I won't go into as much depth this time, seeing as how the story is over 2/3 done at this point. Suffice to say, I enjoyed HoTS more than Wings of Liberty. The attention to detail by the artists and mission designers combines to make for an overall enjoyable zerg campaign. The evolution missions is exactly what StarCraft 2 has been missing: a macroscopic perspective of the sector. But as usual, the same level of attention to detail is missing in Blizzard's writing department. I won't really touch on the cheesy and ham-fisted dialog reminiscent of Diablo 3, as it speaks for itself, but I'll focus more on plot and characters.
Intro Cinematic
Yet again, the writers have chosen to reveal the ending to us in the opening cinematic. However, Blizzard's CG team is to be congratulated. This was the one moment in the game where I felt that Helfer's performance superseded Glynnis Campbell's, though it could probably be attributed to the more modern vocal effects. The casting choice is still unfortunate however, as Helfer doesn't add anything else to the voice that Campbell didn't, apart from broken continuity.
Intro Missions
I enjoyed Kerrigan's dialog with Valerian. It felt somewhat contrived that Raynor and Kerrigan got split up. There are any number of things that Kerrigan could have done. After the escape, Mengsk broadcasts that Raynor is dead. Raise your hand if you believed that Raynor actually died? Nobody? That's what I thought. There is no way Metzen would kill off his favorite character at the drop of a hat.
The main problem with the story however is that Kerrigan decides to build the swarm back up and embark on a path of furious vengeance, killing everyone in her path, despite the fact that the artifact turned her back into her human state. Kerrigan suffered just as much under the Confederacy as she did under Mengsk, who took her away from her family, forced her to kill people, and subjected her to years of mental torture. But even still, she condemned unleashing zerg on Tarsonis and Antiga Prime just to take down the Confederacy. So it makes little sense that she is so willing to resort to this now, especially since she can't remember vast tracts of her time as the Queen of Blades due to her amnesia.
These actions are not in line with what human Kerrigan would do, and this problem goes all the way back to Wings of Liberty, which mangled and destroyed a large part of the lore. If Kerrigan had never been deinfested, then her desire for revenge and willingless to destroy planets would have been believable and/or justified. Brood War showed that she was in control of her own actions even though she was infested. She could have embarked on a path of real character development, and after 4 years of loneliness, Raynor's fake death could have been the straw that broke the camel's back and finally motivated Kerrigan to start showing some compassion. But instead, Blizzard chose to deinfest Kerrigan...why? Just so that we can play as a female in space spandex for the first couple missions in order to make the story "accessible" to everyone? Not to mention that Wings of Liberty ended up being a giant waste of time now, since the only thing we really accomplished was to deinfest Kerrigan only for her to put herself back into a chrysalis willingly.
What. Was. The. Point.
Evidence that Kerrigan is good again in HoTS:
The artifact removed the zerg mutagen from her system and allowed her to revert back to human form.
She claims, multiple times, that after this is all over, she will have to "atone".
She lets Valerian evacuate the citizenry in the attack on Korhal.
Evidence that Kerrigan is still evil in HoTS:
Attacks terran and protoss worlds in the evolution missions.
Destroys the protoss colony on Kal'Dir instead of letting them leave. Infects Lessara with a chestburster.
Kills and abandons Warfield, a good guy who was just trying to defend his people.
Instead of apologizing to Zeratul for the myriad crimes she inflicted upon him, she instead tries to kill him and tells him afterward "what are you doing here? I don't even need your help."
Make no mistake, the above is not evidence of a "conflicted" or "interesting" character, only the writers' lack of vision (a concept that Kerrigan failed to explain to Zagarra and the audience nevertheless). Heart of the Swarm is supposed to be an examination of Sarah Kerrigan's character, and yet it remains the story's largest failure. The writers wanted Kerrigan to be sympathetic and human, and they also wanted to use the "revenge" and "taking over planets" themes that fit in with a zerg campaign. They just proved that you cannot have both.
Kal'Dir Arc
This is where things start to go south. Technically we accomplish all of our objectives by the first mission: we've assimilated the space yeti and we found what happened to the missing brood. This raises the question: what the hell are we still doing here? Lessara echoes this extremely valid point: "You do not have to do this. You could leave. Be away from this moon before the Golden Armada arrives."
Kerrigan gives us a non-answer: "I can't run. I know that now. My enemies will never stop coming for me. All I can do is fight. The Swarm does not run. Weakness ends in death. All I can do is fight."
If the protoss intelligence department is so clueless and incompetent that they don't already know what happened on Char and we have to waste our time stopping these shuttles, then I don't know what to say. So we proceed to slaughter an innocent protoss colony for no very good reason, and Kerrigan hasn't exactly started her path of redemption with the greatest of success. However, this doesn't compare to the absurdity of the final mission, where we destroy an entire protoss force with a single larvae. The zerg, who make the law of conservation of energy their bitch, have spawned an entire army on the protoss colony ship. Lessara conveniently gets warped to the middle of nowhere on the ship, where nobody can see a chestburster explode from her body. And the protoss, the most advanced race in the galaxy, whose detectors were so precise that they knew Chau Sara was infested even before the humans living on it did, still cannot detect and stop this infestation aboard their own ship. To add insult to injury, Kerrigan tries to bring moral relativism to the mix:
"I justify nothing. There is no moral high ground here. Your people have killed billions of zerg. We are all covered in blood. There may be more on my hands than yours, but in the end we are both killers."
Seriously? The protoss are murderers because they killed mindless and disposable zerg? The species that walked into the sector and nearly slaughtered everyone in the first place? Great argument Kerrigan. Unfortunately, the protoss have proven time and time again in Wings of Liberty and in Heart of the Swarm, that they are weak and largely incompetent. Instead of being a powerful and enigmatic race that was respected, they're largely a joke. Even when you see Zeratul, it's only to watch him get smacked around like a chump by a diminutive human female. It would have been cool if his involvement included something useful and awesome like saving Kerrigan from Narud, or anything that established him as a competent character outside of his own campaign.
Back in StarCraft vanilla's zerg campaign, the protoss were allowed an illusion of competence when they assassinated and destroyed key zerg leaders, despite being outnumbered. They also destroyed entire planets in your wake during the terran campaign, garnering them further credibility. No such thing can exist under Blizzard's new player-aggrandizing "you always win" philosophy. As such, the protoss of StarCraft 2 have failed in their role of being a powerful elder race. Legacy of the Void won't do a thing to change this, because any successes the protoss will have there are, again, attributable to Blizzard's juvenile "you only win because you're the player" philosophy.
Hybrid Arc
I'm still not sure how I feel about Stukov's return. On one hand, he was one of my favorite characters. On the other hand, Blizzard's implementation of him is more in line with a Warcraft character (glowing face, and spectral voice effects, almost like an undead banshee). Either way, it was satisfying to watch Stukov help take down his old nemesis: Duran aka. Narud. It's unfortunate this connection between Narud and Duran was never elaborated on or revealed more thoroughly. In StarCraft 2, I'm sure many of us wanted to fight against Duran, instead of a totally different character. Perhaps it's a mixed blessing however, as it's doubtful that Blizzard's sound department would have been able to match either the voice actor or the vocal effects used in Brood War. The hybrid arc was mostly enjoyable. Still I can't help but feel disappointed that Duran, this powerful entity who manipulated the galaxy for ages and engineered something "beyond our narrow understanding," just turned out to be a comic book villain that was defeated in a Dragonball Z fight. It's unfortunate that this master manipulator gets destroyed in the same mission arc in which he is introduced. He did not get the chance to screw us over and make us hate him, and that's really one of the main problems with antagonists in Blizzard's RTS missions.
