EPTHeart of the Swarm: An Empire, or a Menace? - Page 32
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Lobotomist
United States1541 Posts
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jsdk
63 Posts
On March 31 2013 03:01 Ansinjunger wrote: Where I'm going with this is that there wasn't much story to tell without a bit of retcon here and there. Zerus isn't an ash world, it's lush. Well, good for us not having to see another Char. You've already accepted that Kerrigan needs to go back to Zerus to regain her power, which is already pretty boring generic fantasy. They destroyed a lot of compelling ideas on Zerus. Zerg is no longer a hyper-evolved hivemind parasite that realised that their ecosystem was collapsing and they had to leave the planet (cue Protoss). They're now a savage/tribal creature that regularly attack other tribes for floaty reasons (essence), and they were enslaved to a hivemind that was created from an all-powerful entity for some reason. Which is exactly what needed to happen for the all-powerful entity to be stopped due to some ageless prophecy. It's almost like Amon helped the demise of his plan to... something. There's good retcons and there's bad retcons. I find the primal zerg less compelling than the original backstory. I would think coming from Mass Effect you would know about that, given how they butchered the main story arc from what was originally fairly interesting (dark energy). Both Mass Effect and Starcraft made a rocky switch from science fiction to science fantasy. A lot of the interesting ideas about the relays and the reapers and the geth had to be sacrificed for their big finale, much like how a lot of the interesting ideas of the original Zerus had to be sacrificed so that Kerrigan could get her stiletto heels back in some big climactic set piece. On March 31 2013 03:01 Ansinjunger wrote:At least Blizzard listens (look at new battle.net features such as clans and global play, as well as listening to pro-gamers on balance, etc., etc.). You say that... but the fans have been asking for these features for three years (since beta). SC2 has been slowly suffocating without them. If HotS released without those features, I'm pretty sure I would have quit and I doubt I would be alone. That is kind of off-topic though. On March 31 2013 03:01 Ansinjunger wrote:And honestly, as much as I would have loved to see a reference to Samir Duran, that would have made no sense to someone who only played SC2. "Who's this black guy with the beret?" they would wonder. The Fenix reference also fails in that sense, so you're basically screwed either way, since you risk confusing people who never played SC1. So, they shouldn't have done it because the player would be emotionally disconnected and confused. And yet, here I am, emotionally disconnected and confused with the SC2 story. While the retcons certainly play a role in that, the main problem is that the story isn't worth a closer look unless it's to pick it apart. It's an uninspired mess that is only elevated above a typical fan fiction due to Blizzard's production quality. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
And yet, here I am, emotionally disconnected and confused with the SC2 story. While the retcons certainly play a role in that, the main problem is that the story isn't worth a closer look unless it's to pick it apart. It's an uninspired mess that is only elevated above a typical fan fiction due to Blizzard's production quality. To be fair, I've just finished going through the Terran campaign of SC1 this morning and I have to tell you, its blander than either WoL OR HotS. However, since bland political intrigue is more interesting than bland love stories--I still like it better than SC2. SC1 Nothing happens for the firs two missions, you get rescued in the 3rd mission, the fourth mission you do rebel stuff to show you mengks is a good guy, the 5rth mission you find disks, the 5th mission you rescue someone. Its not till the 6th mission that plot happens. Missions 7-9 is the turn where we find out mengks is evil, and the final mission is just a retreat mission. All of them easier than any of the missions in HotS and WoL. So plot wise, the terran missions in SC1 spends 10 missions to show us that people in power are corrupt. The first 5 missions shows us that the dominion is evil and doesn't care about the little guy. Then the next 5 missions shows us that Mengsk is evil and doesn't care about the little guy. However, since they kept the narrative arc simple and precise, they were able to flesh it out much easier and with much more craft than they did with WoL or HotS. Since it didn't have a lot to say, they were able to keep the telling of the little they said as tight as possible--which I liked. WoL and HotS feel like watching a 2 hour movie telling a 1.5 hour long story. It's good, but it keeps going on so long that you just stop caring after a while. And when you extend something so long you will eventually be forced to add in irrelevant stuff to actually fit the mission minimums. SC1 only had about 3 missions of actual meta-plot in it. And even those missions gloss over the details. By time I finish the SC1 campaign I'm certain I'll notice only 2-4 plot points TOPS. But since they spend 4-5 missions explaining and expanding the plot points, and the side missions they give you are missions to veer you away from the plot points--the plot points always feel surprising and new. The first 2 missions is Raynor being