SC II Heart of the swarm

[Thanas]

She is Spoiler

struggling with her zerg side, but trying to eliminate unnecessary casualties on her terran enemies. She lets evac shuttles with wounded get through and allows Valerian time and locations enough to evacuate Civilians, even though it would increase casualties on the swarm by million. Not a goody two shoes with plenty of darkness, but she is trying (and succeeding).

Is she someone you can emphasize with and feel sorry for? Yeah. Is she someone you root for? Only in the greater context.

[Gaidin]

Sort of an identity crisis story?

[Darksider]

Minor side note, was anyone here able to find those bonus zerg sample things that level Kerrigan up in the mission where Spoiler

you shoot down Warfield's battlecruisers? I looked all over the goddamn map and I couldn't find any of them.

[Thanas]

Those are rather easy to find. For the easiest, just go down when you reach the trench.

[Siege]

That is strange, Siege chose Tosh and he had the same dialogue I did.

Coming back to this for a moment, I checked up on this and as it turns out I must've replayed the pick-and-choose missions sometime last year. I apparently went with the Nova option that time 'cause the playthrough list displays the "Ghost of a Chance" mission as my option of choice in that particular case. That explains my confusion -- I picked Tosh on the first playthrough and forgot all about the second.

So the game does apparently take into mind the choices made by the player. Shame on me, but good on Blizzard.

I'm enjoying the campaign so far, even though the first few missions are silly and gamey. C'mon Blizzard, this is an expansion, I've played the original game that came out years ago, you don't have to laboriously tell me to select a larva to make a drone. Character-wise Kerrigan definitely comes off as someone who's trying to be a better person but very easily falls back into old "kill ALL THE PROTOSS" behaviour. Which, you know, kinda makes sense considering her past occupations are respectively queen bitch of the universe, rebel partisan and Confederate assassin. One imagines neither of those makes for a stable and wholly rational mentality, let alone all three in succession. Of the other Zerg characters I'm really liking Abathur; the others are pretty forgettable so far, but it's early days so who knows.

And finally, the Protoss once again confirm they are a race of massive idiots none of whom have ever watched Alien.

[Darksider]

And finally, the Protoss once again confirm they are a race of massive idiots none of whom have ever watched Alien.

That mission was awesome.

Now i'm on Zerus, and Spoiler

this Zerg back story stuff completely clashes with previous material. I remember all the way back in the SC1 manual, it said that the Zerg were simple parasitic life forms until they were uplifted by the Xel'Naga. Now there are these fully sentient "primal" Zerg running around? I love the presentation of the story in these games, and the mission variety, but it seems like Blizzard kind of lost the plot in the ten years between the original Starcraft and Starcraft II.

[Lord Relvenous]

So a quick question because curiosity is killing me: Spoiler

So did they really just kill Jim Raynor offscreen around mission 3? I saw the cinematic associated with it (Mengsk announcing Jim's death), but seeing as how it could easily just be propaganda I didn't want to take it at face value. If he is actually dead, well that's a bummer. Despite the weird shift on his feelings about Kerrigan that they had to add in to make sC2 work, I did like him as a character somewhat. He's better at least than some of the others. Having him die offscreen would be a disservice.

[atg]

Spoiler

I'd really doubt they've killed him. If they did I wouldn't be too upset cause it would take guts to actually kill of a (the?) major character. I've not played the whole campaign yet so take this as you will, but I think he's in prison waiting to be used as bait/leverage/etc against Kerrigan.

[Darksider]

Spoiler

No, they didn't kill him off. After you beat the Zerus missions, Kerrigan gets a message from Mengsk warning her to stay away from Korhal or he'll kill Raynor.

[Gaidin]

Now i'm on Zerus, and Spoiler

this Zerg back story stuff completely clashes with previous material. I remember all the way back in the SC1 manual, it said that the Zerg were simple parasitic life forms until they were uplifted by the Xel'Naga. Now there are these fully sentient "primal" Zerg running around? I love the presentation of the story in these games, and the mission variety, but it seems like Blizzard kind of lost the plot in the ten years between the original Starcraft and Starcraft II.

