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It's sad HotS campaign sucks so much. I'll point some things out:
1. If you thought WoL was slow-paced and didn't move a plot forward, guess what? HotS completely revert this little bit of progress! After all this effort to humanize Sarah she is Queen of Blades again. Great.
2. Whole plot in 2 words: "Kill Mengsk". So what do we do? Kill Megsk. Without any little twist.
3. Why SC2 has to resurrect another character from BW? Tassadar sacrificed himself to defeat Overmind - oh wait, he didn't die, he's not so noble after all. Stukov died trying to do good stuff, but he died as a traitor. Wait, no, he's still here. Let them die ffs!
4. Zerus sucked so much. Talking monkeys, worms, I was waiting for talking banana. It didn't feel like Zerg at all. More like Flintstones.
5. I disliked most of the characters. Ok, Abathur was quite awesome fellow, but Dehaka guy? Weird appearance, horrible manner of speaking, boring dialogues... Worst character ever.
6. First and second Zerus mission was totally copied from the WoL. Only instead of hunting terrazine we are feeding giant maw in the ground for no logical reason.
Well, other than that, gameplay wasn't that bad. I really loved first 2-3 hours of playing. And then Zerus came and destroyed my happiness. Wtf happened during development?
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On March 14 2013 10:12 Gatesleeper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2013 09:46 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On March 14 2013 09:43 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 14 2013 08:41 DarthYAM wrote:
Jesus. So anyone who likes the campaign is an idiot? Grow up If you thought the story/plot/characters/themes in Heart of the Swarm were good, that it was well written and thought out, enjoyable, and believable, then yes, I would wager that you are an idiot. If someone tells me that God created the earth in 7 days, or that gay marriage is wrong and should be illegal, or that they think the Star Wars prequel trilogy was better than the original, then I immediately write them off as stupid and leave it at that. That's how strongly I believe that the HotS story is rubbish. You can try to tell me that I'm wrong, that the HotS campaign was actually really deep and meaningful, but for me, that's like trying to tell me that the world is flat. It's just as fair to write someone like you off for being so quick to judge as incompetent and simpleminded. How can you honestly make an intelligence judgment about someone based on what they aesthetically enjoy? Sure there might be statistical correlations about some things, but that's entirely different. Who's talking about aesthetics? I bet you're one of those "Taste is 100% subjective" guys, which is wrong. But please don't tell me you're one of those "Opinions can't be wrong because they're opinions" guys, because that is just stupid wrong.
You are literally talking about aesthetics right now, this entire thread is about aesthetic judgments regarding the story. You're defending making an intelligence judgment that someone is an idiot for enjoying a particular story. Read your own post.
Taste is 100% subjective. It isn't 100% relative though, which you're probably confusing as synonymous with subjective. I won't argue opinions can't be wrong either so another miss.
Please stop going off topic and trying to tell me what I believe or not because it's just making you look silly (although quite justifying your being someone who is quick to judge).
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On March 14 2013 10:17 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2013 10:12 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 14 2013 09:46 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On March 14 2013 09:43 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 14 2013 08:41 DarthYAM wrote:
Jesus. So anyone who likes the campaign is an idiot? Grow up If you thought the story/plot/characters/themes in Heart of the Swarm were good, that it was well written and thought out, enjoyable, and believable, then yes, I would wager that you are an idiot. If someone tells me that God created the earth in 7 days, or that gay marriage is wrong and should be illegal, or that they think the Star Wars prequel trilogy was better than the original, then I immediately write them off as stupid and leave it at that. That's how strongly I believe that the HotS story is rubbish. You can try to tell me that I'm wrong, that the HotS campaign was actually really deep and meaningful, but for me, that's like trying to tell me that the world is flat. It's just as fair to write someone like you off for being so quick to judge as incompetent and simpleminded. How can you honestly make an intelligence judgment about someone based on what they aesthetically enjoy? Sure there might be statistical correlations about some things, but that's entirely different. Who's talking about aesthetics? I bet you're one of those "Taste is 100% subjective" guys, which is wrong. But please don't tell me you're one of those "Opinions can't be wrong because they're opinions" guys, because that is just stupid wrong. You are literally talking about aesthetics right now, this entire thread is about aesthetic judgments regarding the story. You're defending making an intelligence judgment that someone is an idiot for enjoying the story. Read your own post. Taste is 100% subjective and that isn't wrong. It isn't 100% relative though. Opinions can be wrong too. Please stop going off topic and trying to tell me what I believe or not because it's just making you look silly.
