For those who have completed the campaign, what did you think about the story ? Does it satisfy you ? Does the little changes from the leaked previs video good enough ? What do you think LotV will cover ?
And feel free to post all the nifty things you find on the campaign as well.
For me, the favorite characters was Abathur. And lulz at the direct copy of Belial boss fight from D3
It was a good play. It took 9.5 hours and no sleep.
The first 1/3 of the game was really good, the gameplay was great, the cinematics were really well done - but the story lacked substance and make mistakes at certain points.
== Here's some things I noticed ==
White La Forge from Star Trek makes it into a portrait :)
SC HoTS
I thought that Mengsk keeping the Xelnaga Artifact in his office was really dumb. In WoL the artifact would create a shockwave that cleansed a huge area kindof like the XelNaga Temple in SC1 when it turned the protoss homeworld into a desert. In HoTS all it did was electrocute Kerrigan in a lame way without turning her back into human. Mengsk lighter only had one button on it and it didn't create a shockwave.
Also - why did the command office explode after Mengsk died? 0_0
A better plot twist would have been if the zerg got a hold of the artifact and modified it to "cleanse the terran".
--
And finally @ the very end Kerrigan makes it obvious that she can make objects float across short distances or even up into space.
(Which buzkilled the ending and reminded me of)
Zelda OOT:
FFX - Titus can Fly too
Why didn't she simply make Jim Raynor float across that tiny bridge when they got separated in the beginning?
She has the ability to lift up marines and tanks straight from the beginning of the game.
--
It's odd but HoTs gameplay reminded me of StarCraft and StarCraft Brood War more than Wings of Liberty did. It was a fun play.
Oh god, the story seeding for the larva broodmother on the Protoss ship outside Shakuras... Gets me excited to think how that will come back to bite Kerrigan in the ass
Oh god, the story seeding for the larva broodmother on the Protoss ship outside Shakuras... Gets me excited to think how that will come back to bite Kerrigan in the ass
That level really got me excited for LotV, Protoss is getting very few love in the game so far. (No protoss unit has been featured on a cinematic with the exception of zeratul)
By any fluke you guys know where to find the cool marines and specters from the begging section of the campaign? I mean the High poly versions.
Cinematic Section of the files.
Story has been surprisingly good after how awful WoL was. Lots of emotional moments with Sarah feeling alone and finally going on a killing spree to make Mengsk pay.
The only things I really hated was that Jim obviously would survive, because he has the thickest Plot Armor you can buy and some of the pretty lame excuses made up in the storyline to justify the WoL ending as well as some other stuff.
Not to mention that Arcturus has been portrait badly compared to much potential he has. Also they killed their only major Villain that didn't suck when Kerrigan took revenge.
But overall it was a pretty fun ride, levels were designed very well. Sadly a lot of the upgrades are just flat out better than others. Bouncy Banelings solved any "destroy this" problem in seconds :P
By any fluke you guys know where to find the cool marines and specters from the begging section of the campaign? I mean the High poly versions.
It is questionable if these models are in the data files at all, seeing how they are only present in preprendered cinematics (unlike in WOL, the Ingame cinematics are also preprendered now, even though they clearly have been touched up with some additional effects that would probably be hard to render in real time). Ive already looked for them and sadly, they dont seem to be there.
After beating the campaign I find myself feeling a little bit underwhelmed and I'm not entirely sure why... I think one thing that attribute to it is that the story was incredibly straight forward and I saw everything coming, I knew Jim Raynor didn't die, I knew even though he got mad he would come back in the end mission, I knew Kerrigan was going to live even though she impaled herself. I never had that moment where I was at the edge of my seat completely unsure as to what was going to happen next. I would have liked to have been shocked a little bit with something I didn't see coming or an epic plot twist, but at the end I found the ending to be a little anti climactic. I just found that Blizzard played it to safe, even with Kerrigan's transformation she comes out looking identical to her old self, no genetic differences?
And Mengsk is killed with the very original light flashing out the eyes and mouth then exploding that has been used over and over again in movies and video games, probably because it's the only pretty way to make someone explode. This was done in Indian Jone 4 and Dues EX,
I could go on but what I'm getting at is that the story could have taken many more risks that would have made it epic but instead kind of sits on the edge of epic. It would have been perfect if it just had a really good twist at the end and I think Blizzard missed a huge opportunity to really take the game to the next level.