The Tal'Darim reprised their role of boring, incompetent, and generic antagonists. There's the plot hole of why the Tal'Darim were attacking Raynor when it was Narud that was paying Raynor to collect the artifacts in the first place. In effect, Narud was paying Raynor to steal things that already belonged to him, while Valerian was paying Raynor to commit terrorism against his own government! Truly, what a mind-trip. This is not natural story progression, rather, it is Blizzard's patch for why Raynor indiscriminately slaughtered the Tal'Darim and stole their rightfully-owned possessions in Wings of Liberty, much like the Conquistadors came to North America to slaughter Native Americans and steal their items. Turns out the Tal'Darim were possessed by Lord Voldemort all along though, so that makes it ok!
Zerus Arc
Holy retcon batman! First off, the premise that Zerus is right next door and Kerrigan can travel there at a drop of a hat is utter nonsense. Zerus is located in the galactic core, 50000 light years away from the K-sector. It took the Overmind 60 years to reach the Koprulu sector when he discovered the terrans, and there is zero reason to assume that zerg FTL travel has improved under Kerrigan, who was an inferior geneticist to the Overmind. In a setting where it can take weeks to travel to another planet, the fact that you basically teleport across the galaxy at a whim totally breaks the setting and immersion. The only other time this has happened was in Brood War, where the UED came all the way from Earth. However, they pulled some crazy crap to get this done, having to put everyone into cryogenic cold-sleep, and the writers made sure you knew how amazing their journey was. Duke said "You mean to tell me you came all the way from Earth?". Zeratul said "these humans have come a long way to make war upon us". So it was more believable, and not just because they had more time to travel. In Heart of the Swarm, the writers don't recognize this issue, so they'll probably save it for a future Q&A.
The writers operate under the premise that we should go do everything and go everywhere just because it would be cool. There is zero attempt at verisimilitude or realism. Raynor's small band of volunteers invade Korhal and Char in the last game. Kerrigan goes back to a planet that's supposed to be lost, halfway across the galaxy. Why? The cool factor. It is also likely that we will retake Aiur in LoTV, just because it would be cool. All the extended lore points to the fact that it's totally unpractical, but Blizzard doesn't like to get bogged down with details.
In addition, we learned this little bit of information:
"Ancient One: And so he bound the zerg to a single overriding will. They lost their identity, and became his slaves. Kerrigan: The hive mind. That's Amon's corruption?"
Wow, so it's the hive-mind itself! What a plot twist! I did not see that one coming! And that's because it's a blatant retcon. The original game manual says: "Attempting to waylay the potential hazards of differing egos, the Xel’Naga structured the collective sentience of the Zerg into a unified, amalgamated ‘Overmind’."
The Xel'Naga created the hive mind link. It's not like Amon went behind their backs, and created the hive-mind link without any of them noticing, so this makes no sense. I find the very idea of zerg without a hive-mind to be nonsensical and ill-conceived. The zergs' original "purity of essence" has also been utterly mangled. Originally referring to the hive-mind link and/or their genetic adaptability, it is now instead nothing more than the DNA that a zerg absorbs from another creature. The zerg never "stole" any essence, they assimilated the strongest species and culled the rest. There is no reason to assume that primal zerg were individuals, as they acted together anyway and never achieved a higher level of sentience until after the Overmind was created. I won't even comment on how Zerus is suddenly a lush jungle world instead of an ashworld with torrential firestorms in the volatile galactic core. But at least Abathur explained how primal zerg have access to new strains like hydralisks and zerglings, so I can appreciate that they addressed this plothole in the actual game instead of saving it for a Q&A.
Most infested terrans are mindless drones. The Overmind had to jump through hoops to create the Queen of Blades, and she was "his greatest creation". So what, a random cesspool on Zerus has the magical ability to skip all that work and do the same exact thing, only better? Why?
So to this all I say: what's the deal Blizzard? Why all the retcons this far into the trilogy? How hard is it to read the original game manual? Even more lore has been butchered under the mantra of "ignore or destroy as much of the original lore as possible". It was hard enough to believe that Kerrigan was willing to turn herself into a monster again just for revenge, especially since it's supposed to be a painful process according to Abathur. So I'm sorry, but this is a story arc that simply did not need to be told. Blizzard has told us that they were building an internal database of lore in order to avoid such inconsistencies. Unfortunately, Blizzard, you don't need a lore database, what you need is for the guys in charge of the story to actually earn their salary and give two craps about continuity and realism. How many writers are under your employ Blizzard? How much do you pay them to think about the story for years on end? I'm not even trying to be a dick here, but why is this a recurring thing? I've heard it said that Warcraft lore has been ruined, and it seems that this is the inevitable fate of the StarCraft franchise as well.
Space Arc
I have to admit I enjoyed commanding the Hyperion in a space battle. Unfortunately I could not stomach the premise of having to fight Mira Han, a known ally and friend. "She's a merc" is not a valid excuse, sorry. This scene basically deconstructs itself, so I won't really go into it, suffice to say that even Valerian knew this was total BS. Another clever and entertaining mission overshadowed by incompetent writing.
I loved how Raynor first saw the human Kerrigan walk in to save him in the prison cinematic, only for the monster to appear shortly after. The reference to Fenix and the promise to kill Kerrigan provided some closure for Brood War fans, but felt hamfisted in its delivery; of all the times to bring it up, this is seriously the last one I would have picked. I could also complain about the fact that they let Raynor keep his pistol in a maximum security prison, but Blizzard is becoming known for its fridge logic at this point.
Korhal Arc
Mengsk presented an improvement from Wings of Liberty, because he was justified in protecting humanity from Kerrigan, and he actually pulled out the stops and used some cunning against Kerrigan, instead of just telling you that you suck and you will die like a regular cartoon villain (though there is still plenty of that in HoTS, don't get me wrong). I appreciate that Kerrigan double-checked with Valerian before killing his father. I also appreciate that they evacuated the citizenry. What I don't appreciate is the fact that invading Korhal was an obstacle of such unimaginable difficulty that it had to take 3 missions and even then Kerrigan wasn't sure she would survive.
Kerrigan wiped Mengsk out in Brood War in a weakened state with minimum effort, and the Koprulu terrans have never ever been close to being an actual legitimate challenge to the swarm. Furthermore, if Raynor and his rag-tag band of prodigies could launch an attack on Augustgrad in the previous game, then again, why is it such a hassle this time around? People always revert to the excuse of "it was a raid" for Media Blitz, despite the fact that there are multiple mentions of a base and Raynor's army being on the ground, with Raynor's Thors fighting Mengsk's Battlecruisers as Raynor trashes three separate Dominion bases. This is no more a hit-and-run than the Invasion of Normandy, and if it was supposed to be a raid, Blizzard should have tried harder to make it look like one. So if Raynor could get past Korhal's orbital defenses in Wings of Liberty, then there is absolutely no reason why Kerrigan has to devote an entire mission to bypassing the orbital defenses and lose "millions" of drop-pods. An invasion of Korhal is simply not worthy of being the final mission arc.
I'm glad that Blizzard changed enough of the leaked ending cinematic in the final version. The Xel'Naga artifact was a superior last-ditch weapon to a secret implant in Kerrigan's head, but now this line makes little sense: "did you think I'd keep an animal like you close to me without some sort of insurance policy?" Mengsk's greatest accomplishment seems to have been to keep the artifact in his office, but it raises the question of why he didn't use it on the battlefield?
