Next up: " Why Expendables 2 is unrealistic and cliche".
I do admire that dedication some people have to pick every little detail in blizzard stories and explain exactly why they are unrealistic, cliche, over the top and sometimes downright cringe-wrothy but I am yet to see someone suggest why this should be fixed ( assuming that this fix would cost a lot of money ) and how it can be fixed without fucking with part of the game audience and having to spend more money without getting much back.
Star wars story is the exact same thing and I don't see people giving to shits, nor are they about Aliens. Yes, if some game universes took themselves more seriously and tried having a better story that could be ok but you than risk having a bad story that is in the same time not over the stop enough to justify it being "bad".
Blizzard is getting downhill,after wow's first or second expansion. MoP, d3 and sc2 wol/hots are a disgrace to the stories of the original games.
D1/D2 and wc stories may be cliche fantasy themes, but please, the way they developed and were told, and the whole dark theme was among the best I've seen in games.
Nowadays the stories are so childish even my 8 yo cousing can tellthey are bullsh1t.
This encapsulates pretty much everything that most of us "older" guys and girls have been critisizing. Blizzard storytelling and writing just aint the same, and hasn't been the same for ages now.
I'm not sure you should evaluate video games by analyzing their plot as if these were consistent characters behaving rationally because ultimately the trick that a good video game pulls off is making you believe you are those characters. We are talking about an interactive medium where we as players can make choices for characters that make no sense (make nothing but banelings on the final mission, ya?) but we can get lost in that interactivity.
Suffice it to say, many here did not get lost in the game and did not enjoy playing it. But I did, so it is hard for me to see the constant justifications on the forum that the game is verifiably bad and that the plot is incoherently written and that Blizzard have sold out their souls by turning their favourite wargame into a romance. (We don't play any missions where this is relevant; we mostly play missions where we kill things!)
I don't understand Mario's motivation. I don't appreciate Link's motivation. But sometimes, I find myself thinking their motivations are mine.
OP doesnt say anything about missions themselves being bad... the story and dialogues interlinking them are bland and sometimes you cannot justify to yourself coherently why kerrigan makes this or that decision.
Link and Mario actually have coherent behavior in all of his videogames , they are heroes who save princesses and they act like it through all of the videogames in which they appear.
the problem here is that were being sold a kerrigan that sometimes acts like a fierce killer in a quest for power to kill mengsk and then romantically sighs for jim raynor and tries to save civilians lives, even after being transformed (because of his desire for vengeance) again into the queen of blades.
its confusing and made me enjoy less the story , its not the end of the world , but i appreciate good storylines especially when you try to drive a plot through main characters (like SC2 tries to do) , for example any game of CoD makes a MUCH better work of doing this , and their storylines are not what you would call brilliant.
Right, so here is my criticism of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, based solely om the storyline and dialogue:
Is Link mute? This fairy is obnoxious. EVERYBODY in this game behaves like gross caricatures. Why doesn't Link have any weapons and armor, like those I got for him last game? Did the game just undo EVERYTHING that happened in a previous game? When did Zelda and Link turn into a love story? Previous games were about the triforce mostly, now I feel like Nintendo just inserted a love story out of nowhere and asked us to believe it? Is Ganon really this cartoonishly evil? Why do we keep going into dungeons?
all you're doing is being immature and obnoxious. There are massive differences between the SC series and the LoZ series, and you're being childish if you think that these criticisms are comparable.
There are massive differences between the two series, and I happen to love both. My point was merely that a deeper analysis of the plot of video games held in universal regard would lead me to many of the same criticisms that they have about Heart of the Swarm.
I don't like to play video games that tell me the plot of a movie wrapped up with gameplay interludes. I don't think this is how video games as a medium should be used to tell a story, so most of the criticisms of Heart of the Swarm relating to the 'story' for me fall on deaf ears. I think the real plot and story of HotS and Ocarina are the ones told in the gameplay.
@OP's Response: I actually dig your complaints about suspension of disbelief. I think it is already such a ridiculous universe that I threw mine away a long time ago! (Also: ecelectic music fan: http://www.last.fm/user/SlappyMcGee )
And your point is ridiculous. LoZ's storytelling is completely different. It's like trying to compare a stream-of-consciousness novel with a different storytelling style, maybe something akin to Harry Potter, and saying that you can come up with the same criticisms for both, therefore both stories are bad. It's completely absurd.
Sure, you can play video games for the fun and not the story, but plenty of people think otherwise, and your attitude only hurts video games as a storytelling medium, as does Blizzard's trashy attempt at telling a story.
Next up: " Why Expendables 2 is unrealistic and cliche".
I do admire that dedication some people have to pick every little detail in blizzard stories and explain exactly why they are unrealistic, cliche, over the top and sometimes downright cringe-wrothy but I am yet to see someone suggest why this should be fixed ( assuming that this fix would cost a lot of money ) and how it can be fixed without fucking with part of the game audience and having to spend more money without getting much back.
Star wars story is the exact same thing and I don't see people giving to shits, nor are they about Aliens. Yes, if some game universes took themselves more seriously and tried having a better story that could be ok but you than risk having a bad story that is in the same time not over the stop enough to justify it being "bad".