Yeah, that is just one of many. But hey, it rains on Char if Raynor wills it.
To be honest the only thing I really liked was Sarah's part. Sure, her primal queen redesign involved her keeping her pretty face instead of going full Zerg as I wished, but I could at least get some emotional attachment when she tries to reach Jim and sits down and cries for a moment in the dropship, or in the cutscene above when she asks him if he still trust her and actually seems to break up with her.
Mengsk having a backup plan for Kerrigan is also quite nice, though the whole primal zerg thing was a bit meh. Mengsk had extremly well done plans and a bunch of primal zerg manages to break his defenses on the orbital platform? The man ALWAYS planned for any situation.
All in all this was pretty much oldschool Blizz though. Cheesy, obvious and full of plot mistakes, but still somewhat epic :p
It was awesome! Pew, pow boom! Many many colors and colorful zergs speaking silly english! The beams, the power levels, the DBZ it had. The boss fights, wooooo! Kerrigan vs Narud cinematic was also very cool. Dark voices name made me remember Amon Ra.
So yea.. it was fun. I don't want to say anything more.
..
This is a new starcraft, here you've got plenty of talkative zergs. Zerg are actually kinda wild noble predatory race. Untamed sentient beasts. You've got boss battles versus 9K hp units where they feel the need to talk and taunt you (D3 all over again). Here you win missions not by destroying bases but by having a "who can get a bigger power beam" competition (yeah, I know it's just 1 mission but it's your final confrontation vs Duran, I can't help to feel it should be more than that).
The drama.. it was maybe enjoyable in some parts, but in others (Jim suddenly mentioning fenix out of the blue, what the hell are you upset about, didn't care about him before, but now the girl gave up on her humanity to help you and you throw that in her face, what a random a**hole).
Villains were incredibly underwhelming in actions.
Megnsk tried really hard to make us dislike him. F**k you blizz. I went back and relistened "Inaguration" speech, I swear that speech alone could inspire me to die for dominion, for humanity. Every time I heard megnsk in hots though I thought "what a f*g".
It's a flashy ride, so colorful it becomes colorless. Without identity. None of main heroes made me respect or be intrigued by them. Only two characters I liked were zerg stetman and protoss colonist girl.
Such a lighthearted adventure that it leaves close to zero impressions or lasting memories. But hey, we've gotten lots of new cool monster models, can't wait to see them being used in maps =D
I really liked that cinematic. Imagine if Raynor actually sat parallel to the door. *Kerri blows out the door* ->*Splat*->"Jim!"->"I'm dead Sarah, the door was my end"
P.S. I can't believe that I still had any feelings of attachment to old way of blizz writing, how pathetic must that be?
After beating the campaign I find myself feeling a little bit underwhelmed and I'm not entirely sure why... I think one thing that attribute to it is that the story was incredibly straight forward and I saw everything coming, I knew Jim Raynor didn't die, I knew even though he got mad he would come back in the end mission, I knew Kerrigan was going to live even though she impaled herself. I never had that moment where I was at the edge of my seat completely unsure as to what was going to happen next. I would have liked to have been shocked a little bit with something I didn't see coming or an epic plot twist, but at the end I found the ending to be a little anti climactic. I just found that Blizzard played it to safe, even with Kerrigan's transformation she comes out looking identical to her old self, no genetic differences? And Mengsk is killed with the very original light flashing out the eyes and mouth then exploding that has been used over and over again in movies and video games, probably because it's the only pretty way to make someone explode.
I could go on but what I'm getting at is that the story could have taken many more risks that would have made it epic but instead kind of sits on the edge of epic. It would have been perfect if it just had a really good twist at the end and I think Blizzard missed a huge opportunity to really take the game to the next level.
Since the ending cinematic is leaked, we know exactly who is going to live and who is going to die. Nevertheless the experience is still top notch. They did a wonderful job on all the cinematics, cutscenes and missions. Not sure about taking more risks, but pretty much the story is fleshed out since WoL. Even they can't change much of the leaked cinematic (remember, their cinematic department takes years to produce one). I'm glad they did take the community's feedback (mentioning Fenix out of nowhere etc...)