Spoiler

Did evolution just stop after the dark voice left? He didn't corrupt all the zerg. There's no reason for them not to continue to evolve, and the process won't magically pause once the corrupted zerg leave. It's not a clash with the previous material, just a retcon on the exact nature of the Zerg Swarm as a subset of the Zerg race.

[Darth Yan]

Spoiler

Actually, If I recall correctly the overmind was made when the Zerg had already been extensively modified and uplifted. The primal zerg were probably those that hyper evolved before the overmind was created.

[Darksider]

So I just finished the game last night. Though i've always been disappointed with Blizzard's shift away from the broader-scale storytelling of WCII and SC to the more character-driven stuff, the execution of those storylines has always been excellent. I enjoyed HotS immensely, and am eagerly awaiting the conclusion in Legacy of the Void.

I just hope I don't have to wait three goddamn years.

[Guardsman Bass]

I just finished it, and it was a ton of fun. I played it on "normal", which is really easy - you can win a lot of missions with decent macro-management of your bases, plus RAR ZERG SMASH! tactics. I think it was significantly easier than the "normal" setting in Wings of Liberty. My brother told me that even the toughest difficulty wasn't too bad.


Spoiler

1. That "infest the protoss starship" mission was goddamn hilarious, and probably my favorite out of the run-on missions. "MY BIOMASS, MINE!" Plus the ending, when Kerrigan just abandons the new Brood Mother and her group on the drifting starship in open space. Either they're all gonna die, or they're Chekhov's Zerg in Legacy of the Void.

2. Speaking of which, there were a lot of run-on missions in this one. They were also mostly quite fun, except for the "escape from the base with Kerrigan and Raynor" one, which dragged on forever. I particularly liked that they tried out different dynamics with them, like that Terran interlude where you fly the Hyperion.

3. God, but I love the incredibly powerful campaign stuff you can get if you get the bonus points for Kerrigan. Double drones, auto-extracting vespene, that insanely powerful area attack Kerrigan gets at the highest level, and so forth.

4. I noticed that the voice for Izsha the Leviathan is the same as the one for Kallen in Code Geass. I didn't notice that Kerrigan's voice was Tricia Helfer, although that should have been obvious in hindsight. I've never liked Kerrigan's new voice as much as her old one - the new one seems so brooding, while the old one always had a kind of vicious humor to it.

5. That whole game felt incredibly short.

6. It's probably best to just accept that Blizzard has retconned the hell out of the background details from Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War. Zerus looks like Aiur now, whereas in the original booklet it was a volcanic waste world where the Zerg were this tiny larva-like species. There's a ton more people and planets in the Koprulu Sector, etc, etc.

7. It's good to see Infested Stukov. Oddly enough, his resurrection and de-zergifying happened in a mix of "map of the month" missions and a secret Starcraft 64 mission IIRC.

I'm totally stoked for when Legacy of the Void comes out. Protoss have always been my favorite race to play.

[Gaidin]

you can win a lot of missions with decent macro-management of your bases, plus RAR ZERG SMASH! tactics.

Speaking of RAR ZERG SMASH!, they make it doable for defense as well. I was going to get raptorlings, but then I realized...how hilariously useful will it be to get 27 zerglings really fast as a quick defense at any base while my army is out making a nuisance of itself. Thus, all my base defense problems were solved with swarmlings evolution and a bunch of spore colonies, all without having to leave anything behind like I did with terrans.

[Guardsman Bass]

you can win a lot of missions with decent macro-management of your bases, plus RAR ZERG SMASH! tactics.

Speaking of RAR ZERG SMASH!, they make it doable for defense as well. I was going to get raptorlings, but then I realized...how hilariously useful will it be to get 27 zerglings really fast as a quick defense at any base while my army is out making a nuisance of itself. Thus, all my base defense problems were solved with swarmlings evolution and a bunch of spore colonies, all without having to leave anything behind like I did with terrans.

I picked the swarmlings, too, but mostly because I figured I'd never be using them on their own as an attack force. Instead, they'd be part of a great Zerg horde on the offensive, and numbers are better than flight/jumping.

