EDIT: Finished campaign, giving my final thoughts:
While the missions themselves in SC2 are much better than the original, I still prefer SC1's campaign.
I think part of what made SC1's campaign great, apart from the better quality of writing, was that it left a lot to the imagination. It was done in such a way that you felt like you were in the middle of something really big and the fact that a lot of stuff happened without your control, or even knowledge (until revealed later e.g. the whole Infested Kerrigan deal), really made you feel like you were the commander/cerebrate/executor. You were just a military commander, a cog in someone's machine, and you had all these important characters asking or telling you what they needed you to do for them. IMO its simplicity made it more immersive than SC2.
With the new game everything is laid out for you. It's harder to relate to Jim, the main character, because all of a sudden he isn't a desperate ally or friend that you grew to love, you actually are him. In SC1, you grew to respect him and he you, and your feelings towards the other characters also evolved and changed. The dynamic of the relationship is now lost. All the other characters in WoL have plotlines that are short, predictable and could have been blurbs on the back of a novel, and there's very little character development - all the characters at the end of the campaign essentially remain who they are from the beginning (excepting perhaps some minor characters such as Warfield, whose sudden flip feels so cliched).
In SC1 you loved Mengsk because he was a freedom fighter, then you hated him because he was a massive asshole. You felt for Kerrigan because she wasn't to blame for who she became, but at the same time you knew she needed to be put down because of her actions. This doesn't really happen in Wings of Liberty - Ariel is pretty, Tosh is badass, and their stuff gets wrapped up in 3 or 4 missions each. Tychus is interesting, but you knew he was up to something from the get go. Swann is a fucking dwarf/gnome engineer lifted straight from WoW, Horner is bland as white bread, Stegman is a million nerds you've met in a thousand movies already.
I'm loving the campaign. Also..the realization that zerg have bones was forced upon me, despite seeing many ultralisk deaths and having it not process.
Well, I felt some of the same, but I guess we were much younger in the days of SC1 campaign grinding.. Age does that to you, makes epic into cheesy in the blink of an eon. I say, embrace the cheese my friend, it's good for your bones.
I'd say it's more focused on central characters when they story tell rather than on battles in different sectors of the galaxy. SC1 story telling was always a briefing on what's going on in some sector or some planet, SC2 is all character development. It's different, not sure how I feel about it yet.
i hated the first half, and started to like it right as it ended+ Show Spoiler +
basically just before you went to char, where jimmy and tychus had there little fight
...
I wasn't a fan of the whole chose between these missions and u can skip some aspect... I really think it would've made for a better story if it was just linear, i mean, it ends up in the same place anyway, and half the side-missions were fillers but u never knew which ones were gona progress the story and which ones were gona be fillers because they couldn't release a game with so few levels =\
Finished the campain and all missions, kinda feel like nothing happend at all except in the end part. Im kinda like: did they just run me in a circle, collecting units to build and then gg me?
Zerathuls missions were much more of a singel player campain for me than the terran was, hehe. Good start on that one, good epic ending mission.
Terran campain, slow slow damage to my patience, just getting units, then final battle just kinda boring. I wanted a lot more story, less grinding the units for my factory.
The campaign is awesome !! (: I just finished it and I am just happy , what I have seen and What happened is amazing ! I did it very fast though ... but still it was cool and nice So many good things made in the history blizzard. Don't want to talk right now , cuz maybe I will spoil (:
there was a story the whole time ... about the privious post. The units you get it by the way and didn't bother you that much. Most of the mission were connected to the story directly !
On July 28 2010 04:59 gorchiza wrote: The campaign is awesome !! (: I just finished it and I am just happy , what I have seen and What happened is amazing ! I did it very fast though ... but still it was cool and nice So many good things made in the history blizzard. Don't want to talk right now , cuz maybe I will spoil (:
there was a story the whole time ... about the privious post. The units you get it by the way and didn't bother you that much. Most of the mission were connected to the story directly !
get the artefacts to return kerrigan to normal. He even ignored the fact that zeratul told him she was the key for liberation of the zerg and saving the entire galixy. She should have not been returned to human. I bet in the end she will willingfull go back to the swarm in an attempt to resque the galixy. Overall i wasn't impressed by the story. The docter and gost sidelines weren't that important to the story and could have made for an more epic mainline.
I thought the first couple of missions were pretty cool, then in the middle of the campaign it began to feel too much C&C'ish (imo) just to get my mind blown from the same point as ftrunkz. I think it was an incredible ending and I'm so stoked for heart of the swarm already, which I guess kinda sucks T_T
What I don't get is how they successfully invaded Char and did all that shit with only half of Mengsk's fleet, when Kerrigan held off THREE fleets, including Mengsk's at the end of Brood War.. -_-
The writer Blizzard is using in general is sort of bad..
so all the zerg are dead now except the ones that stayed on the planets they were holding? or... and kerrigan is a human but still has zerg hair? does that mean jimmy's gonna roll on hardwood floors or spikey zerg pubes???
On July 28 2010 08:48 dNo_O wrote: the very ending was... such a let down and... so all the zerg are dead now except the ones that stayed on the planets they were holding? or... and kerrigan is a human but still has zerg hair? does that mean jimmy's gonna roll on hardwood floors or spikey zerg pubes???
Spoiler your posts, please
I liked the ending, would like some more info though!!!
On July 28 2010 08:48 dNo_O wrote: the very ending was... such a let down and... so all the zerg are dead now except the ones that stayed on the planets they were holding? or... and kerrigan is a human but still has zerg hair? does that mean jimmy's gonna roll on hardwood floors or spikey zerg pubes???
Spoiler your posts, please
I liked the ending, would like some more info though!!!
I FUCKING LOVE IT For lack of a better term. The upgrades are so cool, I love how you have to choose what to research and you lose other research options in the process. I love the new and old units. There is just so much to do its amazing! I want to read every single note they give. Honestly it justifies its price. Like its massive
Btw is it always between 2 missions or do they add planets later on?
First half was somewhat underwhelming, but I'm still thoroughly enjoying it. Love all the little easter eggs they have such as the Night Elf dancing, The Lost Viking, Nova, etc..
The thing I like the most is also the thing I like the least; it's cool that ever mission has a unique objective and feels fresh. It's not just building up a base while defending and moving out to steam roll. However, on Normal difficulty (I start on Normal for every game and work my way up - and I'm actually bad at RTS games ) you can just mass one unit and win without much resistance. So that's good, to an extent, but some of my favorite missions in the original campaign had you killing 2-3 opponents in a war of attrition. Granted I wouldn't want every mission to be like that in SCII like it was in SC/BW, it would have been nice to have a really long one stuck in there somewhere.
I also really wish there had been more small force/hero missions. Once again, those were some of my favorite missions in the original games and I loved the mission with Tosh and Zeratul (who is a complete badass, btw.)
Overall, I was enjoying myself, excluding a few bugs, but there was only a handful of missions that really were a blast to play. I still have a few missions left, but I'm quickly wrapping it up. I have to say that Zeratul's last mission made the game worth its purchase price. Now that's how you do a good campaign mission.
And I really do like the upgrade system. Wish it were a bit more fleshed out, but hopefully they'll improve on the idea in the expansions. So who took the Science Vessel over the Raven for nostalgia? I know I did.
I sided with the Protoss and purged the colony, and Doctor Hansen turned out to be infested by Zerg herself. What happens if you side with Hansen? Same thing?
On July 28 2010 12:15 eMbrace wrote: How long is the campaign? I'm still on the fence on this game after playing beta.
Believe the official number is 26 missions. There are two choices you can make in the game before a mission. I don't know how much they change the way the mission plays out, but they give you slightly different rewards. Some of the missions are pretty weak, but none of them are "build up a base and kill the opponent." That's how many of them play out, but they all have a twist to keep it at least somewhat interesting. Personally, there's a handful of missions that are really worth it (all involving Zeratul in my opinion.)
On July 28 2010 12:15 eMbrace wrote: How long is the campaign? I'm still on the fence on this game after playing beta.
Believe the official number is 26 missions. There are two choices you can make in the game before a mission. I don't know how much they change the way the mission plays out, but they give you slightly different rewards. Some of the missions are pretty weak, but none of them are "build up a base and kill the opponent." That's how many of them play out, but they all have a twist to keep it at least somewhat interesting. Personally, there's a handful of missions that are really worth it (all involving Zeratul in my opinion.)
The different choice missions do indeed count as separate missions, with 26 in total.
I thought it sucked until zeratul/char. The other missions where you just farm up money to get "upgrades" were so boring! Anyways, just finished after 7 hours and I will give it a 6/10. Ending was cool, happened a lot sooner than I thought it would.
I really didn't expect the ending to be like that. I'm really anticipating the expansion; curious whats going to happen. Overall the missions were fun because they were very creative and dynamic.
On July 28 2010 15:11 DKo wrote: I really didn't expect the ending to be like that. I'm really anticipating the expansion; curious whats going to happen. Overall the missions were fun because they were very creative and dynamic.
I sorta did. They were open in the beginning with the expansions being prominent, so I expected a cliffhanger ending from the start. I just hope we get more closure in Heart of the Swarm.
didn't care too much for the mission, as for the story meh it's fine. i got spoiled so i knew it was going to happen the protoss story was pretty cool, they're gonna make sure we know ALL about the hybrids next expansion. but the bad part was all the side shit which i didn't really care about. i could care less about colonizing and spectres, but nova was pretty cool.
but that was to be expected, in broodwar each race was like 10 misisons long, and this was 30 missions for the same amount of story as 1 race. too bad i don't really care about campaign gameplay haha. the ending was nice, humour is good.
the story is basically escape -> get artifacts -> some ghosts and spectres -> hit dominion -> more artifacts -> meet up with arcturus' son -> turn kerrigan human
alot of the side quests were cool, but they had no tie ins with the story really..
We didn't see enough of heroes on the battlefield... where the hell were valarian, raynor and thycus?
Would have liked to see this big ass marine on the battlefield... and the spectre/ghost thing was kinda misplaced... had no impact onthe story what so ever... bad..
Not enough battle with mengsk.. he is a gimmick now.. which is a shame...
and the part where hjim says... tell me where i shouldnt blow you away acturus... he can clearly see the guy has blond her.. wtf? jim knows what arcturus looks like...
and the news casts were fun at start.. but just got kinda fail in the end..
Why was kerrigan so easily defeated? Why aren't the protoss interefering with this at all?
I dunno man... something just didnt cling right... im feeling underwhelmed right now.. but i REALLY liked the story ... i admit.. but still.. it's.. just.. it's just missing something.. it felt premature... you know?
I finished the campain on normal right now. feels a bit odd. I don`t know but it was nothing really special on it. The most missions were really similar. Only 2-3 mission were real fun to play all other are like, lets get some mercenary, destroy all, collect some techpoints and geht these conversations done. I wished to play more with rainor or the other Protagonists. I know this is no w3 but still i want to play with the cool guys, not with all the usual stuff.