Sorry, I was unclear as to what the word "aesthetics" means. When I use the word, I relate it to the study of beauty, and not necessarily with taste.
But while we're splitting hairs, let's make a point to differentiate "liking" or "enjoying" something, and to respecting something's intelligence and integrity. The two are often closely linked, but there's a difference between someone telling me they "liked" the HotS campaign and telling me that the HotS campaign was "good". I can't tell someone that "no, you did not enjoy the campaign!", but I can say "no, the campaign was bad!"
So to use your broader definiton of aesthetics, yes, I can and do make intelligence judgements on people's aesthetic preferences.
1. The HotS campaign was dumb.
2. If you think the HotS campaign was not dumb, then you are dumb.
Is that faulty reasoning?
P.S. What does "Taste is 100% subjective but not 100% relative" mean?
P.P.S.
On March 14 2013 10:17 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Please stop going off topic and trying to tell me what I believe or not because it's just making you look silly (although quite justifying your being someone who is quick to judge).
It's making me look silly even when I'm right? I said you're probably a person who thinks a certain way, and you confirmed that to be true. Also, what's off topic? You're not even the person I was originally talking to. And it was that other person, not me, who brought up the idea of personal intelligence being related to enjoyment of this campaign.
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On March 14 2013 09:46 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
How can you honestly make an intelligence judgment about someone based on what they aesthetically enjoy? Sure there might be statistical correlations about some things, but that's entirely different.
I don't think there's a need to derail the thread into personal attacks. >_>
On topic: After playing through the HotS campaign, I feel that, like people have said previously, the story is entirely focused on several characters and their individual campaigns rather than, well, an actual campaign of the entire race. This different kind of storytelling is a mixed bag of feelings, since it's hard to write it off as a good story for newer audiences coming into the Starcraft storyline. It's also difficult to please the people who have played Brood War and were attracted to the storyline and atmosphere that it created, then having to turn into this. I feel this is going from broad strokes that was Brood War to minute details in SC2 makes storytelling kind of weird and unfamiliar (at least for me).
My guess on this is that back then, they story was probably as important to the game (Brood War, or any game back then actually) as the gameplay itself, so you saw a bigger emphasis on how a story was written instead of having any kind of rushed storyline (Diablo III comes to mind, I hated how they picked up that storyline off from Diablo II). This changed, as we step into present time, and what was on everyone's mind for Heart of the Swarm? Multiplayer.
This wasn't the case back in Brood War, as you saw the game being pretty much a pretty sub-par RTS at best when it first came out (but later got balanced and changed as time went by and you see Brood War in its current state after several years of balance). I'm confident to say pretty much everyone that was waiting for HotS was looking at 1) New Multiplayer units for each race as well as balance and 2) Battle.net improvements. From the way things are looking, I'd say both of those did a pretty good job. We got pretty big strides in terms of multiplayer changes. We got a (in my opinion) better Battle.net interface, better usability, easier access to friends and communities, and so on.
So forgive my tangent, but what does this all mean? Since Blizzard is a business, there's only so many resources they can allocate into each aspect of the game. This meant that, I'd wager, most of their resources into improving the user interface for Battle.net and balancing the multiplayer of the game. Sure, I know this isn't an excuse for not putting enough emphasis on the storyline of the game, but I'd imagine that's the case. Hey, Blizzard is only working on what the community tells them to work on, which is at the moment the betterment of e-sports.
Storyline wise (wow what a big tangent I went through that wasn't really related to the story of HotS), I really wished they put more backstory to Duran, who was a pretty important character in Brood War campaign (God I still remember that mission where you control him as Zerg and have to set charges on the Pylons to kill the Protoss, that one was so hard back then >_<). Wish they had some Protoss gameplay as well like in WoL where you played a race other than Terran. Other than that, yeah, pretty much everything has already been said about the HotS campaign, both good and bad.
On March 14 2013 10:15 Indolent wrote:
4. Zerus sucked so much. Talking monkeys, worms, I was waiting for talking banana. It didn't feel like Zerg at all. More like Flintstones.
When you said that it kinda reminded me of this: Skyrim Pokemon If you're too lazy to watch it, kickboxing banana.
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Please don't use "taste is 100% subjective" as a justification for any argument ever. Thanks.
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Aesthetics
1. the branch of philosophy dealing with such notions as the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, the comic, etc., as applicable to the fine arts, with a view to establishing the meaning and validity of critical judgments concerning works of art, and the principles underlying or justifying such judgments.