Raynor--then he gets in trouble from the dominion. The third mission is the zerg overrunning the planet--and he gets saved by Mengks. At this point you're made to think that the dominion is the bad guy. You spend about 2 missions being rebels, helping small outposts with revolutions while breaking into installations. You even save Edmund Duke despite him being the bad guy because that's what lawful good rebels do even though Raynor is against it. You then find out what the dominion's research has been doing--but its too late you're surrounded. So you're forced to use the dominion tools (the zerg) against them--for the greater good and all. And then you make a big push against the dominion--but that's when Mengks uses the zerg against the dominion even though he's no longer stuck in a corner. And then mengks leaves Kerrigan. And then you leave mengks because he's gone crazy. Half the missions is the turn, making you think the story is going one way--and then you're "forced" to use evil methods to survive a mission, but you Sarah and Raynor feel bad about it. And then the end of the terran missions is you realizing that Mengks does not feel bad at all about using it. It took 10 missions to explore that, and since you were forced to only focus on those missions you were immersed in the narrative of a failed revolution. It is tight, it is crisp, and it makes up for a bland narrative and a lacking storyline with excellent execution. | ||
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Monsen
Germany2548 Posts
Aside from the fact that in Sc2 I don't feel immersed at all, simply because unlike in Sc/Bw where I was a part of that universe, a commander/zerebrat/executor and addressed as such by all characters, now I feel like some invisible watcher who just goes along with the missions to get the next part of the movie. The story itself seemed half baked to me. I have no problems with the Raynor/Kerrigan love story (their flirting seemed obvious to me in Sc/Bw) but the whole primal zerg stuff just seemed ludicrous. We spent the entire WoL campaign to make Kerrigan human again and it takes 3 introduction missions for blizzard to go: oops, Zerg again, sorry! (but not that old kind of zerg, a really really new kind of zerg, promise). Also Zerg isn't Zerg anymore. When Starcraft started, Zerg was this primal force- an entire race of mindless killers led by a single (hive-)mind. Now maybe that doesn't go well with the target group of 6 year olds (even though my 4 year old niece seems to like the "bugs" best) but everyone else liked it because it was something special. I already disliked Kerrigan taking over from the Overmind particularly for that reason, but I could live with one somewhat human being leading the Zerg. But now they seem to have let the WoW writers at the story and suddenly everything gets humanized. The entire Zerg concept gets thrown overboard. Who wants personalities in the Zerg race? Maybe you can't sell as many action figures with the old Zerg concept but I don't give a damn. Suddenly every fucking Zergling seems to have an opinion, the "Queen of Blades" has heaps of dialogues with her underlings, teaches them tactics and asks about their toughts. Bullshit. They're also not evil mindless killers anymore (WC3 orks anyone?) they're just defending themselves (yeah those protoss civilians had to die because, uh, well, else they call for help and attack us and we can't just leave because Kerrigan doesn't "want to run anymore"). Very strong storytelling, thumbs up guys *rolleyes*. Oh and also it's cool for Kerrigan to invade Korhal killing millions in it's defense, because Mengsk totally was a bad dude and she agreed to let some civilians live. Raynor approves. Blizzard needs to get their heads out of their asses and realize that people like diversity and that includes playing evil/bad guys. People loved the original Orks and the Zerg precisely because they weren't the good guys. Buried my hopes for Legacy of the void and the Starcraft franchise, glad I didn't buy Hots (played on friends account). | ||
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Wraith.978
Canada37 Posts
First off, if you don't consume all the content, you don't get the whole story and I'm not sure why you think you should. It's their story, they don't HAVE to pack it all in to games. Yes the games and series itself need to stand alone, but to say that they need to explicitly show you everything I think is flawed. And no, Flashpoint doesn't help the Kerrigan/Jim development that much, he still loves her right away, though it does go into the PTSD stuff you were talking about and that was neat. Second, you talk about Narud and Duran being the same person. There's no concrete evidence of this, though blizzard has said they're connected. Honestly playing through I thought it would make a lot of sense if Narud was Duran and he revealed how he manipulated Kerrigan as you outlined though, and I think it would have been a stronger way to go. Third, you're audio argument makes no sense whatsoever. You can't just make something sound good on every audio set up. The only way would be if the game could sense your sound balance setting (which it can't) and your particular setup, what speakers, what wattage, how high the sub is set (which it can't). Assuming you could get that impossible information in the game engine, you'd then need to create a balancer system that will work with every combination of the above impossible to obtain information. This would