Im not done with the toss mini campain i hope that one will be better :-)
i love the ending! even though im a zerg player and am confuse what going to hapen next. It just matched up so well cuz he was always thinking about kerrigan. made my heart go aww.... hahah
Just finished the campaign and I liked it overall. It could have used a bit of work though to make it better but it definitely was worth the money.
Zeratul's last mission FTW that was awesome
I do find it a bit odd how everyone just sort of ignored Zeratul's warning though lol dialogue wise, cause I'd expect there to be more commotion about Kerrigan possibly saving everyone and debates about what it meant. I think that might also have been due to the non-linear method, because someone might not do the crystal missions until later on in the game and then be super confused about it all lol
The ending also made me really wonder what'll happen in the next two expansions, haha now I'm looking forward to them. Now that Kerrigan is human(? she still has zerg hair lol) how'll everything play out?
I enjoyed the tribute to Michel Koiter (Where Raynor picked up the dog tags off the fallen marine that said M. Koiter). I thought I would point this out for anyone who missed it. Michel Koiter was an illustrator that worked for Blizzard on the development of WoW and died from heart failure at 19. I just found it to be pretty awesome
On July 28 2010 23:11 endGame wrote: I enjoyed the tribute to Michel Koiter (Where Raynor picked up the dog tags off the fallen marine that said M. Koiter). I thought I would point this out for anyone who missed it. Michel Koiter was an illustrator that worked for Blizzard on the development of WoW and died from heart failure at 19. I just found it to be pretty awesome
whoa, I didn't know that.. That's really fucking sad
I loved the entire campaign. Got no complaints, only that I now have to wait for Heart of the Swarm.
Got through in brutal/hardcore mode, but damn the fking mega-thor mission was so obnoctious.
Way, way waaay too many units to choose from, I can't even beginn how unnecessary most of them were .. should've settled w/ 1-2 old school units like the science vessel. And my god I was so annoyed with the hotkeys especially the ones from the 'new' old units.
The end was meh, I felt like this was such a typical american ending ... the only thing missing wouldve been a blowing terran flag in the final scene on char when j.r. is walking away ... I think then i wouldve puked. Maybe I didnt get sucked into the story that much to really connect with the stoy. btw the story was too linear besides for the zeratul thing which I really enjoyed.
Besides that I really enjoyed the Hyperion Interfaces exploring new fuzz after each mission - tho I didnt get what that protoss crystal and the zerg thingy had to do with anything ... I always checked up on it and got disapointed in the end. It seemed it was just to justify all the upgrades which were also a bit too fancy for my taste. In general I don't like the single player units to be drifting that much away from what we were all used to in multiplayer
Ah and btw no stim on marodeurs? If u had stim rines like me you never even once thought about building marodeurs ....
People need to start reading the text box next to those things in the laboratory. The zerg "thing" and the protoss crystal evolves for every 5 research points you get, which in turn enables you to research more stuff. When you have reached the top lvl they wont evolve anymore. Simple as that.
still unnecessary imo. once the lab nerd had a theory that the protoss crystal might drain energy from the ship etc and in the end it just "helped" the ship.
On the topic of pre-rendered cinematics, does anyone remember that scene with a viking maneuvering between buildings from some of the promo videos before the release? I didn't see it in the campaign.
It has one of the best single player campaigns I've ever played, (can't say the best because nothing beats Gabriel Knight) every mission sucked me in. I did all the side missions because I was actually interested in what would happen plot-wise (I wasn't disappointed) and, more importantly, because I knew they would be fun. Each mission was totally different and a blast to play, made even better by the many research and armory upgrades.
Beating the game was incredibly fun and rewarding from a plot development standpoint and also in term of experiencing the gameplay/mission designs.
well, the story is sooo unfinished (i know it'll continue in the expansions).. i expected 3 clear blocks (well somehow the 1st one is finished with kerrigans rescue) but there are too many open questions left. i guess i had too high expectations for the story after the awesome promo clips. overall i missed the heat and tension. and i still don't get tychus, the moment he saw that kerrigan becomes human again, he would've died either way, so why did he try? i expected him to either find a way to disable the deathbringing mechanism or to beg raynor to give him a honorfull death.. so either he was soo pissed at raynor for beeing "free" the entire time tychus was in prison and expected to die.. or he somehow thought he would kill raynor and the marines too, wich kinda makes no sense because then he should've killed kerrigan last.
I really enjoyed the campaign to be fair. It was a decent length for an RTS campaign took me between 10-12 hours mainly because I took my time and tried to complete most of the side missions. The story itself I really enjoyed I found it solid and well dictated and there were times that I really got into it. Also the new 'hub' system and the upgrade system added a spice to it that made it slightly more accessible to your style of play. Some of the mechanics in the missions were also really clever that just made it more interesting than defend this or destroy that. It kept it original and fresh for me.
But that's just my 2 cents, overall I think Blizzard did an awesome job with the SP and I can't wait for HoS.
Kerrigan will likely be rebuilding the Swarm and her psionic powers to battle the Hybrids; I think we can expect the first few missions to be much like the first mission of Brood War, where Kerrigan is saving the Hives and reuniting the Swarm.
If this turns into WC3 with all the races uniting against a stronger power.... or turns into Mass Effect with everyone uniting to stop the reapers... just ugh.
I loved the campaign overall. Just really disappointed with the ending.
Kerrigan will likely be rebuilding the Swarm and her psionic powers to battle the Hybrids; I think we can expect the first few missions to be much like the first mission of Brood War, where Kerrigan is saving the Hives and reuniting the Swarm.
Kerrigan will use the swarm to kill Mengsk, neatly resolving the terran storyline and transitioning into the Xel-Naga-Coming-To-Kill-Us-All storyling in the last mission of HotS.
They wouldn't call it HEART of the swarm if the plot wasn't about a female. (Sigh)
well good thing is its not gonna take 11 years to make the expansion because they have the engine and code already they just need to make the new campaign and some new units then ship out the multiplayer is already their
On July 28 2010 12:11 APurpleCow wrote: I sided with the Protoss and purged the colony, and Doctor Hansen turned out to be infested by Zerg herself. What happens if you side with Hansen? Same thing?
If you side with hansen, there's a cutscene where she invites jim to stay with her on haven. settle down, was what she said, but we all know that what she meant was: "Do me Jim, you hunky stud, you!"
That had to have put a smile on a few faces at least XD
On July 28 2010 12:11 APurpleCow wrote: I sided with the Protoss and purged the colony, and Doctor Hansen turned out to be infested by Zerg herself. What happens if you side with Hansen? Same thing?
If you side with hansen, there's a cutscene where she invites jim to stay with her on haven. settle down, was what she said, but we all know that what she meant was: "Do me Jim, you hunky stud, you!"
If you don't want to play through the whole campaign again to just see the cinematics:
i thought it was great. some missions were way too long, but it's whatever. i really got into it once zerathul appeared. that's when it started to get into a compelling story, instead of make money and kill zerg/toss. i don't think they choices thing was a bad idea either. i didn't expect the ending to be what it was though...i'm interested to see how the story progresses now.
On July 29 2010 02:22 Jimmy Raynor wrote: On the topic of pre-rendered cinematics, does anyone remember that scene with a viking maneuvering between buildings from some of the promo videos before the release? I didn't see it in the campaign.
I don't know much about the storyline, but I have to say that playing the campaign is much, much more fun than I could have ever imagined. I was just going to run through it on hard, but it's actually really fun playing through on hard/brutal.
Finished the first missions on brutal, rest on difficult cauz i didn't plan to play campaign forever... The middle part was just boring tbh except maybe the kate lockwell TV's show but that's about it. The end was just lacking so many points. I feel really "incomplete". Dunno how to say it, but that was just meh tbh. Why turn Kerrigan in human form ? I don't remember the story saying that she had to come in human form to save the universe. And what about valerian ? Why the 2nd in chief of raynor's BC didn't say something more about tydus and his vital's devices ? Seriously too many questions and not enough answers that made feel frustrated.
First, mission types. In the first SC1, AFAIR there was only "build your base, destroy over 9000 bases, with new units all along", with exceptions. This time, sure you still have to build your base and destroy the other (it's an RTS after all ) but there are things added up that change the feeling of this. + Show Spoiler +
For example, the Supernova mission and the first Tosh mission, where you have to move your units/base accordingly to a map factor ; the Mediatic Bomb mission, where you must keep a spot for a due time ; the mission with the trains on Tarsonis is fun too, and there are other examples. Also, infiltration.
It gives a new impression for an RTS, and this pleases my easy self. But please, don't call this newshaped briefing a "Stellar map", or at least, give it a REAL meaning.
Second, interactive mission choice, and the Hyperion. Ok, you will still do ALL the mission anyway, but + Show Spoiler +
for one, you can't in the first try since you have at least 2 choices to make, and since you can choose the order, you can find yourself try a mission with units you had not the first try.
. This give a very different feeling from your usual "Briefing then go" rts-style. I played RTS from warcraft to SC2, from C&C to AoE, and I find this touch to be effin great. Also, side useless things that add some fun : + Show Spoiler +
The Lost Vikings, Jukebox wih those awesome Tarantino-country-blues-like songs, Easter egg on TV...
Three, customizable army. This is so good. Even if in normal and hard it means you will totally rape the AI's with proper unit choice, this let you the choice of your style of play, and this is great imho. Also this give a replay value and different strategy to (I hope) suceed in Brutal mode. Never seen before in any RTS I played although it might have been already done.
Four : storytelling, background. Hmm I'm not as enthousiast as the other points. Conspiracies everywhere (one or two are good, but one in every situation...). Some dialogs are great (I like cliche-vulgar random words, and Tosh and Tychus are awesome) but they often feel empty. Raynor finds himself paraphrasing his mates more than one time. Some side-stories give the feeling they were put in for completeness, but in the end they feel useless + Show Spoiler +
Mira Han. Ok this was a good lol time, but what is the point of this ?
.
tl;dr Holy sh!t this IS awesome !
PS : excuse my english, am french. Bonjour le baguette !
On July 29 2010 02:22 Jimmy Raynor wrote: On the topic of pre-rendered cinematics, does anyone remember that scene with a viking maneuvering between buildings from some of the promo videos before the release? I didn't see it in the campaign.
It's just in the intro cinematic, when you first start the game.
There was alot of padding, the Zeratul missions and the Char missions felt important, they felt like they mattered and very connected to the larger scope of the game.
My problem is that there was too much padding, yet we barely got to see many of the old characters who clearly have a big role, Duran, Artanis (barely appeared) and introducing new -important- characters.
Dont get me wrong i like Raynors crew but they arent really that important, Tosh was pretty cool, its a shame we didnt see more new Protoss heroes, or even Zerg Cerebrates to set them up for the next 2 games.
The story is sadly about all 3 races coming together to defeat the big baddie, which is exactly what Warcraft 3 was about.