Did you get the Slow Roaches? Those are just beastly - I loved it.

[Gaidin]

Did you get the Slow Roaches? Those are just beastly - I loved it.

Yea, though I almost never used them. I was always getting a shitton of hydralings.

[Thanas]

Hmmmm.

I just finished the singleplayer, my comments will mostly just be story related.
Spoiler

First, with regards to how they handled Raynor/Kerrigan I'll reserve judgement until the final chapter has been posted. At the moment I am on the fence between "decent idea, bad execution" and "well done".

I liked that Kerrigan actually accomplished something - killing Duran/Narud, killing Mengsk etc. That being said, this single-player campaign did not leave me satisfied. Wings of Liberty had a great sense of accomplishment. I loved how you had this great sense of "heck, Raynor just did something that should not have been possible". OTOH, this finale lacked dramatic climax. I felt that as soon as Kerrigan got her powers and united the swarm the finale was already decided. With the sheer superiority in numbers of the swarm, I felt no danger from Mengsk whatsoever.

I also did not like how some of the descriptions of the achievements already spoiler the story before I even played it. Simply browsing through achievements earned/unearned should not give away that Raynor is not actually dead, that the Hyperion will join you on your final mission, that you have to fight psi-fields, that there are primal Zerg, that you fight Narud/Duran, that Stukov plays a role, that Mengsk will send the Odin after Raynor etc. I think WoL did a better job with that.

The SP campaign overall is way too short. Missions in WoL could go on for an hour, but here I rarely spent more than half an hour on a mission. I did not like the overall pace.

A few general points:
- The way they seperated Kerrigan and Raynor and caused herself to re-control the swarm was pretty bad, forced and clicheé.
- Abathor reminded me of a giant talking anus. Which was unfortunate because the dialogue was pretty good.
- They recycled Baal from Diablo III on Zerus (the giant ancient one). Seriously. nearly same skin, same attack method etc. Homage or laziness? You decide.

Kerrigan's overall motivation was lackluster. She goes for revenge first. Okay, she kills Mengsk. What then? She goes after Amon. OK, what then? I do not find the "my goal is to kill X" overall motivation that good. I rather liked the original motivation of freeing the swarm from dark influences once and for all, which they cut for no reason. One has to wonder what Blizzard has in store for her. I hope it is not one of those "SACRIFICE YOURSELF FOR THE GREATER GOOD" plotlines.

I did however like that Blizzard took great pains to point out that it was Sarah Kerrigan (now changed) controlling the zerg, not the bloodthirsty Queen of blades. Her attempt to minimize human civilian casualties even at the expense of the swarm caused her to remain a character I could feel sympathy for.

Likewise, the way Mengsk went down was bad. First, he has the Xel-Naga artifact. Yet all it does is shoot lightning? Pfft. Even more, I expected more resistance from Mengsk in the campaign. I expected him to be more cunning, more threatening. All his moves seemed rather reactive and sluggish in the overall context and of little threat. And his final weapon is a jack-in-the-box macguffin. Complete with button pushing and cheesy Raynor interference. Killing him did not leave me feeling satisfied, it left me asking "ok....what's next? That's it?" For such an integral part of the SC universe, they should have had a more badass showdown and end for him. They also should have done a better job trying to fill out what would happen after Mengsk, like they did with the political discussions in WoL. The universe in HotS felt less of a vast universe where stuff happens than in WoL. The campaign felt rushed where you ticked off boxes like "Save Jim. Kill Mengsk. Get primal essence". In WoL, you had more of a sense of adventure, you visited more unique locations etc.

WoL also had great things to do between the missions. There were more conversations. News reports that gave you more glimpses into the galaxy. The Hyperion felt like home, it had interesting stuff to click on. The leviathan was just ugly and dull in comparison. Maybe more interesting Characters would have helped, but overall this just felt somewhat unfinished and unsatisfying.

I really hope Legacy of the Void does an overall better job in story terms and variety. I want to play more characters and have a longer SP campaign.

A good game, but it could have been so much more. If WoL was a 10, this is a 7.