The Expendables is a cartoon, with all that entitles. Starcraft is supposed to be a coherent, consistent story, and the writers tried to make it so (they weren't trying to make it so bad it's entertaining), but they failed, and that's where the criticism is coming from. No one is saying that they should go back and change it; this isn't a criticism of the multiplayer balance. Critiquing the single player writing is akin to critiquing a book or a movie. You don't go to the writers and say, "Oh, go back and change it and re-publish it". It's a critique, plain and simple.
Oh, and people were very pissed about how terrible the Star Wars prequels were, just in case you lived under a rock for the last 15 years. As for Aliens, well, you deserve to be smacked if you try to write of the story and script of Aliens as cheesy, cliche, or otherwise the same thing as SC2. Things like Starship Troopers and Aliens defined what sci-fi cliches were.
On March 21 2013 02:48 Aterons_toss wrote: Next up: " Why Expendables 2 is unrealistic and cliche".
I do admire that dedication some people have to pick every little detail in blizzard stories and explain exactly why they are unrealistic, cliche, over the top and sometimes downright cringe-wrothy but I am yet to see someone suggest why this should be fixed ( assuming that this fix would cost a lot of money ) and how it can be fixed without fucking with part of the game audience and having to spend more money without getting much back.
Star wars story is the exact same thing and I don't see people giving to shits, nor are they about Aliens. Yes, if some game universes took themselves more seriously and tried having a better story that could be ok but you than risk having a bad story that is in the same time not over the stop enough to justify it being "bad".
People I don't think are saying it should be fixed; it should've never happened in the first place. The disparity in writing between SC1 and SC2 is so apparent. The first game didn't rely on so many cliches. It felt really grounded and original, at least for the time. There was genuine surprise and thrills in the narrative and the way it was used in conjunction with the game mechanics and design.
Star Wars, the original trilogy, was not the exact same thing. And Aliens has some of the most sophisticated sci-fi writing that doesn't rely on cliche. It set the bar. The opening, the style, the writing, the acting, the cast. I saw it the other day in a theater and it still holds up.
I don't even know what to do with your last sentence. What are you trying to say?
On March 21 2013 01:00 maartendq wrote: I really can't be the only one who finds every single story Blizzard ever came up with incredibly predictable and clichéd? Diablo's story is just an excuse to kill an infinite amount of monsters (let's be honest here, the story is just ridiculous), Warcraft is a collection of fantasy clichés and starcraft's story is a combination of sci-fi stuff from the 80ies. I mean, we're talking video games here, not art movies or literature. The best story ever told in a video game was Bioshock, and even that story pales in comparison with a good book.
Video games are mainly about the gameplay. I went into WoL and HOTS expecting a good RTS game with a clichéd and cheesy story, and that is exactly what I got.
There is so much wrong with this post that my head might explode.
Yes, every Blizzard story has had a large number of predictable cliches, but just about every story does. The difference is script and presentation. Older Blizzard games did all of this quite well; SC2 and D3 does them horribly.
Your attitude about, "This is video games, not literature", is exactly what's wrong with all of this. It hurts this medium as a storytelling medium when plenty of people reasonably want it to be a quality storytelling medium because it is perfectly capable of doing so.
And Bioshock? First, Bioshock is a perfectly good story, and to say it doesn't even compare to a good book is a bold claim. You'll actually have to back that up with something of substance. Second, Bioshock is a perfectly good story. However, by saying that you think it's the best video game story out there, you lead me to believe that you've played very few video games in your lifetime.
I'm not sure you should evaluate video games by analyzing their plot as if these were consistent characters behaving rationally because ultimately the trick that a good video game pulls off is making you believe you are those characters. We are talking about an interactive medium where we as players can make choices for characters that make no sense (make nothing but banelings on the final mission, ya?) but we can get lost in that interactivity.
Suffice it to say, many here did not get lost in the game and did not enjoy playing it. But I did, so it is hard for me to see the constant justifications on the forum that the game is verifiably bad and that the plot is incoherently written and that Blizzard have sold out their souls by turning their favourite wargame into a romance. (We don't play any missions where this is relevant; we mostly play missions where we kill things!)
I don't understand Mario's motivation. I don't appreciate Link's motivation. But sometimes, I find myself thinking their motivations are mine.
OP doesnt say anything about missions themselves being bad... the story and dialogues interlinking them are bland and sometimes you cannot justify to yourself coherently why kerrigan makes this or that decision.
Link and Mario actually have coherent behavior in all of his videogames , they are heroes who save princesses and they act like it through all of the videogames in which they appear.
the problem here is that were being sold a kerrigan that sometimes acts like a fierce killer in a quest for power to kill mengsk and then romantically sighs for jim raynor and tries to save civilians lives, even after being transformed (because of his desire for vengeance) again into the queen of blades.
its confusing and made me enjoy less the story , its not the end of the world , but i appreciate good storylines especially when you try to drive a plot through main characters (like SC2 tries to do) , for example any game of CoD makes a MUCH better work of doing this , and their storylines are not what you would call brilliant.
