I consider myself a very big fan of Starcraft 1 and 2. However, there is one aspect in which Sc2 cannot hold a candle to its predecessor. I am talking, of course, about the neutral critters. For Sc2, Blizzard decided they were going to make the critters way too generous. If you want to place a building, they get out of the way. They pretty much don’t block pathing at all. And if you still want them out of the way, they only have 10 health so they die instantly to anything. Even ignoring all this, they are much less badass on the whole.
I would be very sad if this somehow degenerated into some sort of sc2 vs BW debate, so don’t do it.
PG13: I felt kinda bad swearing in this thing so if you’re really tiny, don’t read it. There may be F-Bombs!
Ursadon
The Ursadon is probably the most famous critter of all time. Much like Lada Gaga, however, a lot of its fame is under a pseudonym:“Panda Bear Guy.” It rose to prominence largely through the curse it put on players as well as the extreme passion he was shown by Nick “Tasteless” Plott.
You see, though it may look like it’s just a cute little bear, it was also a gypsy. This gave it a complete inability to understand sarcasm as well as the ability to perform gypsy spells. Specifically, any player that were to kill PBG in a game would ultimately end up losing. This curse a freakishly high success rate. much higher than that of Tutankhamen. Therefore, in this respect, PBG was more successful and powerful than one of the greatest and most prolific leaders in all of human civilization.
Furthermore, PBG seemed to find himself in strange situations all the time. For example, once upon a time there was a (heroic and Godlike) Protoss player named Horang2 that set forth to cheese his Terran opponent on Destination. This made PBG very sad and, more significantly, very very angry. But instead of lying down, spreading his legs, and letting Horang2 do whatever he wanted, PBG decided he was going to do something about it. He confronted the probe at the bridge when he was trying to go cross-map for some early game shenanigans. The Ursadon began punching the probe relentlessly. Unfortunately, the punches were unable to inflict any actual damage, but he was able to stall the probe for a couple of seconds.
Although the Panda Bear Guy is most famous for being repeatedly mention by his homeboy Tasteless, he is still undeniably awesome by his own merit.
Kakau
Okay, so if you’re anything like myself, you will have read this critter’s name in the voice of Vegeta from DBZ (DBZ is not to be confused with PBG. Or the NAACP). Admittedly, I am not entirely certain that is actually how you pronounce Kakaru. What I am certain of, however, is that it is not important and we can move on to the serious business at hand.
Though the Kakru cannot rival PBG with regards to their impact on pro games, this is not its fault. It had no control over Blizzard’s decision to not make air units collide. Still, through its superior intelligence, it found a way to to fuck with Kal by pretending to be a dropship:
More than that, the Kakaru’s ability to directly impact games at a lower level is completely unrivalled by other critters. Its resemblance to the Mutalisk can be very frightening to the untrained, apparently brain-dead eye that me and my fellow baddies posses.
I can honestly say it is the only critter that has forced me to stim on at least one occasion, effectively dealing up to 120 damage to my army. For that, it has my respect. But it has earned something even more significant. The Kakaru holds my deepest, sincerest hatred. Fuck that guy. Seriously.
Rhynadon
Apparently there was a time in Blizzard’s history when they gave an impressively small number of fucks. Alternatively,perhaps they were just tired after creating one of the best games of all time. Either way, “Rhynadon” sounds kind of familiar. Kind of veryfamiliar. He also looks pretty familiar.
Still, in terms of general badassery, the Rhynadon ranks quite highly. The thing is a friggin; rhinoceros for God’s sake. Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t think rhinos were totally the shit when you were younger. And hell, considering the size-scale of everything, the Rhynadon was most likely massive. This means that it can’t be lifted by Phoenix the thing was pretty much a fucking dinosaur. If you successfully lied to yourself about not liking rhinos, try to do the same about dinosaurs.
Ragnasaur
The Ragnasaur is one of the most interesting and enignmatic critters. To be quite frank, I have no clue wtf its supposed to be. Our friends over at starcraft.wikia.com have referred to it as a “tripedal creature” with a “lobster-like tail.” Although we may never know exactly what it is, my homie Metamage1 has done some in-depth research of its emotions.
On July 01 2010 15:43 metamage1 wrote: These ragnasaur things dont have a real face Some ideas + Show Spoiler +
Anyone reading this from a primarily Sc2 background may already be familiar with the Scantid through its bastardized freak-cousin the scantipede. The real Scantid, however, is a mix between scorpions and the Incredible Hulk. It used to be this tiny-ass little scorpion thing until the planet it lived on got nuked all to hell. These things survived underground and were mutated by the radiation into something that has “claws capable of ripping a man in half and a stinger filled with extremely lethal poison.” If you liked the Hulk movies (which you totally shouldn’t have), just imagine if the main character was a giant scorpion instead of a roid-raged Cabbage Monster.
But what impact has he had on actual games, you ask? He has proven himself to be a loyal follower of the Emperor himself!