be a difficult task for a company dedicated to music and signal processing, much less a gaming company. Sorry if I sound like a jerk, but I'm really tired of people saying "this should just work" on the internet when they have no idea how they'd implement it. Forth, I agree the Zorak fight was a lame reproduction. I didn't mind that mission as a whole though. Though if they had done that on more than one mission I would've been upset. Last here are some other points I have comments on. - The love story never existed in Star 1, and if in the event that it did, is never developed and is not palpable or believable by the audience due to the execution. Well, I just point blank disagree, I always thought they had a relationship through the first games. I dislike people using an absolute phrase when it's simply an opinion. Though I agree that Jim should have had more reluctance when she first became human again. I always thought there was additional time skips and story not shown in the original Starcraft games, so the fact the relationship didn't fully develop never bothered me. - Kerrigan becomes the Queen Bitch of the Universe, and proceeds to kill billions of humans and turned countless worlds into smoldering piles of ash. Death and destruction includes the fall of Aiur and Protoss society, the death of Tassadar, Stukov, Raszagal, Fenix, Duke, DuGalle, and countless others. Yes, but how much of that is her, how much was the overmind, Amon's influence? Also it's hinted at that Kerrigan is preparing for something external coming to the galaxy, so maybe she was beating back the protoss and terran for strategic reasons? We don't know yet, Kerrigan still hasn't recovered her memories as the Queen of Blades. Again, yes Jim should be more hesitant when she first turned. -As Fenix and Raynor were close friends and comrades, and Fenix is now dead, Jim swears that the last thing he'll ever do is kill Kerrigan. Yes I agree, Jim should've had more conflict. -If, in the event that they did somehow fall in love on Antiga Prime or Tarsonis, all the murderous backstabbing and wanton destruction between then and now precludes Raynor having any kind of warm feelings for her now, or makes him at the very least apprehensive towards her. This is really just the same point you've stated many times. -The convoluted and contradictory nature of the artifact shows leanings towards (in a specific light) the idea that Kerrigan should have been killed on Char and not simply de-infested. Additionally however, understanding the psychic link of the Zerg, the artifact should never have de-infested Kerrigan to begin with (perhaps only severs her link to the Zerg). I don't quite know what you mean here. Is it not possible that an ancient Xel'Naga artifact functions in more than one way? It's not really a stretch, he's had time to study it between games too. -Raynor has his gun on him, but if he's in his cell, where did it come from? No way Mengsk allows this possibly where they leave it on him to conspicuously allow himself to commit suicide, that would be a poor and sloppy use of a pawn (no Sarah does not have it, they were separated early remember?). Hahaha, yeah, that one's a pretty big hole. Anyway, good post, I just think you've read too much into what should be a fun campaign story. The original campaigns weren't amazing masterpieces of storytelling either, and if you think so you're just looking at them through pink coloured glasses cause you played them when you were younger. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23732 Posts
However, adding in this silly romantic sub-plot, and not developing it properly kind of killed a lot of the potential of doing it in the first place. I didn't mind the idea of it, was warming to it. Then within a couple of levels Kerrigan just reverts back to Zerg, goes back to doing her thing, Raynor seemingly forgives this within the space of one mission, and returns at the end going 'the pleasure was all mine darlin'' or something? There is nothing wrong with such a sub-plot if it is developed at a proper pace, but the pacing of it was totally wrong. The first two games in the franchise had a lot of political shenanigans behind the scenes and differing motives, some hidden, from of the perpetrators. I don't really see why there needs to be this 'prophecy' angle. Whoever had claimed that SC's story went from science-fiction to science-fantasy put it incredibly well, I was struggling to verbalise what kind of made me uneasy about parts of it. Now, as somebody who primarily plays SC for the multiplayer ladder, these aren't massive turnoffs for me at all. There's just so much better that could have been done with the source material. I don't necessarily blame Blizzard for this either, it's a common theme across the industry. People seem to equate 'good' or 'deep' storytelling with a lot of gimmicks, and what have you. Consumers seem to be demanding what I would call the 'Hollywood' style of storytelling in gaming, and it pisses me off. String sections to denote what you are supposed to feel at every juncture, endless, endless exposition to explain the subtleties and intrigues that do remain etc. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On April 02 2013 05:48 Wraith.978 wrote: Anyway, good post, I just think you've read too much into what should be a fun campaign story. The original campaigns weren't amazing masterpieces of storytelling either, and if you think so you're just looking at them through pink coloured glasses cause you played them when you were younger. Correction--he played it when he was part of their target demographic. | ||