2. the study of the mind and emotions in relation to the sense of beauty.
Aesthetics is not simply having a opinion.
Btw you can still enjoy a bad story.
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On March 14 2013 10:27 Gatesleeper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2013 10:17 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On March 14 2013 10:12 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 14 2013 09:46 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On March 14 2013 09:43 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 14 2013 08:41 DarthYAM wrote:
Jesus. So anyone who likes the campaign is an idiot? Grow up If you thought the story/plot/characters/themes in Heart of the Swarm were good, that it was well written and thought out, enjoyable, and believable, then yes, I would wager that you are an idiot. If someone tells me that God created the earth in 7 days, or that gay marriage is wrong and should be illegal, or that they think the Star Wars prequel trilogy was better than the original, then I immediately write them off as stupid and leave it at that. That's how strongly I believe that the HotS story is rubbish. You can try to tell me that I'm wrong, that the HotS campaign was actually really deep and meaningful, but for me, that's like trying to tell me that the world is flat. It's just as fair to write someone like you off for being so quick to judge as incompetent and simpleminded. How can you honestly make an intelligence judgment about someone based on what they aesthetically enjoy? Sure there might be statistical correlations about some things, but that's entirely different. Who's talking about aesthetics? I bet you're one of those "Taste is 100% subjective" guys, which is wrong. But please don't tell me you're one of those "Opinions can't be wrong because they're opinions" guys, because that is just stupid wrong. You are literally talking about aesthetics right now, this entire thread is about aesthetic judgments regarding the story. You're defending making an intelligence judgment that someone is an idiot for enjoying the story. Read your own post. Taste is 100% subjective and that isn't wrong. It isn't 100% relative though. Opinions can be wrong too. Please stop going off topic and trying to tell me what I believe or not because it's just making you look silly. But while we're splitting hairs, let's make a point to differentiate "liking" or "enjoying" something, and to respecting something's intelligence and integrity. The two are often closely linked, but there's a difference between someone telling me they "liked" the HotS campaign and telling me that the HotS campaign was "good". I can't tell someone that "no, you did not enjoy the campaign!", but I can say "no, the campaign was bad!" So to use your broader definiton of aesthetics, yes, I can and do make intelligence judgements on people's aesthetic preferences. 1. The HotS campaign was dumb. 2. If you think the HotS campaign was not dumb, then you are dumb. Is that faulty reasoning? P.S. What does "Taste is 100% subjective but not 100% relative" mean?
You said "let's make a point to differentiate 'liking' and 'enjoying'", but you never make the point. What is the difference between liking and enjoying? You seem to equate enjoyment with something being objectively good in your example but that seems absurd to me.
Yes, I think it is definitely faulty reasoning because you're assuming that statement 1 is objectively true. On a another level, it's equally faulty because you assume that if someone is wrong about something, it makes them dumb.
The difference between subjectivity and relativity is fairly subtle and so I might do a poor job of explaining it here but relativity tends to assume that any viewpoint is just as valid as another viewpoint whereas subjectivity merely admits our existential condition. If the two were put in a Venn Diagram, the middle area would be extremely large but not all-encompassing.
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I liked the campaign itself, but the story was a bit lackluster. I was kind of hoping that Mengsk was actually ruthlessly sacrificing almost all of his army to trap kerrigan so that he could truly bring Amon back to life, or if he was actually Amon.
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On March 14 2013 10:51 TheRabidDeer wrote:
I liked the campaign itself, but the story was a bit lackluster. I was kind of hoping that Mengsk was actually ruthlessly sacrificing almost all of his army to trap kerrigan so that he could truly bring Amon back to life, or if he was actually Amon.
That would actually be a really cool twist, if Mengsk was actually Amon, or a character we've known for a long time.
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Honestly in the context of video game stories, it is pretty good. Please tell me of any truly "amazing" game stories. Because according to the standards that some of you are judging HotS you would think that every other game story was personally written by a famed novelist.