You can sum up SC2: WoL this way
1. Kerrigan is key to defeating the Hybrids 2. Capture Kerrigan and use the artifacts (plot point) to turn her "good"
Thats all that really happens, the first 15 or so missions are all just padding, they are fun to play, but storywise they arent neccessary.
26 missions yet less happened in them than 8 missions in any of the Brood War race campaigns, look at the Terran campaign they introduced the UED, few characters, made things happen.
TLDR: Not enough happened in this campaign, only 2 things as ive said really happened, only 1 interesting new character introduced (Tosh) who hopefully will have a bigger and more important role than just "lol assassin dude".
Everytime you did a mission in BW things changed, because important things tended to happen in them that would change the whole story, in SC2 that dosent come into play until later when you find out that Kerrigan and her Zerg are important to defeat the Hybrids, it took them 10 or so missions to just get to that point.
Gameplay wise, there were some memorable stages. I loved the zombie one. And the Zeratul ones. And the Char stages, especially the final one, had an epic feel to them. But looking back, I think BW did the wacky side levels better. It had some interesting infiltration and UMS-esque levels where you're given a small amount of units and obstacles which you must overcome. Especially the levels where you get ghosts and have to sneak around and nuke carefully. Or infiltrating as Zerg and you can use Kerrigan to slice and dice everything. Or having to use sairs/arbiters carefully. As opposed to this game, where I didn't care much for being the Jamaican ghost. That was a snooze fest.
Storywise, I wonder about something. If you think the original SC/BW had uninteresting dialogue or characters or you don't really care how the three races are playing off each other then how in the world did you play through the campaigns without wanting to put a bullet through your head? There are a couple cool levels here and there, but that's not really the point with most people and their loving the SC campaigns. At least, as far as I can tell.
But storywise, it's a very strange transition from the Kerrigan dominated BW. There she's a very a busy bee who is seemingly having a ton of fun being rid of the overmind's control so she can be as evil as she wants. She's delighting in it, like her id has been unleashed. I don't know if it was the voice acting, the writing, dumb luck or what, but Kerrigan stole the show in that game. You want to play just to hear more of her dialogue.
SC2 opens up basically ignoring BW, almost like the Terran and Toss getting their asses handed to them never happened. Then there was that bad ass Kerrigan intro on the news. Ooh, this is about to get serious! Wait, no, then she drops off a cliff. And when she did show up, finally, there was no emotion in the confrontation (or lack thereof) with Raynor. She basically pops up, spouts some cliche '80s Saturday morning cartoon villain line in a shocking monotone, and then dashes off. In BW all of her lines oozed with either flirtatious sarcasm or seething bitterness. In this game she's a pale shadow and really not all that interesting. It's almost too bad she didn't get shot in the head at the end because I'm afraid what Blizz is gonna do with her in the next two games.
There were some good Kerrigan related CGI at least. For a serious fanwankery observation, her human form was changed from a freckly geek girl to a weirdly airbrushed cartoon girl. She got the Samus Aran treatment I guess.
Did anyone else feel like Tychus Findlay was the most interesting character in the game? I always wanted to track him down after missions to see what crazy thing he'd say. Unlike the rest of the cast he had a real voice, cheeseball lines and all. It's weird how he kinda hangs out. You discover his suit is sabotaged and he's being controlled by an outside power, but oh well, nothing is attempted or even said re: fixing that issue. Kind of a weird detail to introduce since it doesn't really explain anything or close up a plot hole.
well, this "introduce 1 unit per map", the "you can complete the maps in the order u like" sounds good. But i think it makes it too long... A lot of side quests side stories, i mean, get to the point!! Also Hard difficulty was too easy for me, and i can barely complete the maps on brutal, i find the gap a bit too large. And also, my last dunno 4-5 maps was build-up a force and kill ure enemy kind of stuff. I would like to play more: U get x units (and Rainor or smthing), beat it with them... Anyway i dont think im halfway trough the whole story, maybe later it will get better, but still, i got bored with it right now:S. I like the little things like The lost viking though
as i said in another thread, only thing there was abit of a letdown was the lack of cinematics maybe i was spoiled by the 12 videos in the orignial campaign, but ever since, blizz have made less and less of them for every game, ofc its alot of work and all, but it would have made it almost perfect for me. But i did enjoy the in-game cutscenes alot
and maybe i was the only one suprised by the ending: + Show Spoiler +
i did NOT exspect to save Kerrigan, was 100% sure some retarted plot twist would come, but it didnt, and i don't concider the Betrayel as a plot twist, saw a mile comming heck listen to the intro cinematic
all in all, worth the wait, looking forward to next playthrough and all the small things i missed + endless multiplayer and custom map
Edit: not at all suprised by all the critiscism, it is TL afterall, godspeed
Well. I didn't like that they had turned the cinematics into action movies for 13 year olds, I didn't like how they removed all the INTERESTING and SMART from Kerrigan and made her just another silly stupid & evil end-boss, I didn't like how non-epic the hybrid part was, but I did enjoy most of the gameplay through the campaign, it was way above expected, every map was very well-made with quirks and different tactics.
The original SC had a story that was epic and in some way very real, like how it actually could've been if human criminals had colonized outer space and two alien races appeared. SC2 felt like watching a stupid hollywood ripoff of space marines standing around comparing the size of their guns, fighting aliens that reminded more of the Starship troopers alines than of my dear old Zergs. Bah.
Fun, but expected so, so much more in terms of story development. Nothing happened. At all. Remember how in 10 missions you went from guarding a Chrysalis, to unleashing it, to improving Kerrigan's powers, to holding back a Zerg 'rebellion', to invading Aiur?
How you went from hunting down Tassadar, to joining him, to finding the Dark Templar, to proving Cerebrates can be killed, to fighting the Conclave, to busting out Tassadar to destroying the Overmind.
Each mission's objectives have absolutely nothing to do with the story, so it doesn't feel like you're really DOING anything. This whole 'building an army' thing that Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, and now Starcraft 2 have done just aren't the least bit intriguing.
Burned through it on hard, going back again tonight on Brutal. The only real issue I had with the story was the meetup with Valerian. I mean, the dominion fleet just sits there while Raynor and Tychus board their flagship and start killing people?
I also wish they'd had a few more 'final' missions, the whole Char -apocalypse raining space battle debris all around you while the Zerg flood up from the ground - was awesome.
What can i say...nothing special although in sum everything is nicely set and displayed, but there was no real threat. I guess Blizzard wanted that every noob can complete campaign.
Storyline: hell, it's about time. But for what? Nothin at all beside Kerrigan got her ass covered by J.R.
I guess in Zerg campaign, J.R. becomes successor of overmind and with his "wife", he starts kind of slaughter against everything. Jez, that would be epic
On July 27 2010 20:34 snotboogie wrote: So, I'm about halfway through it and I feel somewhat underwhelmed. The campaign feels utterly... cheesy. I think the writing of the original game was so much more refined and on point - I guess they either changed writers or the format of the old briefing rooms gave a more epic feel. The new lines sound like they come from a bland fantasy novel.
Still, the missions are OK I guess, and I'm especially liking the Protoss bit, but that may be because of my P bias.
What are your thoughts?
I thought the campaign was very good for a game. It was alot less cheesy than BW and SC1. If you replay sc and bw you will find that it might be your memory that playing you.
However, the general quality is very up and down, sometimes the "cinematics" were almost like a good movie, but sometimes they went a little too far (the constant repetition of the "propaganda" anchor man, they should have stopped that after at least 2 go's).
Sometimes the ingame dialog/monolog was extremely bad however. I remember I had the same feeling with War3. Dont know if it is the programming, but there were SO many strange pauses in this dialog. Especially when switching from one person to another, but also during a monolog. Like "I ............................... Am .................................. Afraid.................................................................................. .....................................................................................................................................Very afraid."
But I thought it was very good campaign. The main weak point being, (as others have said), only the zeratul missions and very few others actually got the story somewhere. Too much, get this get that without learning any new SC lore (which for me is the best part).
On July 30 2010 00:22 soverRR wrote: Well. I didn't like that they had turned the cinematics into action movies for 13 year olds, I didn't like how they removed all the INTERESTING and SMART from Kerrigan and made her just another silly stupid & evil end-boss, I didn't like how non-epic the hybrid part was, but I did enjoy most of the gameplay through the campaign, it was way above expected, every map was very well-made with quirks and different tactics.
The original SC had a story that was epic and in some way very real, like how it actually could've been if human criminals had colonized outer space and two alien races appeared. SC2 felt like watching a stupid hollywood ripoff of space marines standing around comparing the size of their guns, fighting aliens that reminded more of the Starship troopers alines than of my dear old Zergs. Bah.
The actual plot felt like a badly written fan fiction. It's something you'd find on Angelfire or Geocities from 2001.
The presentation was spotty at best. There is some decent exposition, but it's usually ruined by a terrible one-liner given by any of the characters. Finally, the game does not take itself seriously; there are far too many inside jokes and references. There's at least one in every mission/briefing room. It's like if George Lucas released the Family Guy version of Star Wars back in the '70s.
Anyone else notice how many times they did the big, epic drum-beat thing that suddenly ends and goes to a black screen (I'm sure there's a technical term for it)? How many godamned times do you need to pull the same movie-esque tension builder?
I loved the way they developed each mission to be unique, so playing through the campaign was really fresh and fun. Going to the armory and laboratory and watching the hilarious news reports were all a nice touch.
But while the campaign gameplay was great, I feel the story was really dumbed down when compared to its predecessor. The entire story was pretty much just about Raynor being lead to find some artifact which just happened to also conveniently have the ability to de-infest Kerrigan. A lot of the characters were introduced and then forgotten about, and a lot of the missions seemed to be just padding without a purpose in grander scheme of the overall plot.
I felt that there were some good missions, but as has been mentioned before, the beginning and end were the strongest points of the campaign-- the middle was ughhh.
When I have side missions to do, I tend to do a handful of them before moving on to the next primary mission. Doing this in SCII leads to a kind of schizophrenic relationship amongst the characters after Jim becomes a hardass. One minute everything's cool, then they're fighting in the bar and talking about abandoning Raynor.
The 'choices' seemed really gimmicky because they were completely inconsequential. A few research points here or there, and maybe one different unit.
Wait, what now? People actually find the SC/BW story deep? Should try replaying that game because while a lot happens, it just happens. Yeah, you do a lot in a short amount of time, but I wouldn't class it as a 'good' story. It worked, but I'll never replay SC1 to relive the story.
The story in SC1 consisted of a few lines of dialogue during a mission, and a bit of conversation in the video conference with a few cutscenes. What was so deep about it? I really think a lot of people are wearing rose tinted glasses.
I immensely enjoyed the SC2 campaign, though yeah the story was (as expected) not oscar quality, but it kept me hooked throughout. I kind of like some tongue in cheek cheese at times as well, though once I got to Char I foudn that it was a bit too much. That speech for example "..OR WE'LL DIE TRYING".