On a side note, do we know exactly if Dehaka is the same zergling with a wounded claw Kerrigan picked up in "Transmission". I never hear any character mentions it, they just the same wounded claw.
Abathur was my favorite character. Seriously, that beast was fucking boss.
Aside from that, it was what I expected: A spectacle. And I enjoyed every second of it. Sure, the dialog was very very weak at times and the characters were somewhat flat and random and the villians were mostly cliche for most of it. But hey, shit blows up and it really had some really well done character moments that really made me emotional. It had all the DBZ, too. So yeah, this is not SC1, unfortunately, what Ducky said pretty much sums it up very well. I really really enjoyed it though, its a spectacle and it is great at beeing that.
On a side note, do we know exactly if Dehaka is the same zergling with a wounded claw Kerrigan picked up in "Transmission". I never hear any character mentions it, they just the same wounded claw.
Unlikely, while they share that trait, one is a Primal and the other is a engineered Zerg.
There was also massive wasted potential on doing better environment work in the story. Kerrigan alone on Zerus? Let some Primals run over a treestump and some jump down. Build up some suspension with Primals running past, sounds, etc.
Holy crap please do that. I tried to do that but I couldn't ever get it to export with no errors so I gave up. Seriously though I would love a high poly spectre.
It wasn't because the ending video was leaked it was because the foreshadowing was blatantly obvious and the story was over foreshadowed. It's also because the story is very rehash and we have seen the exact plot devices used in HOTS used over and over again.
The "I'm dead but not really", " I'm mad but I'll change my mind and come back to help later", "Oh no we have to escape, better not get separated...", "We have your friend and we'll kill him if you come for us, but he's being held in a prison somewhere that you can save him in.", "Hey there's this prophesy you better do you job and fulfill it!", "I love you but we can't be together because I have a duty to save the universe."
I mean all of these are very cliche and almost at the amateur level of writing. They can only be used sparingly once in a while or everyone start to see a trend and start to expect what will happen.
For those who have completed the campaign, what did you think about the story ? Does it satisfy you ? Does the little changes from the leaked previs video good enough ? What do you think LotV will cover ?
And feel free to post all the nifty things you find on the campaign as well.
For me, the favorite characters was Abathur. And lulz at the direct copy of Belial boss fight from D3
It was a good play. It took 9.5 hours and no sleep.
The first 1/3 of the game was really good, the gameplay was great, the cinematics were really well done - but the story lacked substance and make mistakes at certain points.
== Here's some things I noticed ==
White La Forge from Star Trek makes it into a portrait :)
SC HoTS
La Forge
http://www.startrek.com/uploads/assets/db_articles/20a3668f5e41172f613551aa4e8d0fe5911925d8.jpg
--
I thought that Mengsk keeping the Xelnaga Artifact in his office was really dumb. In WoL the artifact would create a shockwave that cleansed a huge area kindof like the XelNaga Temple in SC1 when it turned the protoss homeworld into a desert. In HoTS all it did was electrocute Kerrigan in a lame way without turning her back into human. Mengsk lighter only had one button on it and it didn't create a shockwave.
Also - why did the command office explode after Mengsk died? 0_0
A better plot twist would have been if the zerg got a hold of the artifact and modified it to "cleanse the terran".
--
And finally @ the very end Kerrigan makes it obvious that she can make objects float across short distances or even up into space.
(Which buzkilled the ending and reminded me of)
Zelda OOT:
FFX - Titus can Fly too
Why didn't she simply make Jim Raynor float across that tiny bridge when they got separated in the beginning?
She has the ability to lift up marines and tanks straight from the beginning of the game.
--
It's odd but HoTs gameplay reminded me of StarCraft and StarCraft Brood War more than Wings of Liberty did. It was a fun play.
