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![[image loading]](https://files.khinsider.com/vgwallpaper/800x600/3021-starcraft-025-jvprm.jpg) "Understood. I'll look into this matter myself."
I think BW is one of the greatest creative achievements of man, in the company of Shakespeare and Stravinsky and Kubrick. The combination of gameplay and story, music and art, man and machine. The openness of the community. The work people did to make it their own, the hours and games played, the maps and mods made, the skill and dedication of those who reached the top. Sincerely. In the genre, there is no comparison.
This beautiful and brilliant mission, one that brings you back to Zeratul after the Protoss campaign is already behind you. The ambiance. Creatively free as a stand-alone, and ahead of its time in terms of finding away to gather units besides "rescuing," albeit an easy mission, but that applies to the whole game. And a mystery, the longing for the explanation of which would invariably be more satisfying than any possible conclusion.
Or would it necessarily be more satisfying? Why do I remember this but not SC2? Was it just because I was young? Just because I have a soft spot for snow? The only good parts of WoW were the snowy ones as far as I remember. If you remember looking at SC1.5 for WC3, or the C&C SC mods and wondering what might come, was the SC2 story it?
There is no pretense in BW, it was an accidental masterpiece. Of course creativity and experience and effort all made it good. But there must be some luck in a resulting gem like that. Every cutscene in the sequel just tries too hard. There is no moderation. Everything has to be pretentious, and epic. Have you watched the original cutscenes? They were succinct and moody, except the token "epic" cutscenes like Tassadar's sacrifice, which looks half ridiculous. They often didn't involve known characters. They set the mood and explained gaps in the story, teased our understanding of lore and what's going on in the universe, but weren't the primary storytelling device.
This is because the storytellers also were limited. Money, animation, technology, disk storage, everything was restricted. This is why we have a gritty 2d game, with gritty cutscenes, that you can connect with, with knockout music, stunning art (hydralisk standing on a pile of skulls). From the minute the music opens, you feel connected to the world, whether it's real or not. You feel it. I don't feel anything if I open SC2. But it's a cop-out to say it's a 2d or 3d thing. FPS games are 3d and everyone has connected with one. And people have made great sequels before.
What I like about the original is it's not afraid to dramatically alter the dramatis personae. The characters do change. They die. Sometimes twice. But it's intergalactic war... Of course characters die. That at least Diablo took a risk with. Hello, welcome to Diablo x. Your job is to kill the xth iteration of Diablo. Oh, here's Deckard Cain, you like his voice, right? He'll identify things you find. Nope, dead. Come on, SC2, what happened? Remember when Raynor swore to kill Kerrigan? Because of that business with Fenix? What is this melodramatic Romeo and Juliet in space bullshit? She's human, she's zerg, she's human, she's zerg, oh there's still good in her, who cares? She was just some sporty lass Raynor wanted to bed in the first Terran campaign. It's not some soulmate thing. Why do we need to keep going back to this? Are you afraid people wouldn't play without Raynor? People wouldn't watch without Kirk? Or Spock? Or Picard? Just make something good! Oh hey remember Fenix, you liked him right? He's alive again, again. We can't think of any new good things, sorry.
I like the snow. It's quiet and peaceful. What's the distance a snowflake travels laterally back and forth before it touches the ground? Do they tumble for a mile before touching the ground right under where they fell from? Do they drift together like a flock of birds? Drift separately like all the people?
  
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I think BW is one of the greatest creative achievements of man, in the company of Shakespeare and Stravinsky and Kubrick.
BW community in a nutshell, honestly
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So after a wall of text, the conclusion is that BW story is "one of the greatest creative achievements of man, in the company of Shakespeare and Stravinsky and Kubrick"
Speechless.
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Already we're off to a bad start. If that were the conclusion, it would go at the end. That was a sidenote.
It's hard to know what you're saying, are you just being dismissive of that point? But the Kubrick part was okay, so it seems film is acceptable for that list? It's up to you... if you want, you can scoff at games just the way theater snobs thought moving pictures would never match the stage.
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I remember how much the black units did for me. I don't think they're technically "black" in the editor, but they really stand out on the snow tileset. Twilight is pretty good, too.
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On February 25 2020 21:43 oBlade wrote:
Already we're off to a bad start. If that were the conclusion, it would go at the end. That was a sidenote.
It's hard to know what you're saying, are you just being dismissive of that point? But the Kubrick part was okay, so it seems film is acceptable for that list? It's up to you... if you want, you can scoff at games just the way theater snobs thought moving pictures would never match the stage.
Well, but that sidenote is something I don't necessarily agree, because you are compare BW to other form of art (literature, music, film...), and I think video games should not be critiqued by the same criteria as other form of media.