Also liked all the subtle touches they had, anyone notice the vandalism on the Mengsk poster saying "MENGSK LIES" in the first mission? Did you also notice that the paint is kind of smeared awkwardly in one direction and you can see a dead guy on the floor? Pretty cool I think.
Campaign was well designed. Though not too many missions were hard on "Hard", the different challenges were fun and well thought out.
I agree with Neo's opinion about the campaign storyline. The pity of it is at times you can see where Bliz's ambition was er not attained. The RPG story elements might have been a step too far.
The story was just a bit empty. A lot of cute little small developments, but not enoguh oomph. I think the big problem with the campaign is not enough development along the mengsk line. The original story lines in sc1 and brood war felt like major shit was going down. This felt like... ooh did that... did this... nothing mcuh changd dootidoo. [Exception being the lovely zeratul campaign]
I really enjoyed the campaign, The best RTS campaign I played for sure. It had alot of strong moments that fit well with Starcraft enviroment but the Ending was kind of weak. I just didn't like the idea of how it ended and also their might have been a few parts that felt a bit empty I guess.
On July 29 2010 20:44 Raevin wrote: There was alot of padding, the Zeratul missions and the Char missions felt important, they felt like they mattered and very connected to the larger scope of the game.
My problem is that there was too much padding, yet we barely got to see many of the old characters who clearly have a big role, Duran, Artanis (barely appeared) and introducing new -important- characters.
Kerrigan should not have turned back human so suddenly. I would have loved to see some mental struggle from Kerrigan while she was still infested and see that carried into Heart of the Swarm. I would have loved to see more into Kerrigan's past (she supposedly had a disturbed childhood) and watch her overcome her distrust for others. I was going to say her hatred, but the only person she obviously hates is Mengsk. If you compound her past along with the events on Tarsonis, I would say its more of a mistrust towards people, and not necessarily only a hatred towards Mengsk. But anyways, the transformation from zerg to human was too sudden and having infested Kerrigan aboard the Hyperion in Heart of the Swarm would have sold me on it instantly.
fought and helped random factions with no depth fought the dominion... but mengsk is still emperor stopped a zerg invasion and saved kerrigan ( and they lived happily ever after ending :-/ )
fought and helped random factions with no depth fought the dominion... but mengsk is still emperor stopped a zerg invasion and saved kerrigan ( and they lived happily ever after ending :-/ )
Blizzard I am Disappoint.
I found the ending to say "To be continued" if anything.
Best RTS campaign i have played, period, truly entertaining.
exciting missions, good character interactions, i just liked it as a whole. the story, kinda basic but still, it got told well and teh cantina was a great break whenever.
Liked the upgrades, but the secret mission was dumb and shouldn't have been a secret mission
played it all on brutal too, was very challenging at times :D
A very solid campaign, but instead of making 26 missions in a row be terran, they should have had 8 terran, 8 zerg, 8 protoss and 2 others of w/e. This is what makes Blizzard campaigns so good, always changing sides. SC2 will just have that on a much larger scale where its 26 t, 26 z, 26p. It would be much better if they spread it out.
I sort of felt like the campaign was too short ... not in terms of raw gameplay hours, as I grinded many, many hours for three days straight in order to complete it...
But I DO feel like it was too short in terms of story progression. I don't feel like enough happened to progress the story. I was also kind of disappointed with the ending.
On July 30 2010 01:19 0mar wrote: The actual plot felt like a badly written fan fiction. It's something you'd find on Angelfire or Geocities from 2001.
Of everything I've read, I think this one line nails it down the best.
RE: Kerrigan, all the speculation before the game boiled down to only a couple of possibilities. It was unlikely Blizz would let her and the Zerg win again, so what could they do?
0. At some point she kills or even infests Mengsk for ultimate poetic justice. 1. She's killed while still infested, probably by Raynor. 2. a. She's de-infested and then her and Raynor live happily ever after. b. Or killed and Raynor gets pissed (or he's killed and vice versa) and the revenge for that can lead to more games with whoever's left. c. She liked being infested more (she said as much in BW) and hates Raynor for taking away the high of her power, remains Raynor's enemy and tries to get infested again. d. Only partially de-infested -- not quite human, not quite zerg. Cue angst. 3. She sacrifices herself for the greater good. En Taro Kerrigan? 4. Status quo for awhile, she'll always be the QoB and the games would have a different focus. I kinda thought this would be the case with Duran Duran and his science fair project showing up to spoil her fun.
The thing that surprised me is they made this choice in the first game. For such a major character pivot point as de-infestation, I didn't think that would happen until near the end since SC3 won't come out for another 10 years probably. But if they had to do one of these I would've preferred 4 or 2c. Infested Kerrigan is the most badass and interesting character in the SC universe, so getting rid of her is really not in Blizzard's interest unless they can create a new antagonist with even half her charisma.
So, chances of an infested Tychus Findlay in the next game?
But yeah, I didn't like how they portrayed Kerrigan in this game outside of the CGI scenes (which were sublime). When she talks in the middle of a mission it's just flat. She's not having fun or toying with us or seething with bitterness or anything. She got her personality vacuumed away.
On July 30 2010 09:12 vyyye wrote: It worked, but I'll never replay SC1 to relive the story
Then why would you replay it? The amazing er, gameplay? Some of the infiltration levels maybe?
The story in SC1 consisted of a few lines of dialogue during a mission, and a bit of conversation in the video conference with a few cutscenes.
That is how video games present plot.
I really think a lot of people are wearing rose tinted glasses.
This never made sense to me for things one can do again. For ephemeral experiences, like your childhood, first kiss, or whatever that can make sense. But for media it doesn't really. You can replay a game or rewatch a movie anytime you want to see if it's how you remembered it. You can be deep in nostalgia if you haven't played BW in 10 years, but if you played the campaign a lot, or a month before SC2 came out, that doesn't really make sense unless you think that person is just totally deluding themselves. Personally, I've played plenty of games and seen plenty of movies at a later date and asked myself how I liked it back then. Not so much here.
On July 30 2010 14:46 Sl4ktarN wrote: I liked the first mission on Char the most. That was pretty freaking epic.
The Char missions were really nice. Had a great chaotic feel. It's just weird how easy it seemed the Terran did it though. At the end of BW Kerrigan kills the combined Protoss and Terran armies while most of her forces are on Aiur. In this game half of Mengsk's fleet just rolls in to the main hive clusters like it ain't a thing, no real planning or anything. They tried to portray them as barely holding, but really, they should've been engulfed in billions of zerg. In the other games they always have a MacGuffin to explain why they can even think about landing on Char. In this game they just do it for the lulz. I guess they have the artifact, but that doesn't come into play until the last mission (where it makes sense that they aren't getting rolled).
I know it's nitpicking (but that's always fun), but if only half of Mengsk's army can do that then how is the Zerg invading them such a big theat?
On July 30 2010 14:46 Sl4ktarN wrote: I liked the first mission on Char the most. That was pretty freaking epic.
The Char missions were really nice. Had a great chaotic feel. It's just weird how easy it seemed the Terran did it though. At the end of BW Kerrigan kills the combined Protoss and Terran armies while most of her forces are on Aiur. In this game half of Mengsk's fleet just rolls in to the main hive clusters like it ain't a thing, no real planning or anything. They tried to portray them as barely holding, but really, they should've been engulfed in billions of zerg. In the other games they always have a MacGuffin to explain why they can even think about landing on Char. In this game they just do it for the lulz. I guess they have the artifact, but that doesn't come into play until the last mission (where it makes sense that they aren't getting rolled).
I know it's nitpicking (but that's always fun), but if only half of Mengsk's army can do that then how is the Zerg invading them such a big theat?
Blizzard hasn't made any sense with there lore since, what 2002?
On July 30 2010 14:46 Sl4ktarN wrote: I liked the first mission on Char the most. That was pretty freaking epic.
The Char missions were really nice. Had a great chaotic feel. It's just weird how easy it seemed the Terran did it though. At the end of BW Kerrigan kills the combined Protoss and Terran armies while most of her forces are on Aiur. In this game half of Mengsk's fleet just rolls in to the main hive clusters like it ain't a thing, no real planning or anything. They tried to portray them as barely holding, but really, they should've been engulfed in billions of zerg. In the other games they always have a MacGuffin to explain why they can even think about landing on Char. In this game they just do it for the lulz. I guess they have the artifact, but that doesn't come into play until the last mission (where it makes sense that they aren't getting rolled).
I know it's nitpicking (but that's always fun), but if only half of Mengsk's army can do that then how is the Zerg invading them such a big theat?
Well, I'm pretty sure they lost their entire fleet, actually. The only thing they had was ground forces at the time of Raynor's landing, because their aerial assault completely failed. Then they went around and hit some key structures, and tried again with a giant artifact. It makes sense, because if the artifact hadn't come in, you would have been overrun for sure (especially if you did the last mission on brutal, there's no way you could hold Kerrigan off forever)
They could have never legitimately invaded char, and they didn't successfully invade char. They "survived" long enough to transform Kerrigan - they did not win and beat the zerg from Char.
Wow, just finished and I really enjoyed the campaign. I'm going to stick with other players sentiments that the middle got a little slow, but the ending more then made up for it in my opinion.
In regards to the future, here are my thoughts. Not that any of this is in any way true, but I'll spoiler tag it to save anyone who's dumb enough to read this thread without finishing.
First, I think it's clear that Tychus was working for Samir Duran. It's never fully explained who he works for, all we know is that it's the "Mobius Foundation", which is headed by "Dr. Narud" (Duran backwards for anyone a little slow) and that this foundation is blackmailing him with his life. So obviously he had to kill Kerrigan because of what Zeratul said; she's the key to the salvation of the Swarm. Duran doesn't want this.
Zeratul also said that a time will come where Jim holds Kerrigan's life in his hands. Maybe this was when he saved her from Tychus, but I think there's more to it. I fully expect in HoS for Kerrigan to return to the Zerg, knowing that she has to in order to save the galaxy. Jim's not going to like this so much, especially now that they'll get to have some sexy time. I think there's going to be another showdown between Raynor and Kerrigan, and I think Jim is going to have to let evil Kerrigan kill him as opposed to defend himself and kill her.
So my big prediction is that Jim Raynor doesn't survive until the end of the trilogy. Who knows though, I'm sort of making this up haha.
Anyway, I loved the campaign, as corny as the lines were. If you can get past that, and enjoy it for what it is, it's a very, very enjoyable story.
<i>Wait, what now? People actually find the SC/BW story deep? Should try replaying that game because while a lot happens, it just happens. Yeah, you do a lot in a short amount of time, but I wouldn't class it as a 'good' story.</i>
I did replay it again and keyword is "it just happens" yes it happens, thats about what we can expect from a videogame, nobody expects a deep story i dont know where you got that idea from.
Nobody said it was deep but it was interesting because alot of things happened, it felt dynamic because after each mission things changed, a race got the upper hand, a character got the upper hand, someone was killed, someone else was introduced. It was very epic in scope, expansive.