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On March 14 2013 10:42 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2013 10:27 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 14 2013 10:17 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On March 14 2013 10:12 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 14 2013 09:46 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On March 14 2013 09:43 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 14 2013 08:41 DarthYAM wrote:
Jesus. So anyone who likes the campaign is an idiot? Grow up If you thought the story/plot/characters/themes in Heart of the Swarm were good, that it was well written and thought out, enjoyable, and believable, then yes, I would wager that you are an idiot. If someone tells me that God created the earth in 7 days, or that gay marriage is wrong and should be illegal, or that they think the Star Wars prequel trilogy was better than the original, then I immediately write them off as stupid and leave it at that. That's how strongly I believe that the HotS story is rubbish. You can try to tell me that I'm wrong, that the HotS campaign was actually really deep and meaningful, but for me, that's like trying to tell me that the world is flat. It's just as fair to write someone like you off for being so quick to judge as incompetent and simpleminded. How can you honestly make an intelligence judgment about someone based on what they aesthetically enjoy? Sure there might be statistical correlations about some things, but that's entirely different. Who's talking about aesthetics? I bet you're one of those "Taste is 100% subjective" guys, which is wrong. But please don't tell me you're one of those "Opinions can't be wrong because they're opinions" guys, because that is just stupid wrong. You are literally talking about aesthetics right now, this entire thread is about aesthetic judgments regarding the story. You're defending making an intelligence judgment that someone is an idiot for enjoying the story. Read your own post. Taste is 100% subjective and that isn't wrong. It isn't 100% relative though. Opinions can be wrong too. Please stop going off topic and trying to tell me what I believe or not because it's just making you look silly. But while we're splitting hairs, let's make a point to differentiate "liking" or "enjoying" something, and to respecting something's intelligence and integrity. The two are often closely linked, but there's a difference between someone telling me they "liked" the HotS campaign and telling me that the HotS campaign was "good". I can't tell someone that "no, you did not enjoy the campaign!", but I can say "no, the campaign was bad!" So to use your broader definiton of aesthetics, yes, I can and do make intelligence judgements on people's aesthetic preferences. 1. The HotS campaign was dumb. 2. If you think the HotS campaign was not dumb, then you are dumb. Is that faulty reasoning? P.S. What does "Taste is 100% subjective but not 100% relative" mean? You said "let's make a point to differentiate 'liking' and 'enjoying'", but you never make the point. What is the difference between liking and enjoying? You seem to equate enjoyment with something being objectively good in your example but that seems absurd to me. Yes, I think it is definitely faulty reasoning because you're assuming that statement 1 is objectively true. On a another level, it's equally faulty because you assume that if someone is wrong about something, it makes them dumb. The difference between subjectivity and relativity is fairly subtle and so I might do a poor job of explaining it here but relativity tends to assume that any viewpoint is just as valid as another viewpoint whereas subjectivity merely admits our existential condition. If the two were put in a Venn Diagram, the middle area would be extremely large but not all-encompassing.
Uh you misread that sentence, liking/enjoying is one thing, respecting/acknowledging good quality is another.
I know that not every time someone is wrong about something, they are dumb. But how much leeway can you give people? How many times can you give them the benefit of the doubt? Every time someone starts spewing totally bogus shit, am I supposed to say "oh, well he's just misinformed and hasn't done enough thinking on the topic", or "he's just misunderstanding the situation this once", or "it's his parents' fault for teaching him that and not his", or "well he's probably just having a bad day and usually his brain isn't so stupid."
I'm just not that kind of person, what I usually say is "wow this guy is an idiot."
Obviously, some things are more subjective than others. I like oranges more than apples, that doesn't mean every time someone tells me the opposite that I think they're a complete retard and never speak to them again.
But there are some things, like I mentioned gay marriage, christianity, that are so black and white in my mind, to have one opinion over the other instantly equates to stupidity. The HotS storyline comes pretty darn close to one of things things, I just think it was that bad.
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On March 14 2013 10:56 Slaughter wrote:
Honestly in the context of video game stories, it is pretty good. Please tell me of any truly "amazing" game stories. Because according to the standards that some of you are judging HotS you would think that every other game story was personally written by a famed novelist.
Brood War.
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Story - Just like SC2 it went in a cheesy direction, further discrediting villains and main characters to some PG chick flick. Multiple times I burst out saying REALLY? then explaining to people on skype that no I wasn't in a 1v1 match getting cheesed, I was showing my disappointment with the story.
Difficulty- Brutal was a joke of a difficulty. For me it really took away from the achievement of beating anything.
Objectives - Creative missions that were pretty different from each other. Kept the game fresh.
Customization - I actually liked the customization with units and Kerigan
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On March 14 2013 07:39 abominare wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2013 07:16 Bobgrimly wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 14 2013 06:51 Gatesleeper wrote:
It's insane to see some people in the thread defend the plot for Heart of the Swarm and pretend that it's good writing or makes any sense at all.