Bengalaas
The Bengalaas is the most badass critter of them all. First and foremost, they’re fucking tigers. More specifically, they’re sadistic super tigers that are also giant dicks.”[T]hey have been observed slapping smaller creatures [...] before finally making the kill with one swift bite to the neck.” If that’s not enough, they don’t actually die. Like Protoss units (Bengalaas are from Aiur), they explode into blue smoke when they’re “killed,” signifying they were warped back to safety where they will be turned into something else badass.
My research was unfortunately not able to find any instances of Bengalaas interfering with pro games. But this is of course very easy to explain. Everything and everybody already knows to stay the hell away from these things.
Ok thanks for reading! I hope this was nostalgic for some and maybe eye-opening for others. =D
A lot of lore-related stuff about the critters was taken from Starcraft.Wikia.com and classic.battle.net. Info on the roles of these critters in progames was largely from searching Teamliquid so <3s to all you guys as a whole. Protoss death GIF taken from SCLegacy.com
Haha, nice writeup. Also, I think Tasteless referred Ragnasaur as a homeless guy in a Intel Classic game. The map was Destination, but I don't remember the players.
fun write up ^.^ I still believe that the SC1 critters were much more entertaining, but then again I've only seen 2 critters from SC2 and that was the weird scantipede thingy that looks weird and then the automaton xD
There is a hallucination Kakaru on a version of Longinus that one game disappeared with the usual sound made by hallucinations right at my base, scaring the shit out of me.
There was a PvZ game with Bisu I believe, where the PandaBearGuy blocked the scouting probe, allowing zerg to kill it, and finally win the game with double lair hydra drops. Either in the same, or the next game protoss ignored any hydras, and went straight to kill PBG.
On August 02 2011 11:36 Gamegene wrote: When I played SC LAN with friends as a kid I had this fucking brilliant idea of mindcontrolling Kakaus for secret scouts.
Totally worked too.
Nah yo I think if you mind control it, it gets autotargetted by the other guy. It's all about the queen's Parasite!
On August 02 2011 12:09 Whole wrote: interesting that the tiger thing has the same death animation as a DT (except less transparent)
Its the same as the zealot too, no? HT is a fair bit different.
Tasteless once described the Ragnasaur as a creature that walks around on three legs asking the other units for money. I wish I knew what game it was in haha.
There is also a game where Reach killed every critter cuz his proxy got blocked by one.
On August 02 2011 14:14 ZeroChrome wrote: Tasteless once described the Ragnasaur as a creature that walks around on three legs asking the other units for money. I wish I knew what game it was in haha.
There is also a game where Reach killed every critter cuz his proxy got blocked by one.
Yeah I heard about that first one. Sounds vaguely familiar but I cant come up with it either. TT
On August 02 2011 15:54 Fontong wrote: Ursadons are zerg haters and friends of the protoss.
The proof? An ursadon blocked the hatchery placement on Desti so my probe didn't have to.
I couldn't tell you why but for some reason that's very unsurprising. ^^
18) Neutral animals. It was during the proleague finals between 4u and Hanbit. Zerglee does a double lair strat and when Reach goes to scout with his probe, he fails because a neutral animal blocks the way and zerglings kills the probe. If it wasn't for the neutral animal Reach could have found out the double lair strat and prepared for the mass drops which he typed GG too. The next game on Guillotine, Reach revenges by killing every single neutral animal on the map.
On August 02 2011 11:36 Gamegene wrote: When I played SC LAN with friends as a kid I had this fucking brilliant idea of mindcontrolling Kakaus for secret scouts.
Totally worked too.
Nah yo I think if you mind control it, it gets autotargetted by the other guy. It's all about the queen's Parasite!
On August 02 2011 12:09 Whole wrote: interesting that the tiger thing has the same death animation as a DT (except less transparent)
Its the same as the zealot too, no? HT is a fair bit different.
No HT and DT are different somewhat in death but Zealot is exactly the same :O This totally explains why in one game I scanned, thought I killed the dt, and then another came and afterwords my opponent told me I never killed it... T.T
edit: Also, the "tiger thing" as we are now referring to it as is too small to do anything too major in pro games. However I do remember seeing Bisu's DT in a DT/Sair game get killed AFTER Jaedong killed a "tiger thing" that was right next to it .
edit2: Also, I'm considering getting my old 9.0 Mac up and starting up staredit and then editing python by putting like 45 "tiger things" equally split up to each natural and then putting 1 bear in the middle of the map and have the pterodactyls start off at each players Starting point to make it harder to click on the nexus/CC/Hatchery XD.
Bengalaas obvious turned into those cyborg cat thingies in the SC2 campaign. The protoss made them and didn't really like how they felt, and sold them to raynor.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OKQPy.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bvMfI.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xouUy.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/S0JIY.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wjjSB.png)
![[image loading]](http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj52/metamage1/rag1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj52/metamage1/rag2.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/x8Pnl.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PjM5F.png)
![[image loading]](http://sclegacy.com/features/editorials/animationofdeath/deaths.gif)
All the ones introducing each critter.
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