The original SC had 1 mission as a tutorial, immediatly Raynor is sent to investigate and they find the Zerg Infestation going on and things just pick up
The problem in SC2 is that it plays out alot like WoW quests, you are sent on missions to rescue all sorts of unimportant people. While thats very nice of Raynor and his crew, at the end of the day it dosent have anything to do with the story.
How jarring it is that UED wasent even mentioned almost, Brood War didnt apperrantly even happen because there was no aftermath from it. Zerg managed to beat UED, Protoss with Raynor and the Dominion with Mengsk and were in pole position. Yet Zerg are defeated on their home planet by Raynor and a bunch of Dominion guys?
While i sound overly negative i did like the GAMEPLAY of the campaign, fun to play, great missions in terms of pure gameplay, but the story felt flat, there is no reason to spend so many missions on pointless WoW esque quests.
I like Tosh, Nova, Tychus, Swann even Horner, but would you rather spend mission briefings with these rather unimportant characters than spend time with Kerrigan, Artanis, Zeratul (ok we kinda did spend time with him), Mengsk, some UED guy, Duran and new characters that held high positions in various races. New leaders of Protoss, new Cerebrates.
Look how awesome the UED guys were, Stukov and the Admiral, high ranking UED guys, awesome voices, their own agenda, their own plans. More of that, less of hot nerdy looking doctor chick, a overly macho guy who is just a grunt etc
On July 30 2010 16:53 Copes wrote: Wow, just finished and I really enjoyed the campaign. I'm going to stick with other players sentiments that the middle got a little slow, but the ending more then made up for it in my opinion.
In regards to the future, here are my thoughts. Not that any of this is in any way true, but I'll spoiler tag it to save anyone who's dumb enough to read this thread without finishing.
First, I think it's clear that Tychus was working for Samir Duran. It's never fully explained who he works for, all we know is that it's the "Mobius Foundation", which is headed by "Dr. Narud" (Duran backwards for anyone a little slow) and that this foundation is blackmailing him with his life. So obviously he had to kill Kerrigan because of what Zeratul said; she's the key to the salvation of the Swarm. Duran doesn't want this.
Zeratul also said that a time will come where Jim holds Kerrigan's life in his hands. Maybe this was when he saved her from Tychus, but I think there's more to it. I fully expect in HoS for Kerrigan to return to the Zerg, knowing that she has to in order to save the galaxy. Jim's not going to like this so much, especially now that they'll get to have some sexy time. I think there's going to be another showdown between Raynor and Kerrigan, and I think Jim is going to have to let evil Kerrigan kill him as opposed to defend himself and kill her.
So my big prediction is that Jim Raynor doesn't survive until the end of the trilogy. Who knows though, I'm sort of making this up haha.
Anyway, I loved the campaign, as corny as the lines were. If you can get past that, and enjoy it for what it is, it's a very, very enjoyable story.
I think it's clear as a cloudless day that the voice talking to Tychus at the end was Arcturus. Maybe he was being manipulated by Duran? But I don't think there's any debate about who the voice was.
After playing the campaign with all those cool terran units like vulture firebat wrath etc it's pretty obvious how incomplete sc2 multiplayer is. So many cool units missing or never coming cause blizzard couldn't balance in time....what a joke.... well im waiting for the expansions until sc2 is a complete game then i make my final judgement. Right now sc2 multiplayer feels totally incomplete for me. Other than that im still enjoying the campaign/storyline so far
The very last scene is where Raynor carries Kerrigan, where we can only see her zerg dreads and human feet. I'm sure this is what the next installment will play on, and Kerrigan will probably screw everyone over yet again.
I really hope Narud will return, and I really hope the story turns out to be deeper, taking us all by surprise.
On July 31 2010 00:27 wiesel wrote: After playing the campaign with all those cool terran units like vulture firebat wrath etc it's pretty obvious how incomplete sc2 multiplayer is. So many cool units missing or never coming cause blizzard couldn't balance in time....what a joke.... well im waiting for the expansions until sc2 is a complete game then i make my final judgement. Right now sc2 multiplayer feels totally incomplete for me. Other than that im still enjoying the campaign/storyline so far
This is silly. You've got the same core number of units as SC:BW, and how would you balance all that junk? The reason SC1 was even able to be balanced in the first place was because they don't do what most RTS games do, which is create 5 units that do the same basic thing, with slightly different stats. How would you balance ZvT if they had both Firebats (tough as nails) and Hellions (fragile, but fast)? It'd be a nightmare. You don't need Banshees AND Vikings AND Wraiths AND Valkyries. Everything needs a job and in the single-player campaign a ton of units overlap jobs.
On July 30 2010 16:53 Copes wrote: Wow, just finished and I really enjoyed the campaign. I'm going to stick with other players sentiments that the middle got a little slow, but the ending more then made up for it in my opinion.
In regards to the future, here are my thoughts. Not that any of this is in any way true, but I'll spoiler tag it to save anyone who's dumb enough to read this thread without finishing.
First, I think it's clear that Tychus was working for Samir Duran. It's never fully explained who he works for, all we know is that it's the "Mobius Foundation", which is headed by "Dr. Narud" (Duran backwards for anyone a little slow) and that this foundation is blackmailing him with his life. So obviously he had to kill Kerrigan because of what Zeratul said; she's the key to the salvation of the Swarm. Duran doesn't want this.
Zeratul also said that a time will come where Jim holds Kerrigan's life in his hands. Maybe this was when he saved her from Tychus, but I think there's more to it. I fully expect in HoS for Kerrigan to return to the Zerg, knowing that she has to in order to save the galaxy. Jim's not going to like this so much, especially now that they'll get to have some sexy time. I think there's going to be another showdown between Raynor and Kerrigan, and I think Jim is going to have to let evil Kerrigan kill him as opposed to defend himself and kill her.
So my big prediction is that Jim Raynor doesn't survive until the end of the trilogy. Who knows though, I'm sort of making this up haha.
Anyway, I loved the campaign, as corny as the lines were. If you can get past that, and enjoy it for what it is, it's a very, very enjoyable story.
I think it's clear as a cloudless day that the voice talking to Tychus at the end was Arcturus. Maybe he was being manipulated by Duran? But I don't think there's any debate about who the voice was.
You're right. When I rewatched all the cinematic, it's very clear that it's always Mengsk talking to Tychus. But, I still think my basic concept is conceivable. Duran is known to clone hybrids, secret mission indicates that the Dominion is doing it. So Tychus works for Mengsk who works dor Duran. Duran is still running the show.
Let's see we got one of the most hyped up games ever and once people have finished it, they start complaining about how it did not meet their expectations... hm...
Of course I agree that the cheese-factor is very high and that some things could be better and all that jazz, but to be honest, I had a real blast playing the campaign. Checking out all the different upgrades when you get a new unit, choosing which one to get next, all the while advancing different stories, talking to all the characters, watching the (often terribly silly) news, playing lost viking, being amazed at how each single mission feels really special and unique, being seriously blown away by the cut-scenes and awesome awesome graphics etc. etc. I had a great big grin on my face the whole way through - and that's something only very very few games can do.
I think it's way too short tbh, storyline was nice though I'm not that interested in playing the Zerg campaign after seeing what happened at the end, feels weak now.
part of the reason I played zerg was the nerd lore and the power of kerrigan now that shes human again.. meh.. pretty lame imo. hope heart of the swarm makes the zerg scary again.
Well. You can see the Warcraft III and beyond influence.
Not sure what happened there in the company, but where the original games, starcraft, warcraft, diablo were -incredibly- dark. The new games are light and cartoonish.
A lot of people thought the protoss bit was great. I thought that was where the story became a cartoon:
To sum it up,
End of the World is coming. A Prophecy told us about it. It's the Xelnaga (didn't the zerg KILL the xelnaga? I remember reading that the overmind just went rogue and ate them). The EVIL of all EVIL is coming to cover the world in void. The overmind wasn't evil, he was a slave! (which is dissapointing and turns him into a 'meh'). Kerrigan is the key to breaking that.
Which sounds exactly like warcraft III....
The Legion is coming. A prophecy told us about it. The Orcs aren't evil (which is really dissapointing again!) The undead are slaves to the legion (directed by the lich king who is like the overmind). A band of unlikely brothers is key to destroying the Evil of all evil and saving the world.
* * *
That's dandy, but again it feels like way too much of the story was scrapped. Everything that happened in Brood War seems to have mysteriously vanished.
Every character in Brood War was cold and calculating, especially Kerrigan. Let's recap: - She tricked the protoss into slowing down the new overmind. - She possessed the Matriach, stole her secrets and had her killed. - She, through Duran, skullfucked the UED admiral into killing his best-bud and almost destroying the PSI disruptor. - She teamed-up with Fenix/Raynor and Mengsk in order to destroy the Psi disruptor and the UED. - She killed Fenix (Raynor's best bud) and betrayed them both. - She skullfucked every faction (UED, Mengsk, Artanis) at the end and became the leader in the Koprulu sector.
Starcraft II comes, she goes away for 4 years. She taunts people all game while being skullfucked by everyone and just feels really cartoon villain without any plot, scheme or depth (what did she want? What were her goals?).
Same feel for most characters too. You either see right through them or think they dont have goals of any kind (interesting goals anyway). - Tosh? Free his spectres and dance on Mengsk's grave. (How deep of a goal for a Psychic super warrior).... - Horner? Kill Mengsk. (You understand this guy from day 1 and he doesn't change) - Raynor? Forgave Kerrigan for all she did without any struggle (i.e. kill fenix and destroy half the galaxy), but can't forgive Mengsk for killing Kerrigan. - Zeratul? Became a warcraft 3 character and tries to stop the end of the world. - Valerian? Somewhat interesting character so far... hopefully he will have fun goals that go beyond what he showed you. - Tychus? Interesting character. The build-up to his betrayal was interesting, but his betrayal that was anticipated by the player barely did anything and lasted 3 seconds.... Big dissapointment.
That said, the campaign levels were great. You have to understand that some of these characters like Swann were just there to fulfill a game role and not a story role, and that's fine. Each mission was unique and fun to run through (and that's really why they made starcraft), if they wanted to tell only a story, they would write a book or do a movie.
Their biggest story mess-up (which I think most people critique here indirectly) was the fact they were telling a story about the characters through an RTS game while there are more adapted game types to do this like an RPG (i.e. Mass Effect). The original SC story was about the factions and the characters leading/helping these factions and the conquests of each factions whether it's Xasx, the overmind, Daggoth, Kerrigan, Dark Templars, Tassadar, Sons of Korhal, Confederates, Terran Dominion, UED, The old Protoss ways (Judicator Aldaris), the new protoss ways (Artanis), and so on.
It's interesting, but I think people wanted to know more what is going to happen with those factions and their leaders/major players rather than the new emphasis on character interplay.
EDIT : wrote it earlier into notepad, so the begginign was for diff section I have finally had time to finish the game today (between work and other activities - gf was away also :p).
I suppose a fair warning that you might find some spoilers here so please stay away till you have finished the SP campaign.