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Splines
Netherlands8 Posts
On April 01 2013 09:21 Lobotomist wrote: Since the prophesy arc reared its head in wings I've been reaaaally lukewarm on the sc2 story. There's plenty of material for politicking/betrayal/other interesting stuff with the characters that exist which doesn't involve you fighting "THE MOST ULTIMATE EVIL YET!" Tons of potential with kerrigan becoming the Queen of Blades again which is just totally wasted. You speak my mind.  Tychus was one of the pleasant surprises for me in WoL though. He realises halfway through the campaign that if they continue, he or Raynor has to die because his mission is to kill Kerrigan. Watching him struggle with this issue, first by trying to pursuade Raynor from abandoning his mission, then by seeing him trying to pursuade himself that he has the right to betray Raynor because he already did time for him, then by trying to warn Raynor for his own betrayal by reminding him of Mengsk and finally standing over Kerrigan, unable to pull the trigger before confessing everything, for me that was the best 'personal' storyline in SC so far. HotS started promising, exploring how much of Kerrigans actions as the Queen of Blades were her own dark desires and how much of it was Zerg corruption was interesting. Seeing her forced into taking up the role of queen of the Zerg again, even if it meant Protoss and Terran would never forgive her again was nice. After the first two planets, the story kinda slowed down and I missed something to keep me enthralled. BW's Protoss campaign still holds the position of 'worst' story of all the campaigns for me though. It's villains (the Shakuras Cerebrates) were just generic Zerg with no names. It's plot (collect the crystals) was uninteresting. The results basically returned the status quo (by introducing Zerg on Shakuras then killing them). It killed off one of my favorite characters (Aldaris) in a stupid, excuse for a PvP, way (by not having him tell Artanis that the Matriarch is mind controlled at the beginning of his mission). And it featured Artanis and Zeratul acting like idiots believing Kerrigan without a doubt and not killing the Overmind when they had a perfect chance. Two plot elements on which the rest of BW's story is based. The Rebel Yell is still my favorite campaign. It characterises the Zerg and Terran really well and Mengsk's betrayal was fun to watch. You'd think he was a hero if it weren't for the fact that his symbol was a hand holding a whip. It really introduces the SC universe in a compelling way. Too bad the missions were so easy though, as they were the tutorial mission to the game which gave Terrans less interesting challenges to play with. I hope LotV get's some more interesting characters then Zeratul, Artanis and Selendis. Zeratul hasn't been interesting since BW were half his lines were 'what is going on here?' and Artanis and Selendis just aren't as interesting as Tassadar or Aldaris were. I miss old mysterious Zeratul, too bad BW already ruined him and now he's turned into another different equally uninteresting character. Blizzard surprised me with Tychus though, so I'll keep some hope up. Still, I know I'll enjoy the next chapter too. | ||
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zbedlam
Australia549 Posts
He had a believeable, relatable personality. AND it fit with the starcraft universe with manipulation conflict of interest etc. His character does give me hope with blizzard's characterisation but its a faint glimmer as they have sytematically butchered every other character and faction in the starcraft universe. | ||
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Nachtwind
Germany1130 Posts
On April 02 2013 03:09 Monsen wrote: Also Zerg isn't Zerg anymore. When Starcraft started, Zerg was this primal force- an entire race of mindless killers led by a single (hive-)mind. No. no no no Zerg wasn´t ever like that. While the highest possible order came from the overmind/amon, cerebrats, broods or special entitys in the swarm always possed all "free" will. They couldn´t resist orders from higher beeings in the command line though. | ||
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zbedlam
Australia549 Posts
On April 02 2013 09:36 Nachtwind wrote: No. no no no Zerg wasn´t ever like that. While the highest possible order came from the overmind/amon, cerebrats, broods or special entitys in the swarm always possed all "free" will. They couldn´t resist orders from higher beeings in the command line though. Zerg have free will when they were a unified force under a single hivemind and couldnt' resist commands from it? lol what. | ||
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HowardRoark
1146 Posts
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Nachtwind
Germany1130 Posts
On April 02 2013 10:10 zbedlam wrote: Zerg have free will when they were a unified force under a single hivemind and couldnt' resist commands from it? lol what. First i put "free" in brackets so discuse this word with caution. Then had the overmind freewill? No?! Though he was able to "produce" the Queen of Blades. Hm werd. That is the basic of every underlying commando basis. A cerebrat for example get the order to search and assimilate new strains into the swarm. How he do it and how to command the forces is up to "him". While the lesser layers need to follow the orders they may have thoughts of resist. I´m not talking about a mere zergling here though. | ||
