Starcraft. Grr. Ensemble Studio's most lethal rival.

IMMEDIATELY after we released Age of Empires to acclaim, StarCraft came out. All the cute girls at the club walked over to Starcraft's table, while we were stuck with their nerdy little sisters.

The main thing we were jealous of wasn't their science fiction world, it was the massive asymmetry of the three factions. Man alive as designers that amazed and intrigued us.

We tried to punch back in 2002 with Age of Mythology which did StarCraft's asymmetry one better. Then in 2005 we did Age of Empires 3, which actually beat StarCraft's graphics hands-down - and also was super asymmetric.

Even with all our efforts though, StarCraft always stayed the cool jock. We were just the kids with taped glasses and pocket protectors over at the Age of Empires table in the corner of the cafeteria.

Good times. Agree? Disagree?