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SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 07:17am
by dragon
With the release of the the expansion to Star Craft II I was wondering if anyone picked up yet and if it's worth to buy.

Re: SC II Heart of swarms

Posted: 2013-03-12 10:13am
by Anacronian
I may not know that much about Starcraft but isn't it named "Heart of the Swarm"?

Re: SC II Heart of swarms

Posted: 2013-03-12 10:48am
by dragon
could be

Re: SC II Heart of swarms

Posted: 2013-03-12 12:53pm
by Darth Yan
Preordered it, and started playing. Pretty damn good so far.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 01:04pm
by Thanas
Played the first four SP missions. Plot twist Spoiler
to have Kerrigan lead the Zerg again
is clichee and done in the most clumsy way possible. However, other than that, the characters interactions are decent, though I am withholding judgement to see if it pays off.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 02:00pm
by Darksider
Thanas wrote:Played the first four SP missions. Plot twist Spoiler
to have Kerrigan lead the Zerg again
is clichee and done in the most clumsy way possible. However, other than that, the characters interactions are decent, though I am withholding judgement to see if it pays off.
When you say that Kerrigan Spoiler
leads the swarm again, do you mean she takes control of some zerg like they've been advertising, or does she just go right back into evil genocide mode and ignore whatever development came from WoL and Flashpoint?

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 03:11pm
by Thanas
Spoiler
Too early in the campaign to tell. Could go either way.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 03:13pm
by Darksider
Are there "choice" missions like in WoL? Like you can choose to do one evil thing or one good thing, or is it entirely scripted?

I was gonna run out and buy the fuck out of this game, but i'm seeing some discontent with the story across the internet. It isn't much, and could just be a few gripers bitching, but it's got me somewhat wary.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 03:40pm
by Thanas
Don't know yet about the scripting.

However, a few WoL tidbits:
- Choosing Nova is the canon option now as Spoiler
she says "thanks for helping me with my tosh problem" or something like that to Raynor when meeting him

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 03:54pm
by The Grim Squeaker
Thanas wrote:Don't know yet about the scripting.

However, a few WoL tidbits:
- Choosing Nova is the canon option now as Spoiler
she says "thanks for helping me with my tosh problem" or something like that to Raynor when meeting him
Actually, when I ran this on a fresh install (no previous WOL saves), it defaulted to the Spoiler
"Helping Tosh" option, with Nova saying "If you'd helped me with my Tosh problem, I might have helped you out now".

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 04:20pm
by Thanas
That is strange, Siege chose Tosh and he had the same dialogue I did.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 05:00pm
by Darksider
HotS carrys decisions over from WoL? When did Blizzard go BioWare on us?

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 05:04pm
by Darksider
Just picked the game up and holy christ is this install going slow. Is that normal or did I do something wrong?

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 05:17pm
by Thanas
nah servers are crapped right now.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 06:31pm
by Imperial528
Darksider wrote:HotS carrys decisions over from WoL? When did Blizzard go BioWare on us?
They learned that "choices" make money whether they changed the outcome or not. Blizzard at least doesn't make a huge deal of it.

As a WoL and SC/BW fan I will pick this up, as soon as I can regain my laptop. *bows out of thread to avoid temptation of spoilers*

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 07:39pm
by Thanas
A few spoilers (am at mission 6 right now):

I like the direction they went with Kerrigan, Spoiler
and it was a huge surprise that it is Zeratul who is pushing for her to reinfest herself (or at least get more powers), considering his history with infested Kerrigan who made him dishonor himself by killing the matriarch and his friendship with Raynor. That was a huge Oh shit, the threat is really serious moment for me.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 08:09pm
by Alyeska
Real good fucking job with the retail release Blizzard. Is the DVD just a link to your download? I insert the disk and wait an hour while it downloads the fucking game off the internet instead.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 08:14pm
by Darksider
Alyeska wrote:Real good fucking job with the retail release Blizzard. Is the DVD just a link to your download? I insert the disk and wait an hour while it downloads the fucking game off the internet instead.
Yeah that was bullshit. I figured if anyone was still going to actually put the game on the retail dvd anymore it'd be Blizzard, but I guess retail PC gaming really is dead.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-12 08:43pm
by atg
I'd pre-ordered and played the beta pretty heavily. It didn't have campaign access but multi-player was active. Multi is good but there are some severe balance issues at the moment.

Started the campaign last night - I'm really enjoying it so far.
Spoiler
Loved the Kerrigan v.s. Zeratul fight

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-13 03:32am
by The Grim Squeaker
atg wrote:I'd pre-ordered and played the beta pretty heavily. It didn't have campaign access but multi-player was active. Multi is good but there are some severe balance issues at the moment.

Started the campaign last night - I'm really enjoying it so far.
Spoiler
Loved the Kerrigan v.s. Zeratul fight
Wait until you get to her next fights. They kinda went with a Dragonball Z vibe overall :D

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-13 04:31am
by Metahive
Question, is it worth to pay full price for 20 new missions, two new units and a mostly empty DVD? Because right now I don't fucking think so.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-13 05:06am
by The Grim Squeaker
Metahive wrote:Question, is it worth to pay full price for 20 new missions, two new units and a mostly empty DVD? Because right now I don't fucking think so.
I paid for the bundle of it and the original SC2. It's fun, and I can definetly see myself replaying it. (Also, it's 6 new units + variants). For the price for SC2 + HOTS it's worth it i'd say (first i've paid for a near full price game in ages.).

Plenty of criticisms for it, and it's not some amazing ends beat all of Game of the decade 111!!11, but it's worth your time.
Also, finished yesterday 8) . (Classes in the midday were cancelled due to a strike, and I slept 2 hours due to crap, so I had a free afternoon of being unable to think/concentrate).


Does someone feel like doing a seperate "Spoilers" thread maybe?
(While leaving this one for reviews/technical discussions etc'?)

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-13 05:07am
by Thanas
It is not two new units. Singleplayer has at least 20, MP has about 6-8 iirc.

But the price is worth it. It is definitely enjoyable.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-13 05:16am
by Mlenk
Metahive wrote:Question, is it worth to pay full price for 20 new missions, two new units and a mostly empty DVD? Because right now I don't fucking think so.
I'm mostly into the ladder and competitive multiplayer side of the game (I played the original Brood War on ICCUP for over 6 years and also Wings of Liberty 1v1 ladder since it was released in 2010) but even if all I did was play the single player campaign and nothing more I would say it is.

Re: SC II Heart of the swarm

Posted: 2013-03-13 05:28am
by Metahive
Did they manage to turn Kerrigan into a likable and sympathetic character without it coming off as contrived? Because I despised her in all the preceding material and not in the "love to hate" manner but in a "god, that smug bitch is annoying and needs to die ASAP" way. To give you an idea I was actually saddened that WoL didn't end with her getting painfully digested for a thousand years in the belly of a giant space slug.