In conclusion, HoTS was a good zerg campaign, but the love story between Raynor and Kerrigan was utterly unnecessary. The random smooching in the middle of a battle, Raynor "moving Heaven and Earth" to get his baby back, Kerrigan floating up into heaven at the end as she parts ways with Raynor. It simply doesn't fit in a setting that is originally based on political infighting and galactic domination. However, I'd like to give a shout-out to Abathur, who is basically Mordin from Mass Effect 3, but still feels like the only true zerg character in this game. Anyway, I am glad that Raynor was able to participate in Mengsk's downfall, but now that Raynor and Kerrigan's arcs are concluded, it seems that LoTV will be a bit disjointed from the rest of the trilogy. Nevertheless, the story still represents an improvement over Wings of Liberty, and for that the writers are to be congratulated.
I think this review is just about spot on. I really enjoyed the missions and most of the story content but there were those things that popped out. I will say though to me it makes sense that it was a tough battle for Kerrigan since Mengsk had Raynor hidden away to buy time to prepare. So while Raynor's deal obviously wasn't just a raid, the Dominion had no idea it would happen. While against Kerrigan they had plenty of time to prepare for an invasion. Kerrigan was a little too unsure though.
Duran/Narud part was pretty dissapointing. How did you feel about Stukov's voice actor? I felt it was too lazy. I didn't expect him to copy the old but it felt like he just didn't try.
I read a bunch of your WoL review too, which put into words my own personal grievances so eloquently. Especially the UNN broadcasts. Like, Mengsk is supposed to be this peerless cunning master strategist and propagandist running a tight ship, but the UNN makes him look like an idiot at every turn. It's just bad characterization for the sake of a played out joke.
The secret mission in Brood Wars was one of my all-time favorite cliffhangers in video games. What the hell happened to Duran? He turned into an idiot too. They're all bloody idiots. It's the same frustration I felt as a kid watching Saturday morning cartoon characters blindly fall into obvious traps. Like how can they be so fucking stupid. Fuck.
Hey Gradius, good post. I liked your original analysis of WoL, and enjoyed this one too.
I'm actually working my way through the SC1 campaign right now for fun. I gotta say, it's damn good! I'm finding the overall writing quality stronger, with characters that are actually interesting and properly motivated (not to mention dialogue that IS bearable lol). I often see the argument that the "perceived quality" of older Blizzard titles is really just nostalgia, but I personally didn't play SC1 much when I was younger (was more of a Warcraft/Diablo fan). I did read several books though :)
So now, going through the SC1 campaign, I can just feel it's better (mind you, from a STORY point of view... not necessarily mission design and so forth). Basically, like how the first Matrix was versus its sequels. It's hard for me to describe I guess (though you quantified much of it in your original WoL article). I realize that many people disagree with my opinion on SC2, and I seriously do consider those opinions, because I am trying to understand why there is such polarization between those who enjoyed the newer stories versus those who didn't.
I wish I didn't have to be so critical (I'd prefer to just praise Blizz and eat up everything they make like I used to), but every game post-WoW so far hasn't really hit home for me. Not that I didn't get anything out of SC2, but I've generally found a lot less to like in the newer Blizz titles than say, D1/D2/War1-3/WoW/SC1. I still play War3 at LANs, so many great custom maps lol!
Well, I'm getting off topic here, but I definitely feel something has changed with their games, maybe it's the huge team-size instead of the 10-40 man they used to have (which leads to fewer hallway-ideas/development, and more hierarchical corporate directions perhaps?). Who knows, maybe it's just different people with different visions. Either way, they are still outputting solid products, but I don't feel *mind blown* anymore lol.
- In some ways its useless to point out all the errors in the old campaigns. That content has already been produced and wont change at any time.
- I dont think the SC universe was ever built or written to hold much story. If a new scifi IP would be established today, I think a company like blizzard would put much more effort into the story-writing. The game is a 90s legacy. Back then it was very much "I want this thing in the game"->write a strange story about how it would fit. That rule still applies and is used. Personally I think its sad in some ways. As a gamer I'm familiar with the SC universe and feel at home there, even though its poorly constructed (with this I mean gimmicky and glitchy). All in all - I have decided not to get hung up on the story. It is what it is :)
Anyway. For LotV I would like to see more of female Protoss. I think they are an asset of the Protoss race that have not been used in gameplay. I also think it would be a cool "female" story about empowerment and freedom. Perhaps they cut their psionic chords (burn-bra-event) and become dark templars. I would also like to see less of the Jerrigan love-story, 2 games is enough. Unless of course, the writers can come up with some triangle-drama with a bisexual protoss. That would make it worth it. I would like to see more epic space battles. I would like to see all the fractions getting involved in this Amon battle, and cringe under the pressure of the challenge. You know - old alliances being ripped apart now that your very existance is at stake. I would like to see more complex melee gameplay: bases moving around; you get wiped out and have to rebuild your stuff again. Perhaps some vulcanoes under the minerals fields so that you never know weither your base will go up in smoke. More drama. Also. I would like to have some coop-campaign missions. The final mission absolutely HAVE to be fightable in coop-mode. Its like the final mission in Hots. Why was that not coop? One player plays Raynor, one Zerg and a third is playing Dota with that 3.5 armed guy. A tower defence map would be awsome. A puzzle game inside a Protoss temple: old switches and relics that come to life. Upgrades to the sentry with cloak field (like the shield but with cloak instead) and chain-beam (you can connect two sentries with a beam, that can cut through things like a trip-wire.
Duran/Narud part was pretty dissapointing. How did you feel about Stukov's voice actor? I felt it was too lazy. I didn't expect him to copy the old but it felt like he just didn't try.
It feels like they just said "Ok, next on our daily checklist, we need to find a random Russian guy to play Stukov." The sound department is good at what they do, but the new college grads that work there simply don't give a crap about emulating SC1. It's obviously just a job to them, dictated by profit margins and orders from on-high. Andrea Romana, the casting director, is supposed to be the best-of-the-best, but she mainly works on cartoons, so that's kind of what we got here.
Which is pretty sad IMHO. Blizzard used analog synths back in 1999, and with the transition to digital I believe that some of their talent was lost as well.
I read a bunch of your WoL review too, which put into words my own personal grievances so eloquently. Especially the UNN broadcasts. Like, Mengsk is supposed to be this peerless cunning master strategist and propagandist running a tight ship, but the UNN makes him look like an idiot at every turn. It's just bad characterization for the sake of a played out joke.
The secret mission in Brood Wars was one of my all-time favorite cliffhangers in video games. What the hell happened to Duran? He turned into an idiot too. They're all bloody idiots. It's the same frustration I felt as a kid watching Saturday morning cartoon characters blindly fall into obvious traps. Like how can they be so fucking stupid. Fuck.
This is a symptom of Blizzard attempting to make their story "accessible" to everyone by dumbing down the characters & plot.
Quote:
I'm actually working my way through the SC1 campaign right now for fun. I gotta say, it's damn good! I'm finding the overall writing quality stronger, with characters that are actually interesting and properly motivated (not to mention dialogue that IS bearable lol). I often see the argument that the "perceived quality" of older Blizzard titles is really just nostalgia, but I personally didn't play SC1 much when I was younger (was more of a Warcraft/Diablo fan). I did read several books though :)
The nostalgia excuse is a cop-out/handwave. I can name dozens of sequels that were better than the original.
Quote:
Well, I'm getting off topic here, but I definitely feel something has changed with their games, maybe it's the huge team-size instead of the 10-40 man they used to have (which leads to fewer hallway-ideas/development, and more hierarchical corporate directions perhaps?). Who knows, maybe it's just different people with different visions. Either way, they are still outputting solid products, but I don't feel *mind blown* anymore lol.