[Block]

you can win a lot of missions with decent macro-management of your bases, plus RAR ZERG SMASH! tactics.

Speaking of RAR ZERG SMASH!, they make it doable for defense as well. I was going to get raptorlings, but then I realized...how hilariously useful will it be to get 27 zerglings really fast as a quick defense at any base while my army is out making a nuisance of itself. Thus, all my base defense problems were solved with swarmlings evolution and a bunch of spore colonies, all without having to leave anything behind like I did with terrans.

I picked the swarmlings, too, but mostly because I figured I'd never be using them on their own as an attack force. Instead, they'd be part of a great Zerg horde on the offensive, and numbers are better than flight/jumping.

Did you get the Slow Roaches? Those are just beastly - I loved it.

I found the raptor strain zerglings to be extremely useful. They close the range on the old bunker/siege tank defense combo so fast with their leaping ability that it makes that defense almost useless. Combine that with the 50% faster attacks evolution and a small swarm of them is truly deadly.

[Alyeska]

Spoiler

I think Heart of the Swarm has a double meaning. Kerrigan used to be the Queen of Blades. But that is no longer her identity. At the end of the game she proclaimed herself the Heart of the Swarm. And given her human outlook, to me that says she is also the soul of the swarm. She will utterly change the Swarm with her new found identify and morality.

[Gaidin]

Spoiler

I think Heart of the Swarm has a double meaning. Kerrigan used to be the Queen of Blades. But that is no longer her identity. At the end of the game she proclaimed herself the Heart of the Swarm. And given her human outlook, to me that says she is also the soul of the swarm. She will utterly change the Swarm with her new found identify and morality

.

Spoiler

That might also be why the campaign is so simple compared to the Terran campaign as well. She's cleaning her slate, so to speak. No more Arcturus. Coming clean with Raynor once she finds out he's alive. Nothing from the past. No Queen of Blades. No Sarah Kerrigan. Just the swarm with that human outlook now. The simplicity of the story is kind of fitting when you put it like that.

[Thanas]

I don't buy that.
Spoiler

For all the talk about the swarm, she is still making the decisions. She claims to be fully focused on that, but I doubt it. There will be plenty of distractions to draw her or the swarm back in. See for example the brood on that Protoss ship.

[Gaidin]

Spoiler

Draw her back into what? The fight the protoss are going to have with the the hybrids that she's having anyway? As a race the protoss are natural allies with the zerg for dealing with the hybrids now that Kerrigan's not corrupted. Individual tribes may have something to say, and they're welcome to try and break themselves on the swarm if they so desire. But then we haven't seen what the race as a whole will be doing about the hybrids because we haven't seen what Zeratul will be doing to unite the Protoss following this either.

[Thanas]

Draw her back into the whole political mess that is the Koprulu sector.
Spoiler

Like she send that whole infested ship towards Shakuras. So now you got Zerg attacking the Protoss homeworld. That is not going to go over well at all, especially with her reinfested

.

[Gaidin]

Draw her back into the whole political mess that is the Koprulu sector.
Spoiler

Like she send that whole infested ship towards Shakuras. So now you got Zerg attacking the Protoss homeworld. That is not going to go over well at all, especially with her reinfested

.

Spoiler

Will bet money some of the missions in Legacy are dealing with that ship given her way of handling that was to fire and forget. But that's a mini-brood basically. There's not enough room on the ship to make it a credible threat to the planet. I doubt they're going to be able to pull Kerrigan down from the greater purpose(from her point of view, what it really is is debatable) she's assigned herself just because they have to deal with something she did at the beginning of the HotS campaign while she was still rampaging. Her being reinfested, well, once Zeratul starts saying "I told her to" and given his relative influence on Shakuras. They did say the Protoss campaign would be more diplomatic in nature after all.

[atg]

Spoiler

Likewise, the way Mengsk went down was bad. First, he has the Xel-Naga artifact. Yet all it does is shoot lightning? Pfft.

Spoiler

This REALLY annoyed me. The artifact can wipe out almost all Zerg on Char but Mengsk uses it to torture one person rather than wipe out the entire Zerg swarm that's attacking his capital planet???