Right, so here is my criticism of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, based solely om the storyline and dialogue:
Is Link mute? This fairy is obnoxious. EVERYBODY in this game behaves like gross caricatures. Why doesn't Link have any weapons and armor, like those I got for him last game? Did the game just undo EVERYTHING that happened in a previous game? When did Zelda and Link turn into a love story? Previous games were about the triforce mostly, now I feel like Nintendo just inserted a love story out of nowhere and asked us to believe it? Is Ganon really this cartoonishly evil? Why do we keep going into dungeons?
all you're doing is being immature and obnoxious. There are massive differences between the SC series and the LoZ series, and you're being childish if you think that these criticisms are comparable.
There are massive differences between the two series, and I happen to love both. My point was merely that a deeper analysis of the plot of video games held in universal regard would lead me to many of the same criticisms that they have about Heart of the Swarm.
I don't like to play video games that tell me the plot of a movie wrapped up with gameplay interludes. I don't think this is how video games as a medium should be used to tell a story, so most of the criticisms of Heart of the Swarm relating to the 'story' for me fall on deaf ears. I think the real plot and story of HotS and Ocarina are the ones told in the gameplay.
@OP's Response: I actually dig your complaints about suspension of disbelief. I think it is already such a ridiculous universe that I threw mine away a long time ago! (Also: ecelectic music fan: http://www.last.fm/user/SlappyMcGee )
And your point is ridiculous. LoZ's storytelling is completely different. It's like trying to compare a stream-of-consciousness novel with a different storytelling style, maybe something akin to Harry Potter, and saying that you can come up with the same criticisms for both, therefore both stories are bad. It's completely absurd.
Sure, you can play video games for the fun and not the story, but plenty of people think otherwise, and your attitude only hurts video games as a storytelling medium, as does Blizzard's trashy attempt at telling a story.
Next up: " Why Expendables 2 is unrealistic and cliche".
I do admire that dedication some people have to pick every little detail in blizzard stories and explain exactly why they are unrealistic, cliche, over the top and sometimes downright cringe-wrothy but I am yet to see someone suggest why this should be fixed ( assuming that this fix would cost a lot of money ) and how it can be fixed without fucking with part of the game audience and having to spend more money without getting much back.
Star wars story is the exact same thing and I don't see people giving to shits, nor are they about Aliens. Yes, if some game universes took themselves more seriously and tried having a better story that could be ok but you than risk having a bad story that is in the same time not over the stop enough to justify it being "bad".
The Expendables is a cartoon, with all that entitles. Starcraft is supposed to be a coherent, consistent story, and the writers tried to make it so (they weren't trying to make it so bad it's entertaining), but they failed, and that's where the criticism is coming from.
Oh, and people were very pissed about how terrible the Star Wars prequels were, just in case you lived under a rock for the last 15 years.
So the first 3 where apparently non is guarding the fucking emperor on his capital ship ( after we just saw 4 fucking guards that suddenly vanished the vader attacked him ) Or the part where this Death star needs "air vents" that run directly to the core of the ship and can be killed by a fucking torpedo Or the freaking part where you have every main character escape with his life intact after and intense near-death situation every 10 min Or the one where the bad guys do not hit a single shoot with the futuristic laser rifles
Is that "good writing" ? Is that not the same horri-bad like Jim having a gun with him in the cell or a viking landing in front of an ultralisk ?
If the writers of starcraft actually came out and said "Hi, we are trying to write this very good SF story that is a stand alone artwork that we have great pride in and should be taken very seriously" than I would say that's up for criticism but ,much like in expendables, they are just writing a silly story to go with the queen bitch of the universe one liners and fantastic gameplay.
I mean for fucks sake, half of that story seems to be made for the sake of making references to other games/movies/books.
Very well written and I agree with a lot of your posts - however it seems to me like you don't wanna leave anything open for interpretation and I believe that is a mistake.
I'm still reading your post. Some nice analysis, but I would like to comment on one of the things you said.
On March 20 2013 21:58 wo1fwood wrote: For no apparent reason, Kerrigan is pissed to see Zeratul and initiates a fight. Wait, why? Sarah Kerrigan as a human never met Zeratul, so why is she so angry at him and starts the fight? Wasn't it Kerrigan that was always manipulating Zeratul to do her dirty work in Brood War? Didn't she even force Zeratul kill his own Matriarch? Shouldn't this be reversed? Oh right, it's because it's an excuse for her and Zeratul to fight again (oooo pretty), except that in makes no sense. What makes even less sense is what happens next...
The reason she starts to fight him as I understood it was because she recently faced the protoss on Kaldir, so she believes the protoss want to kill her because of what she has done as the queen of blades. So she tries to protect herself thinking Zeratul might be sent to assassinate her. (dark templars are assassins after all, no?) This doesn't relate to if she really met zeratul before or not.
I'm not sure you should evaluate video games by analyzing their plot as if these were consistent characters behaving rationally because ultimately the trick that a good video game pulls off is making you believe you are those characters. We are talking about an interactive medium where we as players can make choices for characters that make no sense (make nothing but banelings on the final mission, ya?) but we can get lost in that interactivity.