I'd chalk it up to bad management. As Blizzard has grown as a company, profit margins have become more important, and critical decisions have been left up to business suits instead of people that are passionate about what they're creating. Metzen ultimately isn't really very good at writing stories. He worked with a guy named James Phinney on SC1. Phinney left, and Brood War ended up being an inferior product with all its plot-induced character stupidity and Xel'Naga Temple deus-ex-machina. If Metzen gave anything of a crap, he wouldn't have allowed Dorn & Helfer to come aboard just for their star power, he'd have insisted on finding somebody that better fits the role.
Quote:
- In some ways its useless to point out all the errors in the old campaigns. That content has already been produced and wont change at any time. - I dont think the SC universe was ever built or written to hold much story. If a new scifi IP would be established today, I think a company like blizzard would put much more effort into the story-writing. The game is a 90s legacy. Back then it was very much "I want this thing in the game"->write a strange story about how it would fit. That rule still applies and is used. Personally I think its sad in some ways. As a gamer I'm familiar with the SC universe and feel at home there, even though its poorly constructed (with this I mean gimmicky and glitchy). All in all - I have decided not to get hung up on the story. It is what it is :)
You're right, and I'm done complaining after this, as the story is basically done. But I still disagree that you can't make a logical extension of BW's story. It simply requires for the writers to earn their salary and do five minutes of research.
This is a symptom of Blizzard attempting to make their story "accessible" to everyone by dumbing down the characters plot.
Not a bad thing though. Most people I think enjoyed the campaign, having a passable story yet fun missions and gameplay(being overlooked here). Cinematics were also great. If all that covers up for an average story plot, then why not?. I dont think the story could have pleased everyone, no matter how well(subjective) it was written and executed, but the minority audience will always have to be irrelevant in those decisions.
The main problem with the story however is that Kerrigan decides to build the swarm back up and embark on a path of furious vengeance, killing everyone in her path, despite the fact that the artifact turned her back into her human state.
Every nice thing Kerrigan ever did for a Terran was for Jim's sake, and nothing else. They make it pretty clear that Jim is the only thing holding her back from a bloody path of revenge. So the only Terran Kerrigan cares about "dies," she ceases to care about all Terrans. Makes sense to me.
All in all, I thought Kerrigan was well done. I loved the very beginning, where she carefully and expertly pieces together that "contraption" with her mind, just to break it. Nice little subtle encapsulation of what she's all about that I didn't notice the first time. Highly emotional characters are just that, emotional, their actions aren't going to make perfect logical sense all the time. I've known people in life who seem to build things up just to tear them down.
Every nice thing Kerrigan ever did for a Terran was for Jim's sake, and nothing else. They make it pretty clear that Jim is the only thing holding her back from a bloody path of revenge. So the only Terran Kerrigan cares about "dies," she ceases to care about all Terrans. Makes sense to me.
I'm pretty sure the Kerrigan of SC1 had her own sense of moral etiquette. She's been through a lot with the infestation, but the writers don't get to use that cop-out if they're going to say that "she's human again" and "the artifact removed the influence the dark voice had over her". Not to mention the amnesia.
All in all, I thought Kerrigan was well done. I loved the very beginning, where she carefully and expertly pieces together that "contraption" with her mind, just to break it. Nice little subtle encapsulation of what she's all about that I didn't notice the first time. Highly emotional characters are just that, emotional, their actions aren't going to make perfect logical sense all the time. I've known people in life who seem to build things up just to tear them down.
That's one thing, turning into a planet-destroying death goddess is another.
Maybe I can see this for why she attacked Zeratul. She remembered that he wanted to kill her and she decided to "lash out". Still, that scene was stupid.
Not a bad thing though. Most people I think enjoyed the campaign, having a passable story yet fun missions and gameplay(being overlooked here). Cinematics were also great. If all that covers up for an average story plot, then why not?. I dont think the story could have pleased everyone, no matter how well(subjective) it was written and executed, but the minority audience will always have to be irrelevant in those decisions.
True, the campaign still rates as "good", all things considered. It even doesn't have such a bad story for a video game. But when you factor in the insane production value and all the writers that that Blizz pays, the story by itself is actually pretty terrible for what it is. I'm not asking for a AAA blockbuster here, just for the writers to earn their salary and not have as many retcons/fridge-logic.
Bit late-ish, but I felt like responding to some of Gradius' review. Overall I agree - you did a way better job than me at explaining why some parts of the story felt 'lame', though I can specify my opinion on some of the things you said.
Evidence that Kerrigan is good again in HoTS:
The artifact removed the zerg mutagen from her system and allowed her to revert back to human form.
She claims, multiple times, that after this is all over, she will have to "atone".
She lets Valerian evacuate the citizenry in the attack on Korhal.
Evidence that Kerrigan is still evil in HoTS:
Attacks terran and protoss worlds in the evolution missions.
Destroys the protoss colony on Kal'Dir instead of letting them leave. Infects Lessara with a chestburster.
Kills and abandons Warfield, a good guy who was just trying to defend his people.
Instead of apologizing to Zeratul for the myriad crimes she inflicted upon him, she instead tries to kill him and tells him afterward "what are you doing here? I don't even need your help."
Make no mistake, the above is not evidence of a "conflicted" or "interesting" character, only the writers' lack of vision (a concept that Kerrigan failed to explain to Zagarra and the audience nevertheless). Heart of the Swarm is supposed to be an examination of Sarah Kerrigan's character, and yet it remains the story's largest failure. The writers wanted Kerrigan to be sympathetic and human, and they also wanted to use the "revenge" and "taking over planets" themes that fit in with a zerg campaign. They just proved that you cannot have both.
Just had to quote this for truth. I don't think Kerrigan's character as a whole is as 'bad' as you make it out to be, but you point out nicely why some of her decisions just feel odd and completely out of place. I can even deal with some 'oddballing' between good and bad, but the whole Kaldir arc just felt poorly executed and the cinematic with Zeratul was mind-blowingly terrible.
Zerus Arc
Holy retcon batman! First off, the premise that Zerus is right next door and Kerrigan can travel there at a drop of a hat is utter nonsense. Zerus is located in the galactic core, 50000 light years away from the K-sector. It took the Overmind 60 years to reach the Koprulu sector when he discovered the terrans, and there is zero reason to assume that zerg FTL travel has improved under Kerrigan, who was an inferior geneticist to the Overmind. In a setting where it can take weeks to travel to another planet, the fact that you basically teleport across the galaxy at a whim totally breaks the setting and immersion. The only other time this has happened was in Brood War, where the UED came all the way from Earth. However, they pulled some crazy crap to get this done, having to put everyone into cryogenic cold-sleep, and the writers made sure you knew how amazing their journey was. Duke said "You mean to tell me you came all the way from Earth?". Zeratul said "these humans have come a long way to make war upon us". So it was more believable, and not just because they had more time to travel. In Heart of the Swarm, the writers don't recognize this issue, so they'll probably save it for a future QA.
I can cope with a lot more of this than you apparently can. I usually just shrug at people saying stuff like "But the StarCraft 1 manual said Zerus was a barren wasteland!!! OMG!!!". I mean, who cares? So they changed the setting of a planet in such a way that it's more aesthetically pleasing to play through and they're contradicting some random lore tidbit an extra wrote up to fill a page in a 10-year old manual. Big deal.