When I started the game off I was very excited, I mean who wouldnt be. This game has been in wait for so long and for me personally I was waiting for the Story Line more than MP side (we all got our favourites eh).
To be fair my verdict is rather split on the game as a whole. When the Gost of the Past trailer came out you could see a lot of cheesy lines (I did like the trailer never the less) and many were hoping the game SP will not be as cheesy.
What I did not expect is to hear "time to put this revolution into overdrive" in the very first clip. I honestly thing the whole beggining of Wings of Liberty was rather rushed, it had not proper introduction into story line and very very weak background story of why Tychus appeared. I take everyone agree that first 10 missions are just so u get a feel around and get your units and tech.... However the 10 missions and the story with it I found weak. The fluidity of story telling (conversations) and missions I didnt like. Also what was the point of Tosh in over all? he didnt add to the missions much, he had no central point in the story line, he just appeared and was there.. Dont know.. For me he just seemed like a filler. Choise making was limited and in over all it was lackluster imho... I rarely used any old units, didnt see much of a point for them, but I suppose everyone their own. Oh I also did not like Mr Browders insertion of himself as a Goliath(ruined entire unit for me) as well as his actingas Mr Hill.
Thats that, now to the good part, after 10th mission Zeratul finally appeared and I truly have to say from there on I really started enjoying the game, I tremendously enjoyed the brief 4 mission with protoss and story behind it. Also choises of missions became more linear and story started taking more clearer direction. The plot twist of that Queen of Blades should not be killed if races are to survive in the end was something I didnt expect and I think it was nice change, very nice - i liked it. However something really confused me. If Queen of Blades is to survive in order for remaining of races to survive the Hybrids, then in the end when Kerrigan turns human again - wouldnt she stop being a Queen Of Blades? If so does that mean Raynor doomed us all just for the sake of love? If anyone would be kind enough to explain this particular thing then Id apprishiate it. And ofcourse ending was lovely left so many questions, now what? Heart Of the Swarm? How can zerg be without QOB - will it be like a prequel of zerg, when they killed Xel'naga
Also I didnt see cinematics of where zeratul is in hand combat with QOB nor did I see cinematics where Terran soldiers knee down whiles nuke goes off in the background - did I miss those cause i took different choises? Ppl said there were 29 missions I had 26... I prolly missed some and I will have to go back and play it again.
Tychus role was rather poor and the solution to the whole thing was very rushed and left me hanging and was like huh? is that it.... I didnt like that he died, could have been a better development of the story.
In over all I think it was slightly rushed story and defenately not as fluid as Sc1, however I enjoyed it for sure and I like the last missions and how it played out, the end result ofcourse being top noch.
I just wish that the units had less overlap. When I got wraiths I thought they might be good, but then I rememberred Banshees were much better precision strikers and vikings were better air to air. It felt like the story even had the overlaps since we didn't have a set structure the writers had to compromise a bit.
About the invasion of char, I'm pretty sure Kerrigan is to deppressed to really care at that point. I know she held off a fleet six times the size of that one ect. But she was motivated and she may or may not be massing forces for the battle with hybrids.
I'm quite disappointed that watching the credits took longer than beating the campaign on brutal. They listed every single small employee, probably even the Janitors. Not that I woudn't appreciate their work, but that list was waaaay too long (and I would expect some graphics mixed in to spice it up a bit). I didn't even spot TL in the special thanks part. Major fail there.
Imo the campaign was only mildly creative, lots of bad attempts at being funny. Zombies in SC? No thank you. And please not in every second mission. Why am I taking orders from that wimpy son of Mensk? (last few Mission Briefings) The difficulty was rather low in the middle (for brutal...), and the very last mission finally prove to be somewhat hard (I only had a Barracks left, the Artifact and NOTHING else when I finished it). But why is Kerrigan attacking me like that? Doesn't fit at all and is just the same as the way Maar attacks. Storyline is meh. The ending was so NOT epic. Especially compared to the Zeratul vs Kerrigan cinematic.
Anyways, it was still ok, but I wouldn't recommend SC2 to someone who would just play the campaign. That wouldn't be worth the money. I'll probably still earn all the achievements while I am waiting for custom hotkeys. And a performance boost. It has gotten worse ever since the beta started...
Btw, for everyone who wonders what the Swarm will do without the Queen of Blades: Kerrigan still has that weird Zerg "hair" after the transformation. So I doubt she is fully human now. Who knows what the storywriters have up their sleeves about that. Last note on Kerrigan: Why does she walk like that (as Queen of Blades)? This is so ridiculous; if they want to add sex appeal then use any other female character in the game. But don't make the Queen of Blades walk like that TT
What I liked the most: That scientist from the lab. You, Sir, should check out...
Usually people excuse the lack of story development in Tychus just because he was so badass, but the fact of the matter is, we know little of who he is, where he came from, and why he is here. We get scraps of information here and there, and then he eventually turns out (in 10 seconds of a 2 minute cinematic) to betray Raynor & kill Kerrigan.
This idea, of getting scraps of information, is the precise trend that pursued throughout the entire campaign. I tried to justify why Raynor helped Tosh & Hanson, but there was so little interaction with either of these two characters to really care. Tosh is supposed to be that second badass who is fighting the fight against Mengsk, a personal revenge story like Raynors, but did anyone really get a feel for that? Likewise with Hanson, you are supposed to be saving this poor colony who have been unjustly left behind by Mengsk, but did anyone really care about this scientist or her stupid little colony? There is minimal interaction between Raynor and these two characters about their purpose in the campaign to really get a feel for why these side missions have any point whatsoever.
The Matt Horner missions were interesting, but I didn't really understand or get motivated for this Raynor Revolution. There was no direct confrontation with Mengsk, no revival of hatred, it was sort of carried on from other sources (I am just guessing here, stuff like their books & BW campaign) and used in this SC2 campaign as if it was a direct continuation (I know it is, but there has to be some sort of explicit linkage between the two, so that if the link is severed by lets say, a 12 year gap between games, it can be strengthened by some new issues in the new game). This series was more or less succesful because it closely related to Raynor in the original Starcraft campaign, but how much? I'm not really sure, this was also pretty half-assed.
Lastly, we have the Char missions. I hated Valerian Mengsk, because he was just such a stupid character. Typical blond stupid haircut egotistic language type of character who I have no idea why I was working for. This is largely because Raynor doesn't really express well why he is going out to save Kerrigan (I know it's obvious but you still don't get a feel for it in the campaign), and there (for the player) seems to be some direct conflicts with both his "Revolution" and the visions that he saw with Zeratul (if Kerrigan turns back to human form, then what about the "Prophecy"). However, to give some credit, the Char missions were good, I enjoyed helping out Warfield and the cinematics were great. The ending made sense, but it was so abrupt and just strengthened the emptiness of the campaign.
The only "true" single-player experience was with the Zeratul missions. The funny thing is, it had typical scenarios from the original SC1. You had single hero missions, a generally deep plotline, and an epic ending that involved some of our most favourite & major characters (I mean who wasn't excited to see Artanis pop out with the carrier).
I have mixed feelings about the campaign, the missions were great and varied, but they didn't tie in to the story so well. The adventure mode made generic all character interactions so that you didn't get a unique feel from the characters. Furthermore, there was so little done to recognize where there was a major plotline that you couldn't really relate to what the ultimate goal of the campaign was. Was it Mengsk? Was it Kerrigan? Was it the prophecy? I mean, we can tell by the ending it was Kerrigan, but then why was there so LITTLE interaction between Raynor & Kerrigan...
On August 01 2010 00:22 Mortecian wrote: Well. You can see the Warcraft III and beyond influence.
Not sure what happened there in the company, but where the original games, starcraft, warcraft, diablo were -incredibly- dark. The new games are light and cartoonish.
The cutscenes in SC2 were very dark and the gameplay in sc2 isn't particularly bright either. I liked the atmosphere as a whole.
The char missions gave me the chills for some reason. Maybe i just have a too imaginative mindset lol.
So far the discussion has been all about kerrigan and the stuff. Anyone speculating on who is the dark voice that zeratul was supposedly fighting against? Duran claims that he works for a far superior being compared to kerrigan, and Ulrezaj from the Dark Templar Saga series also claims that he works for a far greater power. Both of them have been seen to be making some sort of monstrosity, most probably the hybrids seen in the WoL. I think the story would only end at Legacy of the Void, unless theres sc3 coming out-.-
About Kerrigan. I think that her infestation has not been entirely stopped, if not her hair would have returned to her normal red color. She most probably still retains her ability to control the zerg, but i guess she might be corrupted by the hybrids in HotS and return to her Queen of Blades form or whatever. Or maybe on a cheesy side raynor might become infested with her and matt horner comes to take over the hyperion
As a whole, I thought the campaign was pretty well done.
The plot could have used some work. Lot of filler stuff in the beginning/middle, but that's to be expected, and makes sense. Raynor acquires funds and technology gradually as he liberates/saves colonies and retrieves artifacts. Horner's missions, aka inciting revolution against Mengsk, were pretty good too.
Things start getting interesting when Raynor sees Zeratul. The vision missions, although seemingly unrelated to the core plot of WoL, will definitely play a major role in background for the later campaigns. That last battle was so epic, haha. I suppose that in the end, the visions influenced Raynor to kill Tychus. I'm wondering how Kerrigan's situation is now.
Char missions were almost well thought out imo. I was a little confused as to how half a Dominion fleet could defeat the central Hive cluster of the primary zerg planet, but I suppose it would make sense if she had sent out a lot of stuff (one news segment said there's a bunch of zerg retreating back to Char)
Gameplay was where SC2 really shined imo. Every level was fairly unique and fun to play. I went through everything on Hard and I was maybe stretching D level on BW so I would say that the difficulty is just about right for the Starcraft newbie/inexperienced. Goodness, the rip field generator level had me ripping my hair out... aside, they were modest. I took my sweet time for a good bit of them though. I didn't feel much of a difficulty increase towards the last couple of levels: just one or two hard ones here and there. Gates of Hell I literally plowed through 1a2a up to the general with the drop pod guys. Some enemy base and unit placement irked me a little because of bad logic. The bonus objectives kinda irked me a little bit sometimes too. Minor details though.
I wish I had a better rig to play on cause the graphics were iffy on medium-low settings. The cutscenes sometimes distracted me because of something menial like liquid being poured into a glass. Movies were hella tight though: Zeratul/Kerrigan and Kerrigan getting swarmed were ver nice.
Oh, and kudos to the music as well. During gameplay you can't hear it too well but otherwise..
Well overall it was really good, but I do have to agree with OP in that sc1 made me feel more immersed in the story, you were part of the story instead of just being a spectator. The cinematics and dialogs were great but in sc 1 they did a better job portraying the vastness and mysteriousness of space, the horrors of the war, and the unique personalities of the characters. I like how the old units are fighting along side the new units, it's awesome. (the Goliath looks really bad though, at first I thought it was something else ). However, my major disappointment was in the sound department, there wasn't any (except one maybe) song in the whole game that felt truly memorable, you can just remember the epic Terran tracks of sc1, they are majestic. Then you have the unit sounds, they are too generic, the missiles fired by vikings, wraiths, goliaths, vultures(they are supposed to be grenades I know), they all sound almost the same, as well as with the different gatling guns and rifles. Other than that the game is pretty good.
