Vapor Rap

When Blizzard Entertainment announced its new game Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty would be released July 27, players were left wondering what ever happened to Starcraft: Ghost, originally announced for a 2002 debut but so far unreleased.

“Starcraft: Ghost was supposed to be a third-person shooter game,” says local rapper Young Mass.

“I decided to provide a theme song for the game’s Terran psychic espionage operative star, Annabella ‘Nova’ Terra, aka Agent 12-862, a sexy female ghost.” The song, “Stop Playin’,” says Mass, “just didn’t fit into the mix of what we are working on for my sophomore album, but it’s such a crazy, sexy, cool banger that we decided to release the joint as a single from the game’s fictitious soundtrack and give it a story about sexy young ghost agent Nova.”

So why do a soundtrack song for a nonexistent game? “Starcraft: Ghost is one of the top vaporware titles of all time,” according to Mass, who explains that “vaporware” is products that never get released due to financial problems, malfeasance, or because the industry changes during development. “Although the game is postponed indefinitely, Nova continues to make appearances. There’s a statue of her at Blizzard’s office in Irvine; a book, Starcraft Ghost: Nova, was released in 2006; and her tomb can be spotted in the World of Warcraft game.”

Young Mass’s song places Nova in fictional San Diego locales like Mitchy’s Clack Clack, a Southeast bar named for local hip-hop hero Mitchy Slick and referenced as serving the best Framberry drinks in the Starcraft universe. “We’ve had no interaction with the game company, [but] the game and Nova have a cool cult following that we are intent on keeping alive.”

The digital single “Stop Playin’” (with a downloadable cover featuring “unofficial fan art” depicting Nova Terra) is available at CD Baby and iTunes.