Still, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what you're saying. I think the story-arc on Zerus 'by itself' isn't bad. I enjoyed the idea of the primal Zerg being solitary/pack creatures without a hive mind, all struggling to be the best. But this feeling that comes through in the gameplay can really only distract me from the nagging question of "why and how are we here to begin with?". I have known for ages a planet named 'Zerus' was in the campaign, though I never actually realized this was THE Zerus until I actually played HotS myself. I immediately had to call bullshit.
I always felt that 'THE' Zerus was some kind of really special and interesting place. While it may be accessible within the timespan of a campaign, it'd better force a DAMN tough journey on the traveling character. There needs to be a GOOD reason to go through the effort, and it needs to show on all characters involved. What I got was Zeratul saying "hey you should check out Zerus" and Kerrigan's Leviathan quite literally blinking to the planet. Wat? This is literally the equivalent to Frodo teleporting from Osgiliath to mount Doom at the start of the third Lord of the Rings film and no one acting like anything out of the ordinary happened. Oh, and he's also put on the ring to become powerful enough to kill the Ringwraiths, but no one cares about that either.
Space Arc
I have to admit I enjoyed commanding the Hyperion in a space battle. Unfortunately I could not stomach the premise of having to fight Mira Han, a known ally and friend. "She's a merc" is not a valid excuse, sorry. This scene basically deconstructs itself, so I won't really go into it, suffice to say that even Valerian knew this was total BS. Another clever and entertaining mission overshadowed by incompetent writing.
Quoted for truth. Even assuming Mira Han is actually this stupid, why was NO ONE smart enough to shake her up and say "HELLO? We are IN THE HYPERION, Raynor's Ship. You have probably HEARD he's been CAPTURED. The reason we need Orlan to begin with IS TO FREE HIM. Come with us, keep an eye on Orlan and you can even witness all of this. It's kind of a big deal, thank you!".
However, I'd like to give a shout-out to Abathur, who is basically Mordin from Mass Effect 3, but still feels like the only true zerg character in this game. Anyway, I am glad that Raynor was able to participate in Mengsk's downfall, but now that Raynor and Kerrigan's arcs are concluded, it seems that LoTV will be a bit disjointed from the rest of the trilogy. Nevertheless, the story still represents an improvement over Wings of Liberty, and for that the writers are to be congratulated.
There are more issues with HotS than just lore problems. The expansion is plagued all over the place by relatively small but really annoying unfinished/'lazy' details.
To name an easy example, I just realized that nearly all the relatively easy but supposedly hard "Mastery" achievements simply amount to "complete the mission within X minutes". I was mentally preparing to set out to get these achievements, but now I simply might not bother. In WoL, I wanted to get crazy ass achievements like destroying 4 Hatcheries in the Mar Sara hold-out mission that force the player to think outside the box and do weird shit. I don't mind a couple 'do this really fast' achievements and will power through them for the sake of completion, but they never make me feel as if I've genuinely accomplished something interesting within the game. I just "macro'd really well", which isn't much of an achievement in itself.
This kind of stuff makes me wonder 'what happened to Blizzard'. It wasn't too long ago that I was standing at Falcon Watch outpost in WoW's Burning Crusade expansion, looking out from on top of a fence and realizing that the freaking fence posts had small Blood Elf crests on them. Back then I marvelled at the sight and thought to myself that the reason that Blizzard games were so damn good was because they make sure EVERY LITTLE DETAIL is fucking PERFECT - not a stone in a world such as the one of WarCraft isn't thought about. HotS is for me the first definite proof that the company has stopped living up to it's reputation. It's still worth my money because it's still a really good game, but it is no longer perfect - I'm annoyed even by small things like those 'mastery' achievements.
Even so, I keep asking myself why you repeatedly say HotS is an improvement over WoL. I assume you're talking purely in the story department, but even just there I'd have to disagree with you? HotS has so many things that don't make sense or just feel "eh". Wings of Liberty, to me, had a GREAT feeling. The whole 'walk around your ship' thing coupled with the dark corridors and such you actually saw in cinematics like the Zeratul one REALLY made me feel like some kind of discarded rebel, far away from home in the cold reaches of space. The missions only added to that feeling by making me go to all sorts of random places where nobody in particular seemed to be around. HotS, to me, is more of a comfortable golden necklace roughly hooked together with ugly iron rings in several places. It's like several very interesting and well set-up short-stories that catch my interest well when presented alone but make me laugh at the clunkiness of the combination when presented together. WoL really felt like you were Jim, HotS felt like 'doing random semi-interesting crap while playing as Zerg'.
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Some of you might be familiar with my Wings of Liberty story review: http://sclegacy.com/editorials/7-reviews/1134-scl-reviews-wings-of-liberty
I won't go into as much depth this time, seeing as how the story is over 2/3 done at this point. Suffice to say, I enjoyed HoTS more than Wings of Liberty. The attention to detail by the artists and mission designers combines to make for an overall enjoyable zerg campaign. The evolution missions is exactly what StarCraft 2 has been missing: a macroscopic perspective of the sector. But as usual, the same level of attention to detail is missing in Blizzard's writing department. I won't really touch on the cheesy and ham-fisted dialog reminiscent of Diablo 3, as it speaks for itself, but I'll focus more on plot and characters.
Intro Cinematic
Yet again, the writers have chosen to reveal the ending to us in the opening cinematic. However, Blizzard's CG team is to be congratulated. This was the one moment in the game where I felt that Helfer's performance superseded Glynnis Campbell's, though it could probably be attributed to the more modern vocal effects. The casting choice is still unfortunate however, as Helfer doesn't add anything else to the voice that Campbell didn't, apart from broken continuity.
Intro Missions
I enjoyed Kerrigan's dialog with Valerian. It felt somewhat contrived that Raynor and Kerrigan got split up. There are any number of things that Kerrigan could have done. After the escape, Mengsk broadcasts that Raynor is dead. Raise your hand if you believed that Raynor actually died? Nobody? That's what I thought. There is no way Metzen would kill off his favorite character at the drop of a hat.
The main problem with the story however is that Kerrigan decides to build the swarm back up and embark on a path of furious vengeance, killing everyone in her path, despite the fact that the artifact turned her back into her human state. Kerrigan suffered just as much under the Confederacy as she did under Mengsk, who took her away from her family, forced her to kill people, and subjected her to years of mental torture. But even still, she condemned unleashing zerg on Tarsonis and Antiga Prime just to take down the Confederacy. So it makes little sense that she is so willing to resort to this now, especially since she can't remember vast tracts of her time as the Queen of Blades due to her amnesia.
These actions are not in line with what human Kerrigan would do, and this problem goes all the way back to Wings of Liberty, which mangled and destroyed a large part of the lore. If Kerrigan had never been deinfested, then her desire for revenge and willingless to destroy planets would have been believable and/or justified. Brood War showed that she was in control of her own actions even though she was infested. She could have embarked on a path of real character development, and after 4 years of loneliness, Raynor's fake death could have been the straw that broke the camel's back and finally motivated Kerrigan to start showing some compassion. But instead, Blizzard chose to deinfest Kerrigan...why? Just so that we can play as a female in space spandex for the first couple missions in order to make the story "accessible" to everyone? Not to mention that Wings of Liberty ended up being a giant waste of time now, since the only thing we really accomplished was to deinfest Kerrigan only for her to put herself back into a chrysalis willingly.
What. Was. The. Point.