Oh god, the story seeding for the larva broodmother on the Protoss ship outside Shakuras... Gets me excited to think how that will come back to bite Kerrigan in the ass
That level really got me excited for LotV, Protoss is getting very few love in the game so far. (No protoss unit has been featured on a cinematic with the exception of zeratul)
hey anyone making list of the easter eggs ? xp
final part should be a overlord passing by and kerrigan grabbin it and then just drift away lol
By any fluke you guys know where to find the cool marines and specters from the begging section of the campaign? I mean the High poly versions.
Cinematic Section of the files.
Story has been surprisingly good after how awful WoL was. Lots of emotional moments with Sarah feeling alone and finally going on a killing spree to make Mengsk pay.
The only things I really hated was that Jim obviously would survive, because he has the thickest Plot Armor you can buy and some of the pretty lame excuses made up in the storyline to justify the WoL ending as well as some other stuff.
Not to mention that Arcturus has been portrait badly compared to much potential he has. Also they killed their only major Villain that didn't suck when Kerrigan took revenge.
But overall it was a pretty fun ride, levels were designed very well. Sadly a lot of the upgrades are just flat out better than others. Bouncy Banelings solved any "destroy this" problem in seconds :P
It is questionable if these models are in the data files at all, seeing how they are only present in preprendered cinematics (unlike in WOL, the Ingame cinematics are also preprendered now, even though they clearly have been touched up with some additional effects that would probably be hard to render in real time). Ive already looked for them and sadly, they dont seem to be there.
I can make a list, cant get all the screenshot though:
- Tasteless and Artosis critter: Tastelope and Artosilope.
- Pylon Poweraid eSport.
- Diablo and Murloc Marine (same as WOL, just now in a lab).
- Rainbow crystal ??? in Roach Evolution mission. This one I did not understand.
Feel free to add more, explanation, screenshot etc...
Unfortunately that part is prerendered, you wont likely find that model
Edit: Another neat things, there are 2 different prerendered version of the Warfield cutscene, where Kerrigan is human and primal form
After beating the campaign I find myself feeling a little bit underwhelmed and I'm not entirely sure why... I think one thing that attribute to it is that the story was incredibly straight forward and I saw everything coming, I knew Jim Raynor didn't die, I knew even though he got mad he would come back in the end mission, I knew Kerrigan was going to live even though she impaled herself. I never had that moment where I was at the edge of my seat completely unsure as to what was going to happen next. I would have liked to have been shocked a little bit with something I didn't see coming or an epic plot twist, but at the end I found the ending to be a little anti climactic. I just found that Blizzard played it to safe, even with Kerrigan's transformation she comes out looking identical to her old self, no genetic differences?
And Mengsk is killed with the very original light flashing out the eyes and mouth then exploding that has been used over and over again in movies and video games, probably because it's the only pretty way to make someone explode. This was done in Indian Jone 4 and Dues EX,
I could go on but what I'm getting at is that the story could have taken many more risks that would have made it epic but instead kind of sits on the edge of epic. It would have been perfect if it just had a really good twist at the end and I think Blizzard missed a huge opportunity to really take the game to the next level.
Why had Raynor his gun in his cell as a prisoner?
God damn you again Blizzard. And here I was thinking we finally had some decent animations for the Spectre model without stupid crates attached.
Wonder how long it would take me to extract the Spectre, re-rig and texture him and bring him back in with the new tools...
Yeah, that is just one of many. But hey, it rains on Char if Raynor wills it.
To be honest the only thing I really liked was Sarah's part. Sure, her primal queen redesign involved her keeping her pretty face instead of going full Zerg as I wished, but I could at least get some emotional attachment when she tries to reach Jim and sits down and cries for a moment in the dropship, or in the cutscene above when she asks him if he still trust her and actually seems to break up with her.
Mengsk having a backup plan for Kerrigan is also quite nice, though the whole primal zerg thing was a bit meh. Mengsk had extremly well done plans and a bunch of primal zerg manages to break his defenses on the orbital platform? The man ALWAYS planned for any situation.
All in all this was pretty much oldschool Blizz though. Cheesy, obvious and full of plot mistakes, but still somewhat epic :p
It was awesome! Pew, pow boom! Many many colors and colorful zergs speaking silly english! The beams, the power levels, the DBZ it had. The boss fights, wooooo! Kerrigan vs Narud cinematic was also very cool. Dark voices name made me remember Amon Ra.