The big points have already been covered in this thread by Warlock40 (page 11) and abominare (Page 15). The people who disagree with these guys are using shitty plot points introduced in SC2 (The Prophecy, Amon is the new big baddy, Xel'Naga artifact as all purpose character development fixer) to defend shitty character development.
The stupidity of the whole campaign, and perhaps the whole sequel so far, culminates in the final mission of HotS. Stop for a minute and look at what's happening here. Our human hero, Jim Raynor, is helping an army of Zerg kill an army of Terran. Imagine the HotS opening cinematic where the Zerg are killing Terrans on Korhal, that version of the attack is just a vision/dream Kerrigan has, but then it actually happens. Now imagine that Jim Raynor and his own army of Raiders are on the side of the Zerg in that cinematic and are helping them kill the Dominion.
Jim Raynor, our perennial good guy, comes to the aid of Kerrigan, essentially forgiving her for all her past and present crimes (remember, she is still killing humans throughout the whole HotS campaign). In cutscene we see her telepathically commanding her brood mothers to attack and infest entire Terran planets. Do we assume that Raynor never found out about those planets? Or, as abominare said "do we just have to assume that every [Dominion] marine is a card carrying SS member".
Remember in the beginning of Wings of Liberty when Kerrigan begins attacking Terran worlds, a news report in the game says "billions of casualties". I always thought that number was ludicrously high, maybe it was an exaggeration on part of the newscaster? So in SC2, Kerrigan has killed at least millions, if not billions, of human beings, mostly in her quest to kill one man she doesn't like. Or does that not count because she was under the influence of Amon? That is so dumb. It is established in SC1 that after The Overmind dies, Kerrigan is 100% in control of her actions. She is responsible for everything she does. But wait, we gotta have a Zerg campaign for our second expansion pack, better retcon the shit out of Kerrigan and make her a good guy!
abominare reminds us to "keep in mind shes a god damn ghost who specialize in covert assassinations not involving giant wars". Not only was Kerrigan a ghost, she was the best, most gifted ghost in the history of the program. It would've made a lot more sense if Kerrigan chose to say as Terran and killed Mengsk using human means. Watching Kerrigan try to plan out a way to assassinate Mengsk as a ghost, that would've been fun. Holy shit I just made up the plot for Starcraft: Ghost 2.
Anyway, if you thought the final mission was stupid, you're not ready for the final cinematic. It was written by a 6 year old, and goes like this:
So Kerrigan is in the palace and all these marines and vikings are shooting at her but she's too fast and she jumps in the air and then lands and does her psionic thing and blows them all up. Next we see Mengsk sitting in his office and he's looking all smug and shit while he pulls out a cigar box. In it is a cigar and also this remote control thing, what is that, we don't know yet! Keep watching!
Kerrigan tears through his door with her wings and shit and walks up to him and is all like "I'mma kill you now." But then Mengsk turns around and says "nope I'mma kill you" and presses his remote and suddenly the Xel'Naga Artifact comes out of the floor and zaps Kerrigan! Oh no, Kerrigan is down and zapped and can't get up. Mengsk gloats over her saying "lol I'm killing you" for a minute and is about to zap her again but then Raynor comes out of nowhere and beats Mengsk up! He breaks the remote and now Mengsk is defenseless.
Kerrigan walks up to Mengsk and stabs him with her Wings, and says "okay I'm killing you now", then she puts psionic stuff into Mengsk's mouth and he blows up! Pa-chew! The whole office blows up. (We only see this from the outside because gore is gross, remember, this is written by a 6 year old, not a 12 year old).