I was loving it... then the ending was like "aww.. what the ... u forrealz? lame!" But besides the story... the missions and objectives to do in missions and the difficulty were all really A+. Then you have a story which is like C-....
The actual gameplay was better than I thought it was going to be. There were some genuinely creative missions. No real complaints there other than some missions seemed to be difficult unless you had specific unlocks.
What I hated was how Blizzard handled the Hybrids/Duran/Overmind story. They took an enigmatic plotline and made it medicore. They then pulled a "WC3 Orcs" on the Overmind and basically retcon'ed 12 years of established lore. Instead of the Overmind chasing absolute perfection by assimilating the Protoss, we find out he was enslaved and rebelled in the form of Kerrigan (what?). The SC1 manual states that the Overmind was obsessed with the purity of form that the Protoss possessed. Instead, he's just another pawn for the higher powers.
What they did with the Hybrids is even more disappointing. The design for the hybrids was extremely disappointing; it looked like what some high school kid would draw during lunch period. Take hydra scales, protoss head and arms, add tentacles and add a glowing aura.
Finally, Blizzard loves deus ex machinas. The artifact questline was basically ripped straight from the Protoss Brood War campaign. Find the Xel'Naga crystals, put them into the temple, vaporize the Zerg. Now we get another artifact, prophecies, super scientists, etc etc.
Like I said before, SC2's storyline reads like a bad fan fic from 2001.
I liked the campaign overall, the gameplay was fun, but I'm a little sad that so few of the missions had anything to do with the main story. I don't know about you, but between fighting a war of the universe and doing merc missions for profit the latter is a bit... Lame.
The hybrids stank of warcraft. Blizzard need to get themselves some new writers for the coming expansion.
I was delighted with this campaign. Especially at the start it draws you in and makes you interested in what will happen next, what the news-broadcasts will say and such. The middle wasn't enough of consequence however, and the fact you have so much choice in missions confused me a bit, since I think it led to a situation where you had all these not too relevant side-plots that didn't change enough, and even if there was some argument the next mission it was forgotten since after all you could do them in any order you wanted to. There was also some off characterization near the end with Raynor, I felt. On the plus side, the missions were cool and I'm quite interested in replaying it on Brutal.
I agree the storyline is essentially too short, you have a lot of interaction with the Dominion, but you seem to raid the fringe worlds for some artefacts or money. If there was some kind of bigger confrontation with the Dominion to add to the tension later on when you make your deal with Mengsk jr. Maybe some additional things with Tosh too, who was a cool character.
I don't know if it is just me, but I had predicted the ending, something I was very happy about. I guess it wasn't so much predicting as me saying to myself "oh, wouldn't it be cool if this happened", and I think I said that to myself during the revelation that Kerrigan is some kind of special project by the Overmind. At that point I hadn't yet seen the cinematic where Kerrigan is a ghost still, being overrun by the zerg, so that couldn't have tipped me off, and obviously the actual revelation that they could turn Kerrigan human again I hadn't seen yet either.
It's rather futile to try to find logic in videogame plots, I guess, but I had always wondered first of all what the point was of Kerrigan and second, how on earth she could be so powerful as to control the whole zerg. Kerrigan wasn't just an infested terran, or even an infested ghost, she was a special creation that was never meant as a test for some kind of mass producing, I think. Personally, I suspect Blizzard just wanted to put a human face on the zerg, so you weren't fighting amorphous tentacles too much. However, for the plot there just had to be something special about Kerrigan and a reason why the Overmind created her. Creating a being that could lead the zerg but had free will is a credible explanation I guess.
For the second question, why she's so powerful, I think it would make sense if it was discovered her creation was somehow tied to another Xel Naga artefact.
To be honest I never considered Kerrigan a really great character. She's too interconnected with Raynor and Mengsk and such to really be a credible threat to the universe, unlike the far more intimidating Overmind. Her fate always was tied to some action by Raynor and therefore I think she had to go as leader of the zerg, because for the zerg to be a race with some agency, some reason for the race to survive instead of being just a pawn in someone's game it needs a leader like the Overmind.
Considering all that (and because I'm a softie) I realized I would like an ending where Jim finally gets Sarah back, which would be very poignant.
On August 01 2010 00:22 Mortecian wrote: Well. You can see the Warcraft III and beyond influence.
Not sure what happened there in the company, but where the original games, starcraft, warcraft, diablo were -incredibly- dark. The new games are light and cartoonish.
A lot of people thought the protoss bit was great. I thought that was where the story became a cartoon:
To sum it up,
End of the World is coming. A Prophecy told us about it. It's the Xelnaga (didn't the zerg KILL the xelnaga? I remember reading that the overmind just went rogue and ate them). The EVIL of all EVIL is coming to cover the world in void. The overmind wasn't evil, he was a slave! (which is dissapointing and turns him into a 'meh'). Kerrigan is the key to breaking that.
Which sounds exactly like warcraft III....
The Legion is coming. A prophecy told us about it. The Orcs aren't evil (which is really dissapointing again!) The undead are slaves to the legion (directed by the lich king who is like the overmind). A band of unlikely brothers is key to destroying the Evil of all evil and saving the world.
* * *
That's dandy, but again it feels like way too much of the story was scrapped. Everything that happened in Brood War seems to have mysteriously vanished.
Every character in Brood War was cold and calculating, especially Kerrigan. Let's recap: - She tricked the protoss into slowing down the new overmind. - She possessed the Matriach, stole her secrets and had her killed. - She, through Duran, skullfucked the UED admiral into killing his best-bud and almost destroying the PSI disruptor. - She teamed-up with Fenix/Raynor and Mengsk in order to destroy the Psi disruptor and the UED. - She killed Fenix (Raynor's best bud) and betrayed them both. - She skullfucked every faction (UED, Mengsk, Artanis) at the end and became the leader in the Koprulu sector.
Starcraft II comes, she goes away for 4 years. She taunts people all game while being skullfucked by everyone and just feels really cartoon villain without any plot, scheme or depth (what did she want? What were her goals?).
Same feel for most characters too. You either see right through them or think they dont have goals of any kind (interesting goals anyway). - Tosh? Free his spectres and dance on Mengsk's grave. (How deep of a goal for a Psychic super warrior).... - Horner? Kill Mengsk. (You understand this guy from day 1 and he doesn't change) - Raynor? Forgave Kerrigan for all she did without any struggle (i.e. kill fenix and destroy half the galaxy), but can't forgive Mengsk for killing Kerrigan. - Zeratul? Became a warcraft 3 character and tries to stop the end of the world. - Valerian? Somewhat interesting character so far... hopefully he will have fun goals that go beyond what he showed you. - Tychus? Interesting character. The build-up to his betrayal was interesting, but his betrayal that was anticipated by the player barely did anything and lasted 3 seconds.... Big dissapointment.
That said, the campaign levels were great. You have to understand that some of these characters like Swann were just there to fulfill a game role and not a story role, and that's fine. Each mission was unique and fun to run through (and that's really why they made starcraft), if they wanted to tell only a story, they would write a book or do a movie.
Their biggest story mess-up (which I think most people critique here indirectly) was the fact they were telling a story about the characters through an RTS game while there are more adapted game types to do this like an RPG (i.e. Mass Effect). The original SC story was about the factions and the characters leading/helping these factions and the conquests of each factions whether it's Xasx, the overmind, Daggoth, Kerrigan, Dark Templars, Tassadar, Sons of Korhal, Confederates, Terran Dominion, UED, The old Protoss ways (Judicator Aldaris), the new protoss ways (Artanis), and so on.
It's interesting, but I think people wanted to know more what is going to happen with those factions and their leaders/major players rather than the new emphasis on character interplay.
This post is pretty much spot on regarding how I felt about story. Actually, I'll say it that this post put it in words much better than I would been able to.
Why is everyone so confident that Kerrigan was actually "saved"? The only thing we really got to know is that her physical appearance has been altered into a form halfway between zerg Kerrigan and terran Kerrigan. Kerrigan is after all rather devious, I wouldn't put it past her to actually have desired the outcome of WoL. Concider that she does state that she knows what the Xel'Naga artifact is (During the mission where you destroy data cores, I believe), meaning that she knew full well what it could do to her. Also concider that this was done on her turf, she had an actual entire planet to throw at Jim guarding the artifact but didn't, she just put up token resistance.
Until new information is released, I think I'll stick to my belief that Kerrigan has a few aces up her sleeves. You know, once she gets dressed again...
Starcraft's core story was told in the original game. Everything after that tastes like sequel filler because: unfortunately, it is. Similar to how fans made Isaac Asimov come up with the "final" four books of his Foundations series--and the result was accordingly bland--Blizzard is making this game in response to an external demand, not an internal story-driven impulse.
Second, for all the effort put into Starcraft, Blizzard earned its mega-billions on an RPG MMO--not an RTS. Simply being the 12-years-distant company responsible for the original SC and SC:BW doesn't mean that the Blizzard of 2010 (and 2009, and 2008...) is an epic RTS-crafting university. I certainly enjoyed SC2:WL, and I will for a long time to come--more than any other RTS game out there, I think. But some of the story blandness, or awkwardness, I think, comes from the inevitable bleedthrough of RPG elements that will probably continue to affect every game Blizzard makes until WoW is unpopulated.
On August 01 2010 06:22 Toesmasher wrote: Why is everyone so confident that Kerrigan was actually "saved"? The only thing we really got to know is that her physical appearance has been altered into a form halfway between zerg Kerrigan and terran Kerrigan. Kerrigan is after all rather devious, I wouldn't put it past her to actually have desired the outcome of WoL. Concider that she does state that she knows what the Xel'Naga artifact is (During the mission where you destroy data cores, I believe), meaning that she knew full well what it could do to her. Also concider that this was done on her turf, she had an actual entire planet to throw at Jim guarding the artifact but didn't, she just put up token resistance.
Until new information is released, I think I'll stick to my belief that Kerrigan has a few aces up her sleeves. You know, once she gets dressed again...
I don't think you can say the fact she kept the hair the same means she isn't completely turned. How unbelievable would the artefact be if it created out of thin air Kerrigan exactly as she was pre-infestation? If her infestation was aided with some type of xel'naga artefact, which I would guess, then possibly another artefact can remove the effects from the infestation. Having strange hair isn't an effect of the infestation though, perhaps she just liked it that way? If the zerg traces are removed then her hair should lose the thickness and weirdness, but it can stay in the same model.