So yea.. it was fun. I don't want to say anything more.
..
This is a new starcraft, here you've got plenty of talkative zergs. Zerg are actually kinda wild noble predatory race. Untamed sentient beasts. You've got boss battles versus 9K hp units where they feel the need to talk and taunt you (D3 all over again). Here you win missions not by destroying bases but by having a "who can get a bigger power beam" competition (yeah, I know it's just 1 mission but it's your final confrontation vs Duran, I can't help to feel it should be more than that).
The drama.. it was maybe enjoyable in some parts, but in others (Jim suddenly mentioning fenix out of the blue, what the hell are you upset about, didn't care about him before, but now the girl gave up on her humanity to help you and you throw that in her face, what a random a
**
hole).Villains were incredibly underwhelming in actions.
Megnsk tried really hard to make us dislike him. F
**
k you blizz. I went back and relistened "Inaguration" speech, I swear that speech alone could inspire me to die for dominion, for humanity. Every time I heard megnsk in hots though I thought "what a f*g".It's a flashy ride, so colorful it becomes colorless. Without identity. None of main heroes made me respect or be intrigued by them. Only two characters I liked were zerg stetman and protoss colonist girl.
Such a lighthearted adventure that it leaves close to zero impressions or lasting memories. But hey, we've gotten lots of new cool monster models, can't wait to see them being used in maps =D
I really liked that cinematic. Imagine if Raynor actually sat parallel to the door.
*Kerri blows out the door* ->*Splat*->"Jim!"->"I'm dead Sarah, the door was my end"
P.S. I can't believe that I still had any feelings of attachment to old way of blizz writing, how pathetic must that be?
Since the ending cinematic is leaked, we know exactly who is going to live and who is going to die. Nevertheless the experience is still top notch. They did a wonderful job on all the cinematics, cutscenes and missions. Not sure about taking more risks, but pretty much the story is fleshed out since WoL. Even they can't change much of the leaked cinematic (remember, their cinematic department takes years to produce one). I'm glad they did take the community's feedback (mentioning Fenix out of nowhere etc...)
On a side note, do we know exactly if Dehaka is the same zergling with a wounded claw Kerrigan picked up in "Transmission". I never hear any character mentions it, they just the same wounded claw.
Abathur was my favorite character. Seriously, that beast was fucking boss.
Aside from that, it was what I expected: A spectacle. And I enjoyed every second of it. Sure, the dialog was very very weak at times and the characters were somewhat flat and random and the villians were mostly cliche for most of it. But hey, shit blows up and it really had some really well done character moments that really made me emotional. It had all the DBZ, too. So yeah, this is not SC1, unfortunately, what Ducky said pretty much sums it up very well. I really really enjoyed it though, its a spectacle and it is great at beeing that.
I miss SC1 writing, though.
Unlikely, while they share that trait, one is a Primal and the other is a engineered Zerg.
There was also massive wasted potential on doing better environment work in the story. Kerrigan alone on Zerus? Let some Primals run over a treestump and some jump down. Build up some suspension with Primals running past, sounds, etc.
@Gorandor: Go
Holy crap please do that. I tried to do that but I couldn't ever get it to export with no errors so I gave up. Seriously though I would love a high poly spectre.
@Gorandor: Go
Yeah could have used some more suspense as well, I mean I hate to say this but I felt more suspension in Super Metroid then in HOTS.
@progammer: Go
It wasn't because the ending video was leaked it was because the foreshadowing was blatantly obvious and the story was over foreshadowed. It's also because the story is very rehash and we have seen the exact plot devices used in HOTS used over and over again.
The "I'm dead but not really", " I'm mad but I'll change my mind and come back to help later", "Oh no we have to escape, better not get separated...", "We have your friend and we'll kill him if you come for us, but he's being held in a prison somewhere that you can save him in.", "Hey there's this prophesy you better do you job and fulfill it!", "I love you but we can't be together because I have a duty to save the universe."
I mean all of these are very cliche and almost at the amateur level of writing. They can only be used sparingly once in a while or everyone start to see a trend and start to expect what will happen.
@LitePollution9: Go No, don't hate to say that, Super Metroid rules.