Suffice it to say, many here did not get lost in the game and did not enjoy playing it. But I did, so it is hard for me to see the constant justifications on the forum that the game is verifiably bad and that the plot is incoherently written and that Blizzard have sold out their souls by turning their favourite wargame into a romance. (We don't play any missions where this is relevant; we mostly play missions where we kill things!)
I don't understand Mario's motivation. I don't appreciate Link's motivation. But sometimes, I find myself thinking their motivations are mine.
OP doesnt say anything about missions themselves being bad... the story and dialogues interlinking them are bland and sometimes you cannot justify to yourself coherently why kerrigan makes this or that decision.
Link and Mario actually have coherent behavior in all of his videogames , they are heroes who save princesses and they act like it through all of the videogames in which they appear.
the problem here is that were being sold a kerrigan that sometimes acts like a fierce killer in a quest for power to kill mengsk and then romantically sighs for jim raynor and tries to save civilians lives, even after being transformed (because of his desire for vengeance) again into the queen of blades.
its confusing and made me enjoy less the story , its not the end of the world , but i appreciate good storylines especially when you try to drive a plot through main characters (like SC2 tries to do) , for example any game of CoD makes a MUCH better work of doing this , and their storylines are not what you would call brilliant.
Right, so here is my criticism of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, based solely om the storyline and dialogue:
Is Link mute? This fairy is obnoxious. EVERYBODY in this game behaves like gross caricatures. Why doesn't Link have any weapons and armor, like those I got for him last game? Did the game just undo EVERYTHING that happened in a previous game? When did Zelda and Link turn into a love story? Previous games were about the triforce mostly, now I feel like Nintendo just inserted a love story out of nowhere and asked us to believe it? Is Ganon really this cartoonishly evil? Why do we keep going into dungeons?
all you're doing is being immature and obnoxious. There are massive differences between the SC series and the LoZ series, and you're being childish if you think that these criticisms are comparable.
There are massive differences between the two series, and I happen to love both. My point was merely that a deeper analysis of the plot of video games held in universal regard would lead me to many of the same criticisms that they have about Heart of the Swarm.
I don't like to play video games that tell me the plot of a movie wrapped up with gameplay interludes. I don't think this is how video games as a medium should be used to tell a story, so most of the criticisms of Heart of the Swarm relating to the 'story' for me fall on deaf ears. I think the real plot and story of HotS and Ocarina are the ones told in the gameplay.
@OP's Response: I actually dig your complaints about suspension of disbelief. I think it is already such a ridiculous universe that I threw mine away a long time ago! (Also: ecelectic music fan: http://www.last.fm/user/SlappyMcGee )
And your point is ridiculous. LoZ's storytelling is completely different. It's like trying to compare a stream-of-consciousness novel with a different storytelling style, maybe something akin to Harry Potter, and saying that you can come up with the same criticisms for both, therefore both stories are bad. It's completely absurd.
Sure, you can play video games for the fun and not the story, but plenty of people think otherwise, and your attitude only hurts video games as a storytelling medium, as does Blizzard's trashy attempt at telling a story.
Next up: " Why Expendables 2 is unrealistic and cliche".
I do admire that dedication some people have to pick every little detail in blizzard stories and explain exactly why they are unrealistic, cliche, over the top and sometimes downright cringe-wrothy but I am yet to see someone suggest why this should be fixed ( assuming that this fix would cost a lot of money ) and how it can be fixed without fucking with part of the game audience and having to spend more money without getting much back.
Star wars story is the exact same thing and I don't see people giving to shits, nor are they about Aliens. Yes, if some game universes took themselves more seriously and tried having a better story that could be ok but you than risk having a bad story that is in the same time not over the stop enough to justify it being "bad".
The Expendables is a cartoon, with all that entitles. Starcraft is supposed to be a coherent, consistent story, and the writers tried to make it so (they weren't trying to make it so bad it's entertaining), but they failed, and that's where the criticism is coming from.
Oh, and people were very pissed about how terrible the Star Wars prequels were, just in case you lived under a rock for the last 15 years.
So the first 3 where apparently non is guarding the fucking emperor on his capital ship ( after we just saw 4 fucking guards that suddenly vanished the vader attacked him ) Or the part where this Death star needs "air vents" that run directly to the core of the ship and can be killed by a fucking torpedo Or the freaking part where you have every main character escape with his life intact after and intense near-death situation every 10 min Or the one where the bad guys do not hit a single shoot with the futuristic laser rifles
Is that "good writing" ? Is that not the same horri-bad like Jim having a gun with him in the cell or a viking landing in front of an ultralisk ?
If the writers of starcraft actually came out and said "Hi, we are trying to write this very good SF story that is a stand alone artwork that we have great pride in and should be taken very seriously" than I would say that's up for criticism but ,much like in expendables, they are just writing a silly story to go with the queen bitch of the universe one liners and fantastic gameplay.
I mean for fucks sake, half of that story seems to be made for the sake of making references to other games/movies/books.