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zbedlam
Australia549 Posts
On April 02 2013 10:34 Nachtwind wrote: First i put "free" in brackets so discuse this word with caution. Then had the overmind freewill? No?! Though he was able to "produce" the Queen of Blades. Hm werd. That is the basic of every underlying commando basis. A cerebrat for example get the order to search and assimilate new strains into the swarm. How he do it and how to command the forces is up to "him". While the lesser layers need to follow the orders they may have thoughts of resist. I´m not talking about a mere zergling here though. Well yeah, all zerg leaders including the overmind were given things they needed to accomplish, they have no freedom as whether or not to follow these imperatives. How they went about following these imperatives was up to them, I'm not sure this is classified as free will. If I recall correctly the overmind was essentially a commander designed to weaponize the zerg created by the xel'naga with the one goal to evolve the swarm and assimilate/destroy anything in its path. | ||
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Nachtwind
Germany1130 Posts
 Also the overmind was just created by the xel naga because they didn´t want that zergs go nuts like the protos and guide the zerg race to natural merge with the toss. But amon ordered them to go nuts and thus ereased the overminds "freewill". ^^ | ||
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MistraL958
Switzerland100 Posts
I played every BLIZZARD game, and this one is the first one I did not really enjoy, because of the GOD-AWFUL writing as many people said before... Gameplay is excellent, but the storytelling is just too bad. Cheers | ||
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letian
Germany4221 Posts
Clever and well-argumented, though a long read it summed up all that I've been thinking for a long time. Blizzard have lost (literally) a lot of talent since 1998 and basically have been riding the success of the original BW, Warcraft and Diablo for a long time now. I stopped playing SC2 after several missions, just could not stand the dialogs and the rest of this soap opera. On the other hand what modern games with a good story can you list? I'm 28 and the only good games I've played were made by independent developers, ones that were funded through kickstarter and ones that anybody barely knows about. | ||
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hns
Germany609 Posts
Also, am I the only one who thought that the introduction of Stukov was .. weird? He just occurs at some mission briefing and talks for a bit, Abathur even says something along "second most powerful signature he ever saw", there's no introduction to his goals and motivations, yet he is perfectly welcome and to be trusted..? | ||
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BallinWitStalin
1177 Posts
On April 02 2013 02:28 Thieving Magpie wrote: To be fair, I've just finished going through the Terran campaign of SC1 this morning and I have to tell you, its blander than either WoL OR HotS. However, since bland political intrigue is more interesting than bland love stories--I still like it better than SC2. SC1 Nothing happens for the firs two missions, you get rescued in the 3rd mission, the fourth mission you do rebel stuff to show you mengks is a good guy, the 5rth mission you find disks, the 5th mission you rescue someone. Its not till the 6th mission that plot happens. Missions 7-9 is the turn where we find out mengks is evil, and the final mission is just a retreat mission. All of them easier than any of the missions in HotS and WoL. So plot wise, the terran missions in SC1 spends 10 missions to show us that people in power are corrupt. The first 5 missions shows us that the dominion is evil and doesn't care about the little guy. Then the next 5 missions shows us that Mengsk is evil and doesn't care about the little guy. However, since they kept the narrative arc simple and precise, they were able to flesh it out much easier and with much more craft than they did with WoL or HotS. Since it didn't have a lot to say, they were able to keep the telling of the little they said as tight as possible--which I liked. WoL and HotS feel like watching a 2 hour movie telling a 1.5 hour long story. It's good, but it keeps going on so long that you just stop caring after a while. And when you extend something so long you will eventually be forced to add in irrelevant stuff to actually fit the mission minimums. SC1 only had about 3 missions of actual meta-plot in it. And even those missions gloss over the details. By time I finish the SC1 campaign I'm certain I'll notice only 2-4 plot points TOPS. But since they spend 4-5 missions explaining and expanding the plot points, and the side missions they give you are missions to veer you away from the plot points--the plot points always feel surprising and new. The first 2 missions is Raynor being Raynor--then he gets in trouble from the dominion. The third mission is the zerg overrunning the planet--and he gets saved by Mengks. At this point you're made to think that the dominion is the bad guy. You spend about 2 missions being rebels, helping small outposts with revolutions while breaking into installations. You even save Edmund Duke despite him being the bad guy because