Introduction to Starcraft 2: Marine Arena

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One of the most popular user created games of the Starcraft 2 series is a mod called Marine Arena. Accessible through the Custom Games menu, marine arena offers users a break from regular Starcraft 2 tournaments or ladder play. Focused around unit micromanagement, tactics, and overall strategy (i.e. unit counters), Marine Arena offers play based around control of auto-spawning marines, mercenaries, and heroes without having to worry about mining and overall (macro) economic management.

In the most played version of the game, eight players are divided into four teams of two players per team. The overall goal of each team is to preserve their own command centers (located at each team's spawning base) while killing the command centers of the opposing teams. Money is awarded for each enemy unit that is killed and as bonuses at regular intervals during the game. Each player initially starts out with a command center that auto-spawns marines and a set amount of money, agreed upon by players through a voting system before the game starts. This money can be used to purchase mercenaries that range from zealots and marauders on the low end to goliaths and void rays on the high end. Choosing the right mercenaries relative to your opponents can make the difference between winning and losing the game.

Heroes, which are single units with very strong attack, life, and armor statistics, can also be purchased as the game progresses. Buying a hero is a high risk gamble with the potential for high rewards. On the one hand, buying and upgrading a hero is a huge investment of money, and a player can quickly fall behind if the hero is unable to kill enough enemy units to make it a profitable investment. On the other hand, experienced players can use heros to literally change the course of battles and almost defeat other players using the hero alone.

The map and game are both popular and constantly rebalanced by the development team behind the game. As a result, in game strategies are constantly changing and the game play is very dynamic.

I would highly recommend this game to Starcraft 2 fans and interested gamers alike.

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