You're being willfully ignorant and almost Stockholm Syndrome-esque. Blizzard has put an incredible amount of money and resources into making this story. Their are entire panels, development teams, writing teams, and interviews dedicated to making and explaining this story and universe. Metzen's entire job is to be the head developer and writer for the Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft story franchises. Really, basically the entire cost of the Heart of the Swarm expansion went into the campaign; we got like two new units for each race and a couple of maps that shouldn't and wouldn't cost money on their own. You are literally going against all evidence by trying to claim that they tried to make this story a crap, cliche story on purpose just to be a joke and make money.
The reason she starts to fight him as I understood it was because she recently faced the protoss on Kaldir, so she believes the protoss want to kill her because of what she has done as the queen of blades. So she tries to protect herself thinking Zeratul might be sent to assassinate her. (dark templars are assassins after all, no?) This doesn't relate to if she really met zeratul before or not.
Except that she says his name with disdain right before she attacks him. She clearly recognizes him (an inconsistency) and then attacks him specifically for being Zeratul (another inconsistency).
On March 21 2013 03:08 Stratos_speAr wrote: Yes, every Blizzard story has had a large number of predictable cliches, but just about every story does. The difference is script and presentation. Older Blizzard games did all of this quite well; SC2 and D3 does them horribly.
Exactly ... the "how it is told" is more important than the story itself ... or else you could never say that "this remake of an awesome classic movie is really terrible (again)" because they would have the same story.
I'm not sure you should evaluate video games by analyzing their plot as if these were consistent characters behaving rationally because ultimately the trick that a good video game pulls off is making you believe you are those characters. We are talking about an interactive medium where we as players can make choices for characters that make no sense (make nothing but banelings on the final mission, ya?) but we can get lost in that interactivity.
Suffice it to say, many here did not get lost in the game and did not enjoy playing it. But I did, so it is hard for me to see the constant justifications on the forum that the game is verifiably bad and that the plot is incoherently written and that Blizzard have sold out their souls by turning their favourite wargame into a romance. (We don't play any missions where this is relevant; we mostly play missions where we kill things!)
I don't understand Mario's motivation. I don't appreciate Link's motivation. But sometimes, I find myself thinking their motivations are mine.
OP doesnt say anything about missions themselves being bad... the story and dialogues interlinking them are bland and sometimes you cannot justify to yourself coherently why kerrigan makes this or that decision.
Link and Mario actually have coherent behavior in all of his videogames , they are heroes who save princesses and they act like it through all of the videogames in which they appear.
the problem here is that were being sold a kerrigan that sometimes acts like a fierce killer in a quest for power to kill mengsk and then romantically sighs for jim raynor and tries to save civilians lives, even after being transformed (because of his desire for vengeance) again into the queen of blades.
its confusing and made me enjoy less the story , its not the end of the world , but i appreciate good storylines especially when you try to drive a plot through main characters (like SC2 tries to do) , for example any game of CoD makes a MUCH better work of doing this , and their storylines are not what you would call brilliant.
Right, so here is my criticism of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, based solely om the storyline and dialogue:
Is Link mute? This fairy is obnoxious. EVERYBODY in this game behaves like gross caricatures. Why doesn't Link have any weapons and armor, like those I got for him last game? Did the game just undo EVERYTHING that happened in a previous game? When did Zelda and Link turn into a love story? Previous games were about the triforce mostly, now I feel like Nintendo just inserted a love story out of nowhere and asked us to believe it? Is Ganon really this cartoonishly evil? Why do we keep going into dungeons?
all you're doing is being immature and obnoxious. There are massive differences between the SC series and the LoZ series, and you're being childish if you think that these criticisms are comparable.
There are massive differences between the two series, and I happen to love both. My point was merely that a deeper analysis of the plot of video games held in universal regard would lead me to many of the same criticisms that they have about Heart of the Swarm.
I don't like to play video games that tell me the plot of a movie wrapped up with gameplay interludes. I don't think this is how video games as a medium should be used to tell a story, so most of the criticisms of Heart of the Swarm relating to the 'story' for me fall on deaf ears. I think the real plot and story of HotS and Ocarina are the ones told in the gameplay.
@OP's Response: I actually dig your complaints about suspension of disbelief. I think it is already such a ridiculous universe that I threw mine away a long time ago! (Also: ecelectic music fan: http://www.last.fm/user/SlappyMcGee )
And your point is ridiculous. LoZ's storytelling is completely different. It's like trying to compare a stream-of-consciousness novel with a different storytelling style, maybe something akin to Harry Potter, and saying that you can come up with the same criticisms for both, therefore both stories are bad. It's completely absurd.
Sure, you can play video games for the fun and not the story, but plenty of people think otherwise, and your attitude only hurts video games as a storytelling medium, as does Blizzard's trashy attempt at telling a story.
Next up: " Why Expendables 2 is unrealistic and cliche".
I do admire that dedication some people have to pick every little detail in blizzard stories and explain exactly why they are unrealistic, cliche, over the top and sometimes downright cringe-wrothy but I am yet to see someone suggest why this should be fixed ( assuming that this fix would cost a lot of money ) and how it can be fixed without fucking with part of the game audience and having to spend more money without getting much back.