Evidence that Kerrigan is good again in HoTS:
Evidence that Kerrigan is still evil in HoTS:
Make no mistake, the above is not evidence of a "conflicted" or "interesting" character, only the writers' lack of vision (a concept that Kerrigan failed to explain to Zagarra and the audience nevertheless). Heart of the Swarm is supposed to be an examination of Sarah Kerrigan's character, and yet it remains the story's largest failure. The writers wanted Kerrigan to be sympathetic and human, and they also wanted to use the "revenge" and "taking over planets" themes that fit in with a zerg campaign. They just proved that you cannot have both.
Kal'Dir Arc
This is where things start to go south. Technically we accomplish all of our objectives by the first mission: we've assimilated the space yeti and we found what happened to the missing brood. This raises the question: what the hell are we still doing here? Lessara echoes this extremely valid point:
"You do not have to do this. You could leave. Be away from this moon before the Golden Armada arrives."
Kerrigan gives us a non-answer:
"I can't run. I know that now. My enemies will never stop coming for me. All I can do is fight. The Swarm does not run. Weakness ends in death. All I can do is fight."
If the protoss intelligence department is so clueless and incompetent that they don't already know what happened on Char and we have to waste our time stopping these shuttles, then I don't know what to say. So we proceed to slaughter an innocent protoss colony for no very good reason, and Kerrigan hasn't exactly started her path of redemption with the greatest of success. However, this doesn't compare to the absurdity of the final mission, where we destroy an entire protoss force with a single larvae. The zerg, who make the law of conservation of energy their bitch, have spawned an entire army on the protoss colony ship. Lessara conveniently gets warped to the middle of nowhere on the ship, where nobody can see a chestburster explode from her body. And the protoss, the most advanced race in the galaxy, whose detectors were so precise that they knew Chau Sara was infested even before the humans living on it did, still cannot detect and stop this infestation aboard their own ship. To add insult to injury, Kerrigan tries to bring moral relativism to the mix:
"I justify nothing. There is no moral high ground here. Your people have killed billions of zerg. We are all covered in blood. There may be more on my hands than yours, but in the end we are both killers."
Seriously? The protoss are murderers because they killed mindless and disposable zerg? The species that walked into the sector and nearly slaughtered everyone in the first place? Great argument Kerrigan. Unfortunately, the protoss have proven time and time again in Wings of Liberty and in Heart of the Swarm, that they are weak and largely incompetent. Instead of being a powerful and enigmatic race that was respected, they're largely a joke. Even when you see Zeratul, it's only to watch him get smacked around like a chump by a diminutive human female. It would have been cool if his involvement included something useful and awesome like saving Kerrigan from Narud, or anything that established him as a competent character outside of his own campaign.
Back in StarCraft vanilla's zerg campaign, the protoss were allowed an illusion of competence when they assassinated and destroyed key zerg leaders, despite being outnumbered. They also destroyed entire planets in your wake during the terran campaign, garnering them further credibility. No such thing can exist under Blizzard's new player-aggrandizing "you always win" philosophy. As such, the protoss of StarCraft 2 have failed in their role of being a powerful elder race. Legacy of the Void won't do a thing to change this, because any successes the protoss will have there are, again, attributable to Blizzard's juvenile "you only win because you're the player" philosophy.
Hybrid Arc
I'm still not sure how I feel about Stukov's return. On one hand, he was one of my favorite characters. On the other hand, Blizzard's implementation of him is more in line with a Warcraft character (glowing face, and spectral voice effects, almost like an undead banshee). Either way, it was satisfying to watch Stukov help take down his old nemesis: Duran aka. Narud. It's unfortunate this connection between Narud and Duran was never elaborated on or revealed more thoroughly. In StarCraft 2, I'm sure many of us wanted to fight against Duran, instead of a totally different character. Perhaps it's a mixed blessing however, as it's doubtful that Blizzard's sound department would have been able to match either the voice actor or the vocal effects used in Brood War. The hybrid arc was mostly enjoyable. Still I can't help but feel disappointed that Duran, this powerful entity who manipulated the galaxy for ages and engineered something "beyond our narrow understanding," just turned out to be a comic book villain that was defeated in a Dragonball Z fight. It's unfortunate that this master manipulator gets destroyed in the same mission arc in which he is introduced. He did not get the chance to screw us over and make us hate him, and that's really one of the main problems with antagonists in Blizzard's RTS missions.
The Tal'Darim reprised their role of boring, incompetent, and generic antagonists. There's the plot hole of why the Tal'Darim were attacking Raynor when it was Narud that was paying Raynor to collect the artifacts in the first place. In effect, Narud was paying Raynor to steal things that already belonged to him, while Valerian was paying Raynor to commit terrorism against his own government! Truly, what a mind-trip. This is not natural story progression, rather, it is Blizzard's patch for why Raynor indiscriminately slaughtered the Tal'Darim and stole their rightfully-owned possessions in Wings of Liberty, much like the Conquistadors came to North America to slaughter Native Americans and steal their items. Turns out the Tal'Darim were possessed by Lord Voldemort all along though, so that makes it ok!
Zerus Arc
Holy retcon batman! First off, the premise that Zerus is right next door and Kerrigan can travel there at a drop of a hat is utter nonsense. Zerus is located in the galactic core, 50000 light years away from the K-sector. It took the Overmind 60 years to reach the Koprulu sector when he discovered the terrans, and there is zero reason to assume that zerg FTL travel has improved under Kerrigan, who was an inferior geneticist to the Overmind. In a setting where it can take weeks to travel to another planet, the fact that you basically teleport across the galaxy at a whim totally breaks the setting and immersion. The only other time this has happened was in Brood War, where the UED came all the way from Earth. However, they pulled some crazy crap to get this done, having to put everyone into cryogenic cold-sleep, and the writers made sure you knew how amazing their journey was. Duke said "You mean to tell me you came all the way from Earth?". Zeratul said "these humans have come a long way to make war upon us". So it was more believable, and not just because they had more time to travel. In Heart of the Swarm, the writers don't recognize this issue, so they'll probably save it for a future Q&A.
The writers operate under the premise that we should go do everything and go everywhere just because it would be cool. There is zero attempt at verisimilitude or realism. Raynor's small band of volunteers invade Korhal and Char in the last game. Kerrigan goes back to a planet that's supposed to be lost, halfway across the galaxy. Why? The cool factor. It is also likely that we will retake Aiur in LoTV, just because it would be cool. All the extended lore points to the fact that it's totally unpractical, but Blizzard doesn't like to get bogged down with details.
In addition, we learned this little bit of information:
"Ancient One: And so he bound the zerg to a single overriding will. They lost their identity, and became his slaves.
Kerrigan: The hive mind. That's Amon's corruption?"
Wow, so it's the hive-mind itself! What a plot twist! I did not see that one coming! And that's because it's a blatant retcon. The original game manual says: "Attempting to waylay the potential hazards of differing egos, the Xel’Naga structured the collective sentience of the Zerg into a unified, amalgamated ‘Overmind’."
The Xel'Naga created the hive mind link. It's not like Amon went behind their backs, and created the hive-mind link without any of them noticing, so this makes no sense. I find the very idea of zerg without a hive-mind to be nonsensical and ill-conceived. The zergs' original "purity of essence" has also been utterly mangled. Originally referring to the hive-mind link and/or their genetic adaptability, it is now instead nothing more than the DNA that a zerg absorbs from another creature. The zerg never "stole" any essence, they assimilated the strongest species and culled the rest. There is no reason to assume that primal zerg were individuals, as they acted together anyway and never achieved a higher level of sentience until after the Overmind was created. I won't even comment on how Zerus is suddenly a lush jungle world instead of an ashworld with torrential firestorms in the volatile galactic core. But at least Abathur explained how primal zerg have access to new strains like hydralisks and zerglings, so I can appreciate that they addressed this plothole in the actual game instead of saving it for a Q&A.
