for me.

Why not Terran? At first I was going to choose them, as they were the first race I used, and because their units are the only ones that actually look like recognizable military units. Banshees look like they could be in service today, or ten years from now at the latest. Goliaths are futuristic mechs, but they still have a down-to-earth design that could be instituted in perhaps a hundred years. Even sci-fi-as-**** units like uber-mech Thors and space ship Battlecruisers have a familiar quality to them that keeps Terran grounded in a way that none of the other races are.

But even though the humans have two of the absolute most awesome units in the game, the Siege Tank and the Viking (a fighter which can transform into a mech), once I started the Zerg campaign their units just started to feel kind of vanilla. But Siege Tanks and Vikings are still ****ing awesome, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that I might one day change to Terran if I play around with them enough.




But until then, all Terran scum must die.

Why not Protoss? Cause **** Protoss. They have some kind of goofy religion that rules their entire society (their base infantry unit is even called a "Zealot"), and as an atheist, that makes them kinda lame to me. Also, depending on what patch is current (patches are regularly released for the game, and can change everything from unit stats to actual elements of gameplay) Protoss is often accused of being overpowered, which makes them sound like a boring race to invest time in. But what really turns me off to Protoss is that all of their units are just too sleek and shiny and sci-fi/fantasy looking. I want badass, not pretty.




Meh.

So, why Zerg? They're pretty much a combination of Xenomorphs and Arachnids from Starship Troopers, and bring that sweet, sweet sci-fi horror vibe that I love so much. That creature in the pic at the top of this post is called a Hydralisk (awesome ****ing name), and it looks so totally Xeno, while having a design all its own, that it can't help but look amazing.

Another unit of abiding kickassery is the Zergling, the base "infantry" unit of the Swarm, which forms the backbone of the Zerg army. They basically look like a bug crossed with a lizard crossed with a demonic dog. They're the weakest military unit in the game, but they cost the least toward the unit cap (you can only have so many units at one time, and some units cost more points, or "food" toward this unit cap than others), spawn two at a time, and with their incredible speed, can overwhelm just about any ground unit in the game with pure numbers, putting the swarm in... Swarm.




It's kind of hard to like any other unit, no matter how cool their abilities, when you can just send an endless horde of horrifying abominations to devour your enemies alive. But you still have Mutalisks, a hideous cross between a flying insect and a bat, Banelings, think of ticks... that explode, Ultralisks, behemoths from a Godzilla movie, with giant scythes for arms that obliterate all in their wake, etc.



And then there's Creep. Creep is awesome. ****ing awesome. It's basically a moving, organic oil slick on the ground that all Zerg structures must be built upon, but new structures spread the Creep, and there is something called a Creep Tumor -- which looks exactly how it sounds, a giant tumor in the ground -- that also spreads Creep. Structures other than Hatcheries (the Zerg's base structure, from which everything else is built/spawned) must be built on the Creep, but the Creep can be spread anywhere and everywhere, and a good Zerg player firing on all cylinders can cover half the map in minutes.

The Creep is so cool because it makes a Zerg base look like it's been built on some kind of malevolently hostile alien planet, where the very ground is alive and wants to eat you.




Notice how the Creep is moving in that gif. If you don't think that's cool then there's something wrong with you.

So yeah, aside from the fact that Kerrigan, the coolest StarCraft character ****ing ever, is Zerg, all of that **** is why I choose them as my race. I mean, how could you not?

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