Star wars story is the exact same thing and I don't see people giving to shits, nor are they about Aliens. Yes, if some game universes took themselves more seriously and tried having a better story that could be ok but you than risk having a bad story that is in the same time not over the stop enough to justify it being "bad".
The Expendables is a cartoon, with all that entitles. Starcraft is supposed to be a coherent, consistent story, and the writers tried to make it so (they weren't trying to make it so bad it's entertaining), but they failed, and that's where the criticism is coming from.
Oh, and people were very pissed about how terrible the Star Wars prequels were, just in case you lived under a rock for the last 15 years.
So the first 3 where apparently non is guarding the fucking emperor on his capital ship ( after we just saw 4 fucking guards that suddenly vanished the vader attacked him ) Or the part where this Death star needs "air vents" that run directly to the core of the ship and can be killed by a fucking torpedo Or the freaking part where you have every main character escape with his life intact after and intense near-death situation every 10 min Or the one where the bad guys do not hit a single shoot with the futuristic laser rifles
Is that "good writing" ? Is that not the same horri-bad like Jim having a gun with him in the cell or a viking landing in front of an ultralisk ?
If the writers of starcraft actually came out and said "Hi, we are trying to write this very good SF story that is a stand alone artwork that we have great pride in and should be taken very seriously" than I would say that's up for criticism but ,much like in expendables, they are just writing a silly story to go with the queen bitch of the universe one liners and fantastic gameplay.
I mean for fucks sake, half of that story seems to be made for the sake of making references to other games/movies/books.
I'm not sure if you just have no idea how to analyze or if you just really didn't like Star Wars, but your arguments are once again completely nonsensical.
1: He's the emperor. He has the power to kill masses with a single thought. When he commanded everyone to leave that throne room, its entirely in line with the story and makes sense.
2: An exhaust port (not an air vent) would in fact lead to the source of the exhaust (duh). Also getting past all the defenses and firing into that tiny vent gave them the sense of arrogance that they were "undefeatable".
3: If there was an intense near-death situation every 10 minutes, the movies would've been nothing but punctuated action scenes with a splash of story. Instead, the story is quite deep and even though there is indeed a love interest, it takes a sidebar to the main story (as it should).
4: You do have the laser rifles right, but everyone knows that one.
The problem is that we were given a premise and that premise has been completely destroyed. Its been replaced with this new storyline that most if not all educated and analytical minds would find insulting at best. In the decade+ between BW and SC2's new arc, I at no point ever gave a flying f*ck about Raynor and Kerrigan's love interest. Nobody did because it plain old wasn't there. All this new crap is coming out of the woodwork and its annoying to see such a great story completely smashed because of a dumb, poorly-executed love story.
This is EXACTLY what happened in the prequel trilogy of Star Wars and it made a lot of people very angry at the whole franchise. Most still consider "4,5,6 were the only real ones" and I feel that intelligent people will feel no differently about the new Starcraft story arc vs the old one.
....I am not saying "fook the hard to please customers". The core of the fans should of course be satisfied. I don't approve, but understand that Blizzard is rather going for the bigger sales with a more cheesy story as an excuse for the missions.
And why do you think a wider audience would like to see a cheesy story more than a well written story? And do you think a well written story don´t function in conjunction with good missions? SC1 showed that it works.
I'll just requote myself from 1 page before:
Take for example the last two missions from the invasion of Aiur: You have to collect a crystal from a sacred crystal formation and bring it to the temple where the the Xel'Naga first set foot on Aiur. Because only there the Overmind can manifest. And of course the Overmind would give up the relative safety of Char to relocate onto Aiur, the stronghold of the enemy.
I really see the well written story there.
well, you are right on that i never claimed that sc1 is a perfect well written story with a good connection to the missions. it´s pretty clear that sc1 and bw story had their flaws too. Still i think we should have higher expectations on story writing in video games. I can enjoy a video game with bad story to some degree but for me its more than playing the mechanical site of the game i want to be entertained in a good way and a good story and plausible characters are a part of it.
Well I also don't like the retcons of Blizzards' games but for one time the "BW was that much better" hipster train is simply not true. And I don't like the elite attidue of the op who has high standards.
Sure games should try to tell a better story, but I'm not that unhappy with what I got. Maybe it's the same as with the Michael Bay movies. I don't like them but they seem to appeal their audience. Or maybe the Hollywood plots have softened me up through all these years that I accept weaknesses in plots as long as they don't jump in my face.
....I am not saying "fook the hard to please customers". The core of the fans should of course be satisfied. I don't approve, but understand that Blizzard is rather going for the bigger sales with a more cheesy story as an excuse for the missions.
And why do you think a wider audience would like to see a cheesy story more than a well written story? And do you think a well written story don´t function in conjunction with good missions? SC1 showed that it works.
I'll just requote myself from 1 page before:
Take for example the last two missions from the invasion of Aiur: You have to collect a crystal from a sacred crystal formation and bring it to the temple where the the Xel'Naga first set foot on Aiur. Because only there the Overmind can manifest. And of course the Overmind would give up the relative safety of Char to relocate onto Aiur, the stronghold of the enemy.