Most infested terrans are mindless drones. The Overmind had to jump through hoops to create the Queen of Blades, and she was "his greatest creation". So what, a random cesspool on Zerus has the magical ability to skip all that work and do the same exact thing, only better? Why?
So to this all I say: what's the deal Blizzard? Why all the retcons this far into the trilogy? How hard is it to read the original game manual? Even more lore has been butchered under the mantra of "ignore or destroy as much of the original lore as possible". It was hard enough to believe that Kerrigan was willing to turn herself into a monster again just for revenge, especially since it's supposed to be a painful process according to Abathur. So I'm sorry, but this is a story arc that simply did not need to be told. Blizzard has told us that they were building an internal database of lore in order to avoid such inconsistencies. Unfortunately, Blizzard, you don't need a lore database, what you need is for the guys in charge of the story to actually earn their salary and give two craps about continuity and realism. How many writers are under your employ Blizzard? How much do you pay them to think about the story for years on end? I'm not even trying to be a dick here, but why is this a recurring thing? I've heard it said that Warcraft lore has been ruined, and it seems that this is the inevitable fate of the StarCraft franchise as well.
Space Arc
I have to admit I enjoyed commanding the Hyperion in a space battle. Unfortunately I could not stomach the premise of having to fight Mira Han, a known ally and friend. "She's a merc" is not a valid excuse, sorry. This scene basically deconstructs itself, so I won't really go into it, suffice to say that even Valerian knew this was total BS. Another clever and entertaining mission overshadowed by incompetent writing.
I loved how Raynor first saw the human Kerrigan walk in to save him in the prison cinematic, only for the monster to appear shortly after. The reference to Fenix and the promise to kill Kerrigan provided some closure for Brood War fans, but felt hamfisted in its delivery; of all the times to bring it up, this is seriously the last one I would have picked. I could also complain about the fact that they let Raynor keep his pistol in a maximum security prison, but Blizzard is becoming known for its fridge logic at this point.
Korhal Arc
Mengsk presented an improvement from Wings of Liberty, because he was justified in protecting humanity from Kerrigan, and he actually pulled out the stops and used some cunning against Kerrigan, instead of just telling you that you suck and you will die like a regular cartoon villain (though there is still plenty of that in HoTS, don't get me wrong). I appreciate that Kerrigan double-checked with Valerian before killing his father. I also appreciate that they evacuated the citizenry. What I don't appreciate is the fact that invading Korhal was an obstacle of such unimaginable difficulty that it had to take 3 missions and even then Kerrigan wasn't sure she would survive.
Kerrigan wiped Mengsk out in Brood War in a weakened state with minimum effort, and the Koprulu terrans have never ever been close to being an actual legitimate challenge to the swarm. Furthermore, if Raynor and his rag-tag band of prodigies could launch an attack on Augustgrad in the previous game, then again, why is it such a hassle this time around? People always revert to the excuse of "it was a raid" for Media Blitz, despite the fact that there are multiple mentions of a base and Raynor's army being on the ground, with Raynor's Thors fighting Mengsk's Battlecruisers as Raynor trashes three separate Dominion bases. This is no more a hit-and-run than the Invasion of Normandy, and if it was supposed to be a raid, Blizzard should have tried harder to make it look like one. So if Raynor could get past Korhal's orbital defenses in Wings of Liberty, then there is absolutely no reason why Kerrigan has to devote an entire mission to bypassing the orbital defenses and lose "millions" of drop-pods. An invasion of Korhal is simply not worthy of being the final mission arc.
I'm glad that Blizzard changed enough of the leaked ending cinematic in the final version. The Xel'Naga artifact was a superior last-ditch weapon to a secret implant in Kerrigan's head, but now this line makes little sense: "did you think I'd keep an animal like you close to me without some sort of insurance policy?" Mengsk's greatest accomplishment seems to have been to keep the artifact in his office, but it raises the question of why he didn't use it on the battlefield?
In conclusion, HoTS was a good zerg campaign, but the love story between Raynor and Kerrigan was utterly unnecessary. The random smooching in the middle of a battle, Raynor "moving Heaven and Earth" to get his baby back, Kerrigan floating up into heaven at the end as she parts ways with Raynor. It simply doesn't fit in a setting that is originally based on political infighting and galactic domination. However, I'd like to give a shout-out to Abathur, who is basically Mordin from Mass Effect 3, but still feels like the only true zerg character in this game. Anyway, I am glad that Raynor was able to participate in Mengsk's downfall, but now that Raynor and Kerrigan's arcs are concluded, it seems that LoTV will be a bit disjointed from the rest of the trilogy. Nevertheless, the story still represents an improvement over Wings of Liberty, and for that the writers are to be congratulated.
I think this review is just about spot on. I really enjoyed the missions and most of the story content but there were those things that popped out. I will say though to me it makes sense that it was a tough battle for Kerrigan since Mengsk had Raynor hidden away to buy time to prepare. So while Raynor's deal obviously wasn't just a raid, the Dominion had no idea it would happen. While against Kerrigan they had plenty of time to prepare for an invasion. Kerrigan was a little too unsure though.
Duran/Narud part was pretty dissapointing. How did you feel about Stukov's voice actor? I felt it was too lazy. I didn't expect him to copy the old but it felt like he just didn't try.
Looks like we finally agree on something.
I read a bunch of your WoL review too, which put into words my own personal grievances so eloquently. Especially the UNN broadcasts. Like, Mengsk is supposed to be this peerless cunning master strategist and propagandist running a tight ship, but the UNN makes him look like an idiot at every turn. It's just bad characterization for the sake of a played out joke.
The secret mission in Brood Wars was one of my all-time favorite cliffhangers in video games. What the hell happened to Duran? He turned into an idiot too. They're all bloody idiots. It's the same frustration I felt as a kid watching Saturday morning cartoon characters blindly fall into obvious traps. Like how can they be so fucking stupid. Fuck.
Hey Gradius, good post. I liked your original analysis of WoL, and enjoyed this one too.
I'm actually working my way through the SC1 campaign right now for fun. I gotta say, it's damn good! I'm finding the overall writing quality stronger, with characters that are actually interesting and properly motivated (not to mention dialogue that IS bearable lol). I often see the argument that the "perceived quality" of older Blizzard titles is really just nostalgia, but I personally didn't play SC1 much when I was younger (was more of a Warcraft/Diablo fan). I did read several books though :)
So now, going through the SC1 campaign, I can just feel it's better (mind you, from a STORY point of view... not necessarily mission design and so forth). Basically, like how the first Matrix was versus its sequels. It's hard for me to describe I guess (though you quantified much of it in your original WoL article). I realize that many people disagree with my opinion on SC2, and I seriously do consider those opinions, because I am trying to understand why there is such polarization between those who enjoyed the newer stories versus those who didn't.
I wish I didn't have to be so critical (I'd prefer to just praise Blizz and eat up everything they make like I used to), but every game post-WoW so far hasn't really hit home for me. Not that I didn't get anything out of SC2, but I've generally found a lot less to like in the newer Blizz titles than say, D1/D2/War1-3/WoW/SC1. I still play War3 at LANs, so many great custom maps lol!
Well, I'm getting off topic here, but I definitely feel something has changed with their games, maybe it's the huge team-size instead of the 10-40 man they used to have (which leads to fewer hallway-ideas/development, and more hierarchical corporate directions perhaps?). Who knows, maybe it's just different people with different visions. Either way, they are still outputting solid products, but I don't feel *mind blown* anymore lol.
Good read!