Kerrigan and Raynor walk onto the newly made balcony and tell each other that they love each other 5ever. Then Kerrigan floats away smiling knowing that today was a good day where thousands of human beings died to sate the bloodlust of one woman. Raynor is okay with this because he didn't like Mengsk either. Beautifully written. Amnesia effect. Romeo/juliet. Good vs evil. 3 things to avoid if you want to write a good story. 3 things blizzard just hamfisted together to make a sequel. Prophecy/artifact allowing retcon. Zzzzz. Also anyone else notice the GIANT DBZ style fight scenes/levels. It's sickening. I love DBZ. But come on! That's terrible! Lack of imagination and cheesy fights/rts ruining concepts. HEROS ARE NOT RTS, REAL TIME STRATEGY. The campaign felt like an RPG. I thought I paid for an RTS. grumble grumble. LOTV = one man against armies. But he is immortal and godlike. Zeratul. You thought I meant the dark voice.... nah. LOTV ending story/script. Zeratul goes on a bunch of unrelated quests for no real purpose and does a bunch of stuff that powers him up for no logical reason, much like kerrigan did and occasionally has a few units join him to "assist" his mission. End battle after he solos the bad guys army, is him and kerrigan and jim with a big gun vs bad guy. You get to use each with quick time events to defeat the boss. Sit back and press x when the big button comes up. Blizzard will hail it as revolutionary rts tactics. Boss battle will be 95% cutscene and 4% quicktime and then 1% deathscene. Calling it now. And if you are lucky there will be a special level where you get to build a base.... but don't worry zeratul will hold off the waves of enemies solo so you can build 5 stalkers and 2 zealots to get the acheivement. My original post was running too long to include all the dbz references. but they were definitely screaming in my head in nearly every fight cut scene, despite not having watched dbz in like 15 years. Highlights included: Beginning scenes, hey wait, did mengsk jr just put kerrigan in a hyperbolic time chamber to test her abilities? When raynor gets her out of of the chamber after she just psiforce squishes everyone and the room blows up like a dbz character powering up and she has ghost suit lights flaring up like lightning i was laughing my ass of thinking, lulssj2 kerrigan. I half expected Narud to yell what 9000, not to mention that Narud apparently learned to kamehameha between games. Luckily kerrigan apparently hit ssj3 with wicked hair problems and wings instead of a tail. Zeratul/mengsk palace scene, yup more dbz fighting, but after a few seconds of wtf when she was floating up i realized this was a scene totally stolen from the end of dbz when goku's spirit reascends at the end of the series, Raynor had the exact same stupid look on his face gohan does.
Its not Blizzards fault that DBZ used every science fiction concept in the damn book over the course of its production. I remember people saying the same think with the Yoda/Sith Lord scene in star wars. WHAT IS THIS DBZ!!!?? Ok now thanks to DBZ anytime two people shoot energy at each other in a sci fi they must be ripping off toonami. The Starcraft gaming community is the most whiny, arrogant, sarcastic bastards ive ever seen, your all a bunch of geeks trying to look cool by mocking something you spend a great deal of your time on, i dont care if i get banned for this post it needed to be said.
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On March 14 2013 10:56 Slaughter wrote:
Honestly in the context of video game stories, it is pretty good. Please tell me of any truly "amazing" game stories. Because according to the standards that some of you are judging HotS you would think that every other game story was personally written by a famed novelist.
It's true, video game writing is and has always been bad. The problem is, up until WoW/D3/SC2, Blizzard was one of those few gaming companies that made good stories and had good writing.
Here are some games with good writing/stories:
Most Valve games (HL 1 and 2, Portal)
Most Bioware games (but not ME3, good god)
Bioshock 1 (not 2)
Silent Hill 2
Indigo Prophecy
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Some of the Fire Emblem games
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
Braid (even with all its pretentiousness)
I haven't played these, but have heard good things:
Planescape: Torment
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
Grim Fandango
Xenogears
Deus Ex
Beyond Good and Evil
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On March 14 2013 11:08 Pookie Monster wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2013 07:39 abominare wrote:On March 14 2013 07:16 Bobgrimly wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 14 2013 06:51 Gatesleeper wrote:
It's insane to see some people in the thread defend the plot for Heart of the Swarm and pretend that it's good writing or makes any sense at all.
The big points have already been covered in this thread by Warlock40 (page 11) and abominare (Page 15). The people who disagree with these guys are using shitty plot points introduced in SC2 (The Prophecy, Amon is the new big baddy, Xel'Naga artifact as all purpose character development fixer) to defend shitty character development.
The stupidity of the whole campaign, and perhaps the whole sequel so far, culminates in the final mission of HotS. Stop for a minute and look at what's happening here. Our human hero, Jim Raynor, is helping an army of Zerg kill an army of Terran. Imagine the HotS opening cinematic where the Zerg are killing Terrans on Korhal, that version of the attack is just a vision/dream Kerrigan has, but then it actually happens. Now imagine that Jim Raynor and his own army of Raiders are on the side of the Zerg in that cinematic and are helping them kill the Dominion.
Jim Raynor, our perennial good guy, comes to the aid of Kerrigan, essentially forgiving her for all her past and present crimes (remember, she is still killing humans throughout the whole HotS campaign). In cutscene we see her telepathically commanding her brood mothers to attack and infest entire Terran planets. Do we assume that Raynor never found out about those planets? Or, as abominare said "do we just have to assume that every [Dominion] marine is a card carrying SS member".