I really see the well written story there.
You can't just bring up a point from the story and say "That's bad writing!" without actually explaining why it's bad writing.
I don't even. . . Why would the Overmind leave Char (safe) to relocate to Aiur (not safe)? Why can't he send his cerebrates? He knows dt's are around, so it's not safe. Why can he invade any other planet but Aiur? Is there some mystical "anti-overmind" shield around this planet? Who build that? The Protoss? The Xel'Naga? Why is said shield impenetrable for the overmind but not for all other creatures of the swarm? Why is some mystical crystal the solution to the overminds' manifestation problem? Why haven't the Protoss discovered that this crystal formation posses magical unknown powers that can be used against them. It's their homeworld for thousands of years. Why do we need to bring said crystal to the temple of where the xel'naga first set foot on the planet? What is so special about this place? Is it the temple or the place? Why is this the only place he can enter Aiur?
for something with such deep following, it would have been nice if story telling was done properly to every detail. (live up to lore, etc.) but yeah, it was on par with some straight to DVD PG films.
i think campaign gameplay was OK, i honestly didn't expect much but it had some different dynamics like boss fighting, would have been nice if they implemented some concepts from custom maps (that never went popular thanks to the system like side scroll, racing, 3rd person).
from a casual player's view, it was enjoyable and nothing special. from a enthusiast's point of view, disappointment.
I don't even. . . Why would the Overmind leave Char (safe) to relocate to Aiur (not safe)? Why can't he send his cerebrates? He knows dt's are around, so it's not safe.
Because he is the leader of the Swarm and his goal is to absorb the Protoss? And no, there weren't Dark Templar on Aiur. They were exiled and, at the time, hadn't returned.
Why can he invade any other planet but Aiur? Is there some mystical "anti-overmind" shield around this planet? Who build that? The Protoss? The Xel'Naga? Why is said shield impenetrable for the overmind but not for all other creatures of the swarm? Why is some mystical crystal the solution to the overminds' manifestation problem? Why haven't the Protoss discovered that this crystal formation posses magical unknown powers that can be used against them. It's their homeworld for thousands of years. Why do we need to bring said crystal to the temple of where the xel'naga first set foot on the planet? What is so special about this place? Is it the temple or the place? Why is this the only place he can enter Aiur?
It is so wrong on so many levels.
The Overmind is (at the time) the most powerful and psionic being out there. Aiur is the homeworld of the Protoss, with billions of them there and an untold amount of defenses. Perhaps he needs some sort of anchor to this incredibly well-defended and psionic-inhabited planet to have a firm hold on the planet? It is entirely plausible and doesn't even require the mental back-flips that making SC2 consistent does to understand why it might be reasonable for it to be difficult for the Overmind to just auto-invade Aiur.
I mean yea, we could even grant you that it's a little convoluted or potentially unnecessary. But please explain how this is comparable to any of the absolutely ridiculous plot holes or terrible writing that we see from SC2.
I'm not sure you should evaluate video games by analyzing their plot as if these were consistent characters behaving rationally because ultimately the trick that a good video game pulls off is making you believe you are those characters. We are talking about an interactive medium where we as players can make choices for characters that make no sense (make nothing but banelings on the final mission, ya?) but we can get lost in that interactivity.
Suffice it to say, many here did not get lost in the game and did not enjoy playing it. But I did, so it is hard for me to see the constant justifications on the forum that the game is verifiably bad and that the plot is incoherently written and that Blizzard have sold out their souls by turning their favourite wargame into a romance. (We don't play any missions where this is relevant; we mostly play missions where we kill things!)
I don't understand Mario's motivation. I don't appreciate Link's motivation. But sometimes, I find myself thinking their motivations are mine.
OP doesnt say anything about missions themselves being bad... the story and dialogues interlinking them are bland and sometimes you cannot justify to yourself coherently why kerrigan makes this or that decision.
Link and Mario actually have coherent behavior in all of his videogames , they are heroes who save princesses and they act like it through all of the videogames in which they appear.
the problem here is that were being sold a kerrigan that sometimes acts like a fierce killer in a quest for power to kill mengsk and then romantically sighs for jim raynor and tries to save civilians lives, even after being transformed (because of his desire for vengeance) again into the queen of blades.
its confusing and made me enjoy less the story , its not the end of the world , but i appreciate good storylines especially when you try to drive a plot through main characters (like SC2 tries to do) , for example any game of CoD makes a MUCH better work of doing this , and their storylines are not what you would call brilliant.
Right, so here is my criticism of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, based solely om the storyline and dialogue:
Is Link mute? This fairy is obnoxious. EVERYBODY in this game behaves like gross caricatures. Why doesn't Link have any weapons and armor, like those I got for him last game? Did the game just undo EVERYTHING that happened in a previous game? When did Zelda and Link turn into a love story? Previous games were about the triforce mostly, now I feel like Nintendo just inserted a love story out of nowhere and asked us to believe it? Is Ganon really this cartoonishly evil? Why do we keep going into dungeons?
all you're doing is being immature and obnoxious. There are massive differences between the SC series and the LoZ series, and you're being childish if you think that these criticisms are comparable.
