[Story spoilers!!] Heart of the HOTS - Page 12

Wow that was uninteresting. Waited 2 years essentially to say that Kerrigan regained control and killed Mengsk. Almost nothing on the overarching storyline w/ hybrids and XelNaga was advanced.

Legacy of the Void has potential with all the story it has to fill, have no confidence that it will be done well though.

HotS is so much easier compared to WoL. Last level is a joke.
Story is hit and miss. I thought Blizz may have done something really cool after the first few missions.. then things got dumb. They should have killed Jim or at least Nova. Lots of cute tie ins to what you did in WoL Narud = Duran completely and utterly confirmed lol but he dies. Stukov coming back wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be. Zeratul felt extremely out of place. The story itself is pretty shitty, its basically going to be the WC3 story again - all the races banding against a demigod to kill him. Yawn. Give me a real twist please Blizzard.

I'd give it a 5/10. And for the record, I would have given WoL a 7 - at least I could see some potential in future story lines and the missions were interesting on the first play through. Almost every HotS mission was a recycled WoL mission - barring the fact that there are boss fights now lol....

I felt that the ending was really weak. There was next to no hype around killing Mengsk, the whole game was GARHH IM ANGRY AT MENSK LETS KILL HIM RWARRR. The missions leading up to it were pathetically weak storywise. The summary is: herp derp we're going to crush through Korhal with the entire might of the Zerg. Yup you can't stop us. As I watched the ending cutscene I was just overwhelmed with a feeling of 'meh'. Unlike WoL, which at least had a semi-epic climax.

I disagree. I felt that this expansion was meant to set the stage for Legacy of the Void - most media in between a beginning and an end have this same style to them, you want to further the story but you need to leave enough things unfinished and left hanging for the final game to wrap up.

I felt like they did a good job advancing the story between Jim and Sarah, they had a bit of fan service in the beginning by having them begin to hook up, Sarah kissing him etc, only to separate them and have them reunite. It was a bit predictable, but I didn't mind it so much. I liked the contrast between Sarah being somewhat ruthless as the Queen of Blades, but still maintaining some of her human compassion - I thought that was well done.

Mengsk was a bit underwhelming, the last few missions are quite easy, I agree with you that Wings of Liberty was more difficult, but I like that they changed the ending. I think a poor ending would have been if they just had Jim come back, confess he was wrong to say he was done with Sarah, and then they kiss as the credits roll. I give them some credit for taking a less predictable route and have Kerrigan prepare the swarm for the battle with the Xel'Naga fella at the cost of what she personally wants (Jim).

Maybe your expectations were a lot higher than mine, but I actually enjoyed the story. I thought the feral zerg bit was neat, I thought Stukov was well done - in fact the only bit I thought was poorly done was the Duran/Narud bit - he's supposed to be a very powerful mysterious entity and they pretty much just kill him off with further explanation to him - that's a wasted character in my opinion. I'd give the story an 8/10 - I would have given WOL a 7/10.

I felt like they did a good job advancing the story between Jim and Sarah, they had a bit of fan service in the beginning by having them begin to hook up, Sarah kissing him etc, only to separate them and have them reunite.

She unlike Jim turns her back on her humanity and turns to the zerg to save Jim (although in this case she is depicted as transcending and becoming the "good" queen). Jim is very visibly upset and he shoots some rounds into the wall. But what does he do again? He comes and saves her at the end. That's what I'm to buy in? I'm supposed to cheer that? That's your 8/10?

That was pathetically poor writing. The optimistic side of me was hoping that due to the leaked ending, they would go a different, non-terrible direction. I won't be buying this, and I'm glad I waited to see the ending instead of pre-ordering

She didn't become evil. She just reinfested herself, she's the "good" queen of blades now, because her mind is cleared of blind hate after she was saved by Jim, and further cemented her alliance to the Jim and Zeratul after she killed mengsk.

Then what do you want Raynor to do? Shoot Kerrigan in the face? Let Mengsk kill her? Then watch the whole universe burnt by the hybrid?

I don't know what kind of story people wanted. Is this a better story: Jim rescues Kerrigan and turns her back into a human, but he doesn't want anything to do with her. Both Kerrigan and Jim spend zero time together on the Hyperion and Kerrigan goes to seek more power so she can kill Mengsk. Kerrigan becomes reinfested and Jim doesn't care. Kerrigan kills Mengsk, Jim is happy Mengsk is dead, but doesn't really care. Kerrigan prepares the swarm for the Xel'Naga God.

Of course there was going to be a love story between the two of them, I would have been upset if there wasn't. What kind of love story would have been better? I think love stories are almost always going to be cheesy and corny, it's more or less inherent to that type of story.

Brood War was a different scenario because it dealt with material that I feel was rather easy to craft. I think creating a love/redemption story in Starcraft II is far more difficult than creating a betrayal/revenge story - so I don't really compare the two in that way.

Yes, that was my 8/10, I enjoyed it.

particularly around that protoss, the "prophecy" and the Primal Zerg