Remember in the beginning of Wings of Liberty when Kerrigan begins attacking Terran worlds, a news report in the game says "billions of casualties". I always thought that number was ludicrously high, maybe it was an exaggeration on part of the newscaster? So in SC2, Kerrigan has killed at least millions, if not billions, of human beings, mostly in her quest to kill one man she doesn't like. Or does that not count because she was under the influence of Amon? That is so dumb. It is established in SC1 that after The Overmind dies, Kerrigan is 100% in control of her actions. She is responsible for everything she does. But wait, we gotta have a Zerg campaign for our second expansion pack, better retcon the shit out of Kerrigan and make her a good guy!
abominare reminds us to "keep in mind shes a god damn ghost who specialize in covert assassinations not involving giant wars". Not only was Kerrigan a ghost, she was the best, most gifted ghost in the history of the program. It would've made a lot more sense if Kerrigan chose to say as Terran and killed Mengsk using human means. Watching Kerrigan try to plan out a way to assassinate Mengsk as a ghost, that would've been fun. Holy shit I just made up the plot for Starcraft: Ghost 2.
Anyway, if you thought the final mission was stupid, you're not ready for the final cinematic. It was written by a 6 year old, and goes like this:
So Kerrigan is in the palace and all these marines and vikings are shooting at her but she's too fast and she jumps in the air and then lands and does her psionic thing and blows them all up. Next we see Mengsk sitting in his office and he's looking all smug and shit while he pulls out a cigar box. In it is a cigar and also this remote control thing, what is that, we don't know yet! Keep watching!
Kerrigan tears through his door with her wings and shit and walks up to him and is all like "I'mma kill you now." But then Mengsk turns around and says "nope I'mma kill you" and presses his remote and suddenly the Xel'Naga Artifact comes out of the floor and zaps Kerrigan! Oh no, Kerrigan is down and zapped and can't get up. Mengsk gloats over her saying "lol I'm killing you" for a minute and is about to zap her again but then Raynor comes out of nowhere and beats Mengsk up! He breaks the remote and now Mengsk is defenseless.
Kerrigan walks up to Mengsk and stabs him with her Wings, and says "okay I'm killing you now", then she puts psionic stuff into Mengsk's mouth and he blows up! Pa-chew! The whole office blows up. (We only see this from the outside because gore is gross, remember, this is written by a 6 year old, not a 12 year old).
Kerrigan and Raynor walk onto the newly made balcony and tell each other that they love each other 5ever. Then Kerrigan floats away smiling knowing that today was a good day where thousands of human beings died to sate the bloodlust of one woman. Raynor is okay with this because he didn't like Mengsk either. Beautifully written. Amnesia effect. Romeo/juliet. Good vs evil. 3 things to avoid if you want to write a good story. 3 things blizzard just hamfisted together to make a sequel. Prophecy/artifact allowing retcon. Zzzzz. Also anyone else notice the GIANT DBZ style fight scenes/levels. It's sickening. I love DBZ. But come on! That's terrible! Lack of imagination and cheesy fights/rts ruining concepts. HEROS ARE NOT RTS, REAL TIME STRATEGY. The campaign felt like an RPG. I thought I paid for an RTS. grumble grumble. LOTV = one man against armies. But he is immortal and godlike. Zeratul. You thought I meant the dark voice.... nah. LOTV ending story/script. Zeratul goes on a bunch of unrelated quests for no real purpose and does a bunch of stuff that powers him up for no logical reason, much like kerrigan did and occasionally has a few units join him to "assist" his mission. End battle after he solos the bad guys army, is him and kerrigan and jim with a big gun vs bad guy. You get to use each with quick time events to defeat the boss. Sit back and press x when the big button comes up. Blizzard will hail it as revolutionary rts tactics. Boss battle will be 95% cutscene and 4% quicktime and then 1% deathscene. Calling it now. And if you are lucky there will be a special level where you get to build a base.... but don't worry zeratul will hold off the waves of enemies solo so you can build 5 stalkers and 2 zealots to get the acheivement. My original post was running too long to include all the dbz references. but they were definitely screaming in my head in nearly every fight cut scene, despite not having watched dbz in like 15 years. Highlights included: Beginning scenes, hey wait, did mengsk jr just put kerrigan in a hyperbolic time chamber to test her abilities? When raynor gets her out of of the chamber after she just psiforce squishes everyone and the room blows up like a dbz character powering up and she has ghost suit lights flaring up like lightning i was laughing my ass of thinking, lulssj2 kerrigan. I half expected Narud to yell what 9000, not to mention that Narud apparently learned to kamehameha between games. Luckily kerrigan apparently hit ssj3 with wicked hair problems and wings instead of a tail. Zeratul/mengsk palace scene, yup more dbz fighting, but after a few seconds of wtf when she was floating up i realized this was a scene totally stolen from the end of dbz when goku's spirit reascends at the end of the series, Raynor had the exact same stupid look on his face gohan does. Its not Blizzards fault that DBZ used every science fiction concept in the damn book over the course of its production. I remember people saying the same think with the Yoda/Sith Lord scene in star wars. WHAT IS THIS DBZ!!!?? Ok now thanks to DBZ anytime two people shoot energy at each other in a sci fi they must be ripping off toonami. The Starcraft gaming community is the most whiny, arrogant, sarcastic bastards ive ever seen, your all a bunch of geeks trying to look cool by mocking something you spend a great deal of your time on, i dont care if i get banned for this post it needed to be said.