There are massive differences between the two series, and I happen to love both. My point was merely that a deeper analysis of the plot of video games held in universal regard would lead me to many of the same criticisms that they have about Heart of the Swarm.
I don't like to play video games that tell me the plot of a movie wrapped up with gameplay interludes. I don't think this is how video games as a medium should be used to tell a story, so most of the criticisms of Heart of the Swarm relating to the 'story' for me fall on deaf ears. I think the real plot and story of HotS and Ocarina are the ones told in the gameplay.
@OP's Response: I actually dig your complaints about suspension of disbelief. I think it is already such a ridiculous universe that I threw mine away a long time ago! (Also: ecelectic music fan: http://www.last.fm/user/SlappyMcGee )
And your point is ridiculous. LoZ's storytelling is completely different. It's like trying to compare a stream-of-consciousness novel with a different storytelling style, maybe something akin to Harry Potter, and saying that you can come up with the same criticisms for both, therefore both stories are bad. It's completely absurd.
Sure, you can play video games for the fun and not the story, but plenty of people think otherwise, and your attitude only hurts video games as a storytelling medium, as does Blizzard's trashy attempt at telling a story.
Next up: " Why Expendables 2 is unrealistic and cliche".
I do admire that dedication some people have to pick every little detail in blizzard stories and explain exactly why they are unrealistic, cliche, over the top and sometimes downright cringe-wrothy but I am yet to see someone suggest why this should be fixed ( assuming that this fix would cost a lot of money ) and how it can be fixed without fucking with part of the game audience and having to spend more money without getting much back.
Star wars story is the exact same thing and I don't see people giving to shits, nor are they about Aliens. Yes, if some game universes took themselves more seriously and tried having a better story that could be ok but you than risk having a bad story that is in the same time not over the stop enough to justify it being "bad".
The Expendables is a cartoon, with all that entitles. Starcraft is supposed to be a coherent, consistent story, and the writers tried to make it so (they weren't trying to make it so bad it's entertaining), but they failed, and that's where the criticism is coming from.
Oh, and people were very pissed about how terrible the Star Wars prequels were, just in case you lived under a rock for the last 15 years.
So the first 3 where apparently non is guarding the fucking emperor on his capital ship ( after we just saw 4 fucking guards that suddenly vanished the vader attacked him ) Or the part where this Death star needs "air vents" that run directly to the core of the ship and can be killed by a fucking torpedo Or the freaking part where you have every main character escape with his life intact after and intense near-death situation every 10 min Or the one where the bad guys do not hit a single shoot with the futuristic laser rifles
Is that "good writing" ? Is that not the same horri-bad like Jim having a gun with him in the cell or a viking landing in front of an ultralisk ?
If the writers of starcraft actually came out and said "Hi, we are trying to write this very good SF story that is a stand alone artwork that we have great pride in and should be taken very seriously" than I would say that's up for criticism but ,much like in expendables, they are just writing a silly story to go with the queen bitch of the universe one liners and fantastic gameplay.
I mean for fucks sake, half of that story seems to be made for the sake of making references to other games/movies/books.
You're being willfully ignorant and almost Stockholm Syndrome-esque. Blizzard has put an incredible amount of money and resources into making this story. Their are entire panels, development teams, writing teams, and interviews dedicated to making and explaining this story and universe. Metzen's entire job is to be the head developer and writer for the Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft story franchises. Really, basically the entire cost of the Heart of the Swarm expansion went into the campaign; we got like two new units for each race and a couple of maps that shouldn't and wouldn't cost money on their own. You are literally going against all evidence by trying to claim that they tried to make this story a crap, cliche story on purpose just to be a joke and make money.
The reason she starts to fight him as I understood it was because she recently faced the protoss on Kaldir, so she believes the protoss want to kill her because of what she has done as the queen of blades. So she tries to protect herself thinking Zeratul might be sent to assassinate her. (dark templars are assassins after all, no?) This doesn't relate to if she really met zeratul before or not.
Except that she says his name with disdain right before she attacks him. She clearly recognizes him (an inconsistency) and then attacks him specifically for being Zeratul (another inconsistency).
Well, as long as you think the money went into the writing and the writing was supposed to be one of the pillars of the campaign than i agree with you, you should complain... even more, you should have not bought the fucking game at all after WOL.
For all I care I felt like the campaign could have been expensive and was really good because it had those very cool, very different mission... which ,though i found relatively east as a high master player, most would have found challenging or at least fun to play trough.
But yes, if they actually tried to make and Arthur Clark SF universe or a Leo Tolstoy novel plot... if they invested money toward it and had good writers writing it than i agree, they failed miserably. Indeed they failed so miserably I assumed they did not even try, thus I believe your point to be more than valid if that is the case and you have evidence, because i confess i did not follow HOTS development or read any interviews with the writers.
That doesn't change the fact that I am more than happy with my 40$ purchase and the fact that if the main thing you are looking for in this game is story you should have likely stopped buying after WOL came out... because I don't really see how that got any better of a story.
EPT