You make a sound argument of "BW is a masterpieces" base on story, story telling, graphic, sound, but you haven't considered gameplay, which is a very important aspect. Starcraft singleplayer campaign is not very good by modern standard, it lack variety in playstyle, level design and some anti-frustration feature (like some heroes must survive).
And most importantly, they can't integrate story telling to game mechanic, gameplay and story is still separate for like 70% of the time and that's the reason I think BW is not a masterpiece.
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Dude I had that picture you put as my background in my first PC ! Ah the memories!
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It's a beautiful picture from a beautiful mission 
You seem to be making two arguments here. The first is you can't compare video games to other media. The second is that BW doesn't stack up because there are better (more modern example).
To the first point, we just have to agree to disagree. Like I said, the stage probably thought movies were just a farce at the beginning.
But in case that argument fails you have the second one. The gameplay isn't good by modern standards, essentially. I would say
-A lot of modern games aren't good by BW standards. That is partly taste (without starting any flamewar)
-The Iliad is old - it's still a masterpiece even though it preceded tons of more advanced literature.
-BW's campaign may be easy or rudimentary, but all the maps, missions, campaigns made by everyone else for it, that falls under BW too. And like the Iliad, it can be excused for not being an "ideal" because it was pioneering. When I first played some of those uninspired SC2 missions I felt disappointed, and that I can't excuse. But would we say Moby Dick is bad because you can guess the ending nowadays? Or something?
-Okay, if not BW, what would you propose in its place? I'm curious to see what the criteria may be.
That's part of the accidental masterpiece. They didn't fully understand what they created, and therefore know how to fully exploit it. For example, Inconsummate has a much better handle on how to tell a Zerg story other than hmm, fuck how do we create relatable characters for this alien swarm, I know, let's make a human their queen. Kind of uninspired.
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I can give a list of gameplay feature that SC2 did better than BW, but I have a feeling that you care more about how story and the presentation go rather than pure gameplay.
My standard for game is all about gameplay, I dont really care about story as long as it have good mechanic and gameplay.
But if I have to consider story when giving critique to video game, then a masterpiece must have a good story fully integrated to gameplay, you play the game and enjoy the story at the same time, not separate story from gameplay, no pure cutscene, no pure gameplay sections, the story is the gameplay
"Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons" is probably the only game successfully did that, not my type of game, but I certainly respect it, and it's closest to my standard of "masterpiece game"
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On February 27 2020 03:16 Alpharius wrote:a masterpiece must have a good story fully integrated to gameplay, you play the game and enjoy the story at the same time, not separate story from gameplay, no pure cutscene, no pure gameplay sections, the story is the gameplay
no, that's just your preference
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On February 27 2020 23:37 yB.TeH wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2020 03:16 Alpharius wrote:a masterpiece must have a good story fully integrated to gameplay, you play the game and enjoy the story at the same time, not separate story from gameplay, no pure cutscene, no pure gameplay sections, the story is the gameplay no, that's just your preference
Yes, that's just my preference, and I'm not trying to convince anyone to agree with it.
But I think that's one way for video game to distinguish itself as a form of story telling, by fully using its interactive nature to tell a compelling story. And I think that's the direction video game should take to stand on its own feet. Many game try to learn from book and movie to create their story, while not fully take advantage of video game's nature, that's ok for me because i only care about gameplay, but video game could be much more than that..
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Of course it's just his preference. That's all this is, essentially, trying to retroactively justify tastes.
On February 27 2020 03:16 Alpharius wrote:
I can give a list of gameplay feature that SC2 did better than BW, but I have a feeling that you care more about how story and the presentation go rather than pure gameplay.
My standard for game is all about gameplay, I dont really care about story as long as it have good mechanic and gameplay.
But if I have to consider story when giving critique to video game, then a masterpiece must have a good story fully integrated to gameplay, you play the game and enjoy the story at the same time, not separate story from gameplay, no pure cutscene, no pure gameplay sections, the story is the gameplay
"Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons" is probably the only game successfully did that, not my type of game, but I certainly respect it, and it's closest to my standard of "masterpiece game"
I didn't want this to turn into SC2 vs BW specifically. I think the terminology of a "list of gameplay features" is less demonstrative than analyzing the actual gameplay and seeing which has more engaging parts. For argument's sake I would listen, though I believe there's an accompanying list that BW does better than not only SC2 but many titles, and in many cases by accident as I mentioned earlier.
I see what you mean about pure gameplay. I think it would sound weird applied to any other medium, though. For example, movies shouldn't have a soundtrack because that didn't come from what's on the screen? Opera can't have acting because it should be pure music? Books can't have illustrations? It doesn't seem right.
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Is Dark Origin the only original level where a non-hero unit talks in a mission briefing?
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EPT