First thing i thought of in the mission with Kerrigan vs Narud was DBZ, so it kind of has to be said but i enjoyed the campaign, final mission was a bit too easy when you get the hang of it. Also if we are talking about borrowing concepts Kerrigan has force choke xD. Some of the story seemed a bit odd where stukov arrives out of nowhere, Narud wasn't confirmed as Duran, warfield survived WoL and then appeared in hots to die and not much protoss in the campaign  .
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On March 14 2013 10:42 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
You said "let's make a point to differentiate 'liking' and 'enjoying'", but you never make the point. What is the difference between liking and enjoying? You seem to equate enjoyment with something being objectively good in your example but that seems absurd to me.
You can like killing but not enjoy it, or you can enjoy killing but not like that you do. Or am I missing something?
On March 14 2013 10:56 Slaughter wrote:
Honestly in the context of video game stories, it is pretty good. Please tell me of any truly "amazing" game stories. Because according to the standards that some of you are judging HotS you would think that every other game story was personally written by a famed novelist.
Because nothing happens to be better does not it make it good. The story is linear and thus not a "video game story" but simply a story (It could easily work as a novella). So it gets the same judgment standards. One could think that one of the richest and successful publisher/game development studio could actually get a competent novelist to write the story.
Broodwars story was better. It is said that its the same writer so don't know what happened.
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On March 14 2013 10:58 Warlock40 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2013 10:56 Slaughter wrote:
Honestly in the context of video game stories, it is pretty good. Please tell me of any truly "amazing" game stories. Because according to the standards that some of you are judging HotS you would think that every other game story was personally written by a famed novelist. Brood War.
LOL dont let this bum fool you, there was just as many complaints going on about broodwar back in its day as there is about SC2 now, that includes balance in multiplayer as well as the storyline and missions. Just like history is kind to former Presidents gamers are kind to the prequels of games once they have something new to bash all day. All the people talking about how much harder WOL was than HOTS are the same people saying WOL was a joke cause every mission besides Maw of the Void can be done with mass medic marine and nothing else. Team liquid has a lot pros who are judging the game as if everyone who buys this game is part of the elite 5% top players of starcraft. Short sight and juvenile.
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And people say the Battle.net forums are bad...
As for me, personally, I greatly enjoyed the campaign. It had a lot of interesting things to do (like evolution missions) and most of the characters are awesome (<3 Abathur). The story was predictable (as has been just about every story I've ever taken in) but was good nonetheless.
I give it a 9/10.
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On March 14 2013 11:16 Pookie Monster wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2013 10:58 Warlock40 wrote:On March 14 2013 10:56 Slaughter wrote:
Honestly in the context of video game stories, it is pretty good. Please tell me of any truly "amazing" game stories. Because according to the standards that some of you are judging HotS you would think that every other game story was personally written by a famed novelist. Brood War. LOL dont let this bum fool you, there was just as many complaints going on about broodwar back in its day as there is about SC2 now, that includes balance in multiplayer as well as the storyline and missions. Just like history is kind to former Presidents gamers are kind to the prequels of games once they have something new to bash all day. All the people talking about how much harder WOL was than HOTS are the same people saying WOL was a joke cause every mission besides Maw of the Void can be done with mass medic marine and nothing else. Team liquid has a lot pros who are judging the game as if everyone who buys this game is part of the elite 5% top players of starcraft. Short sight and juvenile.
You are on Teamliquid.net; where Broodwar is greater than everything.
The difficulty of WoL and HotS was about the same (the last Protoss mission in WoL was a cakewalk... Just mass Void Rays).
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EPT