that's what lawful good rebels do even though Raynor is against it. You then find out what the dominion's research has been doing--but its too late you're surrounded. So you're forced to use the dominion tools (the zerg) against them--for the greater good and all. And then you make a big push against the dominion--but that's when Mengks uses the zerg against the dominion even though he's no longer stuck in a corner. And then mengks leaves Kerrigan. And then you leave mengks because he's gone crazy. Half the missions is the turn, making you think the story is going one way--and then you're "forced" to use evil methods to survive a mission, but you Sarah and Raynor feel bad about it. And then the end of the terran missions is you realizing that Mengks does not feel bad at all about using it. It took 10 missions to explore that, and since you were forced to only focus on those missions you were immersed in the narrative of a failed revolution. It is tight, it is crisp, and it makes up for a bland narrative and a lacking storyline with excellent execution. I think the key difference with how the op and you view the sc1 terran campaign initial missions (basically 1-5 or 6) is based on the atmosphere created by the campaign based on your knowledge (or lack thereof) of what the zerg are. You, having played SC2, already have a preconcieved concept of the zerg. You know who, and what, they are, what they're doing, why the came to Mar Sara, etc. However, when you play the campaign the first time through, with no knowledge of who the zerg are and what's happening (and the missions are also harder because you're a teenager with minimal experience in RTS, remember, starcraft broke an insane amount of ground in RTS mechanics and skill development), those initial missions are actually pretty creepy and well done. You basically spend the first 5 missions getting swarmed by this entire race of creepy unknown aliens, you have no idea what they want other than the fact that they're assimilating/destroying everything in their path, and you're just trying to gtfo and survive the onslaught and your own dictatorial government as best you can. An additional nice touch with the storyline, too, is that the terran campaign actually feeds you wrong information (that the dominion created the zerg as a weapon) that you don't even realize was wrong until you play the zerg campaign. People who play the sc1 campaign retroactively AFTER they've played sc2 aren't taking into account information you don't possess during your first playthrough, and skill developed from playing lots of RTSs after theory and mechanics have been developed, and this applies to all three campaigns (zerg + protoss too). All the info revealed during the campaigns puts together a pretty nice story and universe, I think. It maintains and aura of mystery where new things are gradually revelaed about each race, the story fits together reasonably coherently, doesn't require too much suspension of disbelief, and is pretty dark overall. I really liked it. Account for the meta! | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On April 03 2013 07:15 BallinWitStalin wrote: I think the key difference with how the op and you view the sc1 terran campaign initial missions (basically 1-5 or 6) is based on the atmosphere created by the campaign based on your knowledge (or lack thereof) of what the zerg are. You, having played SC2, already have a preconcieved concept of the zerg. You know who, and what, they are, what they're doing, why the came to Mar Sara, etc. However, when you play the campaign the first time through, with no knowledge of who the zerg are and what's happening (and the missions are also harder because you're a teenager with minimal experience in RTS, remember, starcraft broke an insane amount of ground in RTS mechanics and skill development), those initial missions are actually pretty creepy and well done. You basically spend the first 5 missions getting swarmed by this entire race of creepy unknown aliens, you have no idea what they want other than the fact that they're assimilating/destroying everything in their path, and you're just trying to gtfo and survive the onslaught and your own dictatorial government as best you can. An additional nice touch with the storyline, too, is that the terran campaign actually feeds you wrong information (that the dominion created the zerg as a weapon) that you don't even realize was wrong until you play the zerg campaign. People who play the sc1 campaign retroactively AFTER they've played sc2 aren't taking into account information you don't possess during your first playthrough, and skill developed from playing lots of RTSs after theory and mechanics have been developed, and this applies to all three campaigns (zerg + protoss too). All the info revealed during the campaigns puts together a pretty nice story and universe, I think. It maintains and aura of mystery where new things are gradually revelaed about each race, the story fits together reasonably coherently, doesn't require too much suspension of disbelief, and is pretty dark overall. I really liked it. Account for the meta! I first played SC1 in 1999, the most difficult part of the missions is the fact that you're a coward and don't like getting units killed. If you simply take your troops out of your base you kill everything. Young cowardice and bad mechanics made it hard much like good mechanics made HotS and WoL easy. | ||
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