On August 01 2010 06:22 Toesmasher wrote: Why is everyone so confident that Kerrigan was actually "saved"? The only thing we really got to know is that her physical appearance has been altered into a form halfway between zerg Kerrigan and terran Kerrigan. Kerrigan is after all rather devious, I wouldn't put it past her to actually have desired the outcome of WoL. Concider that she does state that she knows what the Xel'Naga artifact is (During the mission where you destroy data cores, I believe), meaning that she knew full well what it could do to her. Also concider that this was done on her turf, she had an actual entire planet to throw at Jim guarding the artifact but didn't, she just put up token resistance.
Until new information is released, I think I'll stick to my belief that Kerrigan has a few aces up her sleeves. You know, once she gets dressed again...
She was devious in Brood War.
In WoL she is the most pathetic character in the game.
That's why most don't think there's any deviousness going on.
Loved it and it's amazing. All you who didn't like the game have to remember that this is only 1/3 of the story. Sure there are many unanswered question. But Blizzard has never failed to tell their awesome tails. Can't wait for the Heart of Swarm.
finally finished after playing on and off thanks to a #*$)#*$ job.
Felt short, did like the variety of missions but the side missions with tosh and the doc (pretty hot) were boring.
It was all worth it for the ending. With two more installments, they can't progress the story too quickly, but I love it now that Kerrigan is back on our side.
The sidemissions should've had an effect on the main storyline. I mean they only effect in Ghost/Spectre and wich research point do you want. The way they are now they feel like anime fillers: some random story that doesn't really matter.
Ok, thread is TLDR already... though some nice posts in the beginning, I'm all with the OP for instance.
And a couple more things I want to add. SC2 campaign was disappointing in the fact that your "choices" really didn't matter for shit. I don't mean just the couple alternate missions that you got to pick from, which were terribad in themselves, i.e. in not having the differences being clear enough or even making any sense... Like, do I wanna wipe the infested and save the ones that still aren't which somehow turns out to be a bad thing, or do I wanna fight some innocent protoss instead which automagically makes the infestation disappear for some reason. Or why can't I break free the political prisoners but still screw up Tosh and leave the nutsos to Nova. But also the order in which you took the missions as well - like, hell, there is a colony in need of my help, but sure, it can wait till I dig up a dozen relics and get cash and upgrades and come save them next year cos it's absolutely no difference to them, only I'll be a ton stronger. They could've made it so that if you delayed such missions, they get replaced with some harder, bad-things-have-happened-since variants.
I am also disappointed with the story in general. No UED, nothing about Duran or his involvement with the hybrid experiments, no infested, resurrected and de-infested Stukov like in some *official* secret missions in the N64 version of SC 1...
Raynor himself was a disappointment, I was expecting him to stick with the protoss for longer and focus primarily on fighting Kerrigan and the Zerg, even whip out Fenix's old psi blades or some templar or dark templar psi tricks as a surprise move in a crucial moment, etc. I was expecting him to more actively look for a way to de-infest Kerrigan, perhaps something related to the Stukov case, or perhaps some combo of cloning and protoss memory crystals to make an uninfested copy of her, or perhaps any of a bunch of other far-out speculations, but most definitely not just be handed out a magical "artifact" that grants any wish lol.
Tassadar being alive (well, kinda?) was an interesting twist, though not entirely unexpected, but why it didn't lead up to anything... well, hopefully they follow up on this in the expos.
So Kerrigan is responsible for the death of Fenix who was "raynors best friend", and raynor doesn't even mention fenix once in the story? not to mention the fact that he doesn't mind that at all. and that's just one of many story flaws, shame because the story really had potential, let's just hope that it gets better in the expos.
I thought the campaign was pretty damn awesome. I usually jump right into multiplayer when I get a new game, but this campaign got me hooked enough to play through two times.
also, General Warfield is a complete badass, looking forwards to seeing more of him in the next expansions.
2 Questions I have (not 100% related to the storyline, but still concerning the single player):
1 - Did it bother anyone else that Raynor has hair in SC2? What happened to the bald egg-shaped head / thin mustached Raynor from SC1?
2 - Where can the opening cinematic with Tychus be viewed again? There's no "play intro" button like there was in SC2 and I haven't been able to find it!
On August 05 2010 02:19 kh4n wrote: 2 Questions I have (not 100% related to the storyline, but still concerning the single player):
1 - Did it bother anyone else that Raynor has hair in SC2? What happened to the bald egg-shaped head / thin mustached Raynor from SC1?
2 - Where can the opening cinematic with Tychus be viewed again? There's no "play intro" button like there was in SC2 and I haven't been able to find it!
Tychus participating in the obliteration of Mengks' reputation while being blackmailed with tracking/exploding devices strapped in his marine suit didn't make a lot of sense.
I knew Tychus wasn't legit the moment he stepped on the ship, but I was assuming Moebius was related to Duran's forces or something and he was working for them while the suit was to hide the fact that he was infested.
The pseudo-romance with the doctor was godawfully cliché. "I'm a poor lonesome cowboyyyyy, amirite?"
Siding with either Tosh of Nova should've been more important than just giving a different unit. While we're speaking about Tosh, they should've hired another guy for Tosh's voice acting… that troll accent was really out of place. Replace all the "bros" with "mons"… while it was probably intentional, I personally didn't enjoy.
The end was also a let-down. Raynor running in to "cure" Kerrigan while Zeratul told him she was needed to save the galaxy, and succeeding. It merely opens a blatantly predictable plot where Kerrigan will be nice for a couple missions and then tell Raynor "omg I can't stay with you I has to go back to the swarm because they need a Lich Ki… I mean a queen otherwise they'll run rampant across Azero… I mean the galaxy. I wuv u but sry I need to go get infested again kthnxbai."
The overall gameplay was pretty rad though. When I ended a mission I was eager to watch the news to see how that moron would accuse Raynor of punching babies, or something, and the research/upgrade/merc system was nice. I liked how completing missions unlocked units, and were tailored to said units and how they should be used.
Because he doesn't seem to want to kill Raynor but wants Kerrigan to die. Hence, Tychus was sent to help Raynor in any way possible but was meant to kill Kerrigan when he got the chance. That's why he didn't mind acing Mengsk followers when he was in the Odin.
This also helps with how the Dominion had funded Hybrid research and the know-how to do it. Also, how did the Dominion know about the artifacts in the first place?
Duran telling his "son" about them and feeding info to the Dominion/Mobius? in the hopes that they'll find the stuff and blow the big K away.
On August 05 2010 05:14 mecra wrote: What if Mengsk is actually Duran in disguise?
Because he doesn't seem to want to kill Raynor but wants Kerrigan to die. Hence, Tychus was sent to help Raynor in any way possible but was meant to kill Kerrigan when he got the chance. That's why he didn't mind acing Mengsk followers when he was in the Odin.
This also helps with how the Dominion had funded Hybrid research and the know-how to do it. Also, how did the Dominion know about the artifacts in the first place?
Duran telling his "son" about them and feeding info to the Dominion/Mobius? in the hopes that they'll find the stuff and blow the big K away.
Just some quick thoughts.
So this post is completely mediocre until we hit the bolded part. I vote we must henceforth refer to Kerrigan as 'the big K." Brilliance at its finest.
To answer the above... That sounds awful. Mengsk should be Mengsk forever and ever. But Duran can be anyone else, that is fair. If Duran is somehow Mengsk, I am gonna cut a bitch. That makes no sense and represents everything awful possible in story writing.
What is fair to say is that Mengsk did intentionally give Valerian information. And Valerian, if not actually Mengsk, very likely is in collaboration with Duran or Duran's buddies.
Can I just ask one big big question people seem to not be talking about...
Okay, so the Voice in the Dark on KL-2 (K-2?) is supposed to be the enemy of the Xel'Naga, and it is even known as a destroyed of worlds/gods/cool stuff. Meanwhile, the Xel'Naga have made and protected a huge number of races and their HUGE FREAKING MOTTO is that they do not actively interfere with most species or hurt the lesser species. So much so that they fled when the Overmind attacked instead of just wiping it out with the awesome lasers I am sure they had.
Why does everyone think that the Xel'Naga are going to kill everyone? Blizzard left a TON of wiggle room so it could be that the 'cycle' is being perverted by the Voice thing to destroy the universe instead of being used by the Xel'Naga to save it. Why aren't we discussing whether this Voice thing, which clearly is evil and tried to kill/enslave all kinds of terran and Protoss, is ACTUALLY the bad guy who is gonna wipe shit out? Seriously, Voice in the Dark? The guy's picture the whole Zeratul arc is a voice from the dark? Am I missing something about this?
We have yet to actually see a CONFIRMED Xel-Naga bit. In fact, we have only seen Hybrids that SEEM to be what the cycle MAY OR MAY NOT actually refer to. Duran says he works for "a far greater power, one that blah blah blah long time.
Duran is an evil dude. Why couldn't he be working with the crazy Voice thing to hybridize the Zerg-Protoss before the Xel'Naga come back and manage to fight the Voice off?
Why would the Xel'Naga get killed instead of just killing the Zerg and starting over (like they have done for millenia as is clearly stated in every history) just to come back wayyyyyy later and then wipe them out? Sure they have purity of essence, but they've done this shit before! They live for fucking ever, right?! What time table do they need to be on to sacrifice themselves if they are evil? Just kill the bitches and try again, oh well, who cares, if they just want to dominate everything and such. Maybe the Xel'Naga are trying to use the Zerg and Protoss to prepare to fight off the Voice or something.
I am not convinced that this storyline is quite so obvious.
EDIT: Tassadar can't die, right? What if he and Overmind fused, creating a TRUE Xel'Naga, thus the infinite life bit, but part of the cycle, used to defeat the Voice time and itme again because it inevitably breaks outs, has to come about naturally and not by overt force? Seriously! The cycle is actually that the Voice is a dick and keeps breaking out. The Xel'Naga raise the purity of form and essence to use those races to fight off the Voice and keep him locked up before he wipes everything out! It makes as much sense as having the Xel'naga be continually killing bitches left and right and the KL-2 thing continually killing bitches left and right, but fighting each other of the rights to kill bitches. Purity of essence race can't be converted to the Voice's side because of their single-minded-ness, while Purity of form actually does the killing! The Dark Templar could hurt the goddamn Voice. IT MAKES SENSE.
For everyone that doubts that Tychus is really dead, it actually says so in the SC2 Menu after you finished the campaign. It's written there. Something along the lines of "...and Tychus is now dead."
I agree with the OP about the feeling of being part of something greater in SC1. I definitely missed that in SC2.
Ending was a bit, ehhh cheesy? Seems like Kerrigan would just die with the artifact's emission. The side characters introduced were unimaginative and I thought they would be important, not just side missions.
The format of the campaign was excellent though. I loved being able to choose my missions and choose what upgrades I wanted.
EPT
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) you can just mass one unit and win without much resistance. So that's good, to an extent, but some of my favorite missions in the original campaign had you killing 2-3 opponents in a war of attrition. Granted I wouldn't want every mission to be like that in SCII like it was in SC/BW, it would have been nice to have a really long one stuck in there somewhere. 