- In some ways its useless to point out all the errors in the old campaigns. That content has already been produced and wont change at any time. - I dont think the SC universe was ever built or written to hold much story. If a new scifi IP would be established today, I think a company like blizzard would put much more effort into the story-writing. The game is a 90s legacy. Back then it was very much "I want this thing in the game"->write a strange story about how it would fit. That rule still applies and is used. Personally I think its sad in some ways. As a gamer I'm familiar with the SC universe and feel at home there, even though its poorly constructed (with this I mean gimmicky and glitchy). All in all - I have decided not to get hung up on the story. It is what it is :)
Anyway. For LotV I would like to see more of female Protoss. I think they are an asset of the Protoss race that have not been used in gameplay. I also think it would be a cool "female" story about empowerment and freedom. Perhaps they cut their psionic chords (burn-bra-event) and become dark templars. I would also like to see less of the Jerrigan love-story, 2 games is enough. Unless of course, the writers can come up with some triangle-drama with a bisexual protoss. That would make it worth it. I would like to see more epic space battles. I would like to see all the fractions getting involved in this Amon battle, and cringe under the pressure of the challenge. You know - old alliances being ripped apart now that your very existance is at stake. I would like to see more complex melee gameplay: bases moving around; you get wiped out and have to rebuild your stuff again. Perhaps some vulcanoes under the minerals fields so that you never know weither your base will go up in smoke. More drama. Also. I would like to have some coop-campaign missions. The final mission absolutely HAVE to be fightable in coop-mode. Its like the final mission in Hots. Why was that not coop? One player plays Raynor, one Zerg and a third is playing Dota with that 3.5 armed guy. A tower defence map would be awsome. A puzzle game inside a Protoss temple: old switches and relics that come to life. Upgrades to the sentry with cloak field (like the shield but with cloak instead) and chain-beam (you can connect two sentries with a beam, that can cut through things like a trip-wire.
And more smoke effects, of course.
It feels like they just said "Ok, next on our daily checklist, we need to find a random Russian guy to play Stukov." The sound department is good at what they do, but the new college grads that work there simply don't give a crap about emulating SC1. It's obviously just a job to them, dictated by profit margins and orders from on-high. Andrea Romana, the casting director, is supposed to be the best-of-the-best, but she mainly works on cartoons, so that's kind of what we got here.
If you check out this old character comparison I did, you'll notice that even fan-audio comes closer to sounding like the original than Blizzard's versions: http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?15297-Character-Comparison-SC1-vs-SC2
Which is pretty sad IMHO. Blizzard used analog synths back in 1999, and with the transition to digital I believe that some of their talent was lost as well.
Hallelujah!
This is a symptom of Blizzard attempting to make their story "accessible" to everyone by dumbing down the characters & plot.
The nostalgia excuse is a cop-out/handwave. I can name dozens of sequels that were better than the original.
I'd chalk it up to bad management. As Blizzard has grown as a company, profit margins have become more important, and critical decisions have been left up to business suits instead of people that are passionate about what they're creating. Metzen ultimately isn't really very good at writing stories. He worked with a guy named James Phinney on SC1. Phinney left, and Brood War ended up being an inferior product with all its plot-induced character stupidity and Xel'Naga Temple deus-ex-machina. If Metzen gave anything of a crap, he wouldn't have allowed Dorn & Helfer to come aboard just for their star power, he'd have insisted on finding somebody that better fits the role.
You're right, and I'm done complaining after this, as the story is basically done. But I still disagree that you can't make a logical extension of BW's story. It simply requires for the writers to earn their salary and do five minutes of research.
Not a bad thing though. Most people I think enjoyed the campaign, having a passable story yet fun missions and gameplay(being overlooked here). Cinematics were also great. If all that covers up for an average story plot, then why not?. I dont think the story could have pleased everyone, no matter how well(subjective) it was written and executed, but the minority audience will always have to be irrelevant in those decisions.
Every nice thing Kerrigan ever did for a Terran was for Jim's sake, and nothing else. They make it pretty clear that Jim is the only thing holding her back from a bloody path of revenge. So the only Terran Kerrigan cares about "dies," she ceases to care about all Terrans. Makes sense to me.
All in all, I thought Kerrigan was well done. I loved the very beginning, where she carefully and expertly pieces together that "contraption" with her mind, just to break it. Nice little subtle encapsulation of what she's all about that I didn't notice the first time. Highly emotional characters are just that, emotional, their actions aren't going to make perfect logical sense all the time. I've known people in life who seem to build things up just to tear them down.
I'm pretty sure the Kerrigan of SC1 had her own sense of moral etiquette. She's been through a lot with the infestation, but the writers don't get to use that cop-out if they're going to say that "she's human again" and "the artifact removed the influence the dark voice had over her". Not to mention the amnesia.
That's one thing, turning into a planet-destroying death goddess is another.
Maybe I can see this for why she attacked Zeratul. She remembered that he wanted to kill her and she decided to "lash out". Still, that scene was stupid.
True, the campaign still rates as "good", all things considered. It even doesn't have such a bad story for a video game. But when you factor in the insane production value and all the writers that that Blizz pays, the story by itself is actually pretty terrible for what it is. I'm not asking for a AAA blockbuster here, just for the writers to earn their salary and not have as many retcons/fridge-logic.
Bit late-ish, but I felt like responding to some of Gradius' review. Overall I agree - you did a way better job than me at explaining why some parts of the story felt 'lame', though I can specify my opinion on some of the things you said.
Just had to quote this for truth. I don't think Kerrigan's character as a whole is as 'bad' as you make it out to be, but you point out nicely why some of her decisions just feel odd and completely out of place. I can even deal with some 'oddballing' between good and bad, but the whole Kaldir arc just felt poorly executed and the cinematic with Zeratul was mind-blowingly terrible.
I can cope with a lot more of this than you apparently can. I usually just shrug at people saying stuff like "But the StarCraft 1 manual said Zerus was a barren wasteland!!! OMG!!!". I mean, who cares? So they changed the setting of a planet in such a way that it's more aesthetically pleasing to play through and they're contradicting some random lore tidbit an extra wrote up to fill a page in a 10-year old manual. Big deal.
Still, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what you're saying. I think the story-arc on Zerus 'by itself' isn't bad. I enjoyed the idea of the primal Zerg being solitary/pack creatures without a hive mind, all struggling to be the best. But this feeling that comes through in the gameplay can really only distract me from the nagging question of "why and how are we here to begin with?". I have known for ages a planet named 'Zerus' was in the campaign, though I never actually realized this was THE Zerus until I actually played HotS myself. I immediately had to call bullshit.
I always felt that 'THE' Zerus was some kind of really special and interesting place. While it may be accessible within the timespan of a campaign, it'd better force a DAMN tough journey on the traveling character. There needs to be a GOOD reason to go through the effort, and it needs to show on all characters involved. What I got was Zeratul saying "hey you should check out Zerus" and Kerrigan's Leviathan quite literally blinking to the planet. Wat? This is literally the equivalent to Frodo teleporting from Osgiliath to mount Doom at the start of the third Lord of the Rings film and no one acting like anything out of the ordinary happened. Oh, and he's also put on the ring to become powerful enough to kill the Ringwraiths, but no one cares about that either.
Quoted for truth. Even assuming Mira Han is actually this stupid, why was NO ONE smart enough to shake her up and say "HELLO? We are IN THE HYPERION, Raynor's Ship. You have probably HEARD he's been CAPTURED. The reason we need Orlan to begin with IS TO FREE HIM. Come with us, keep an eye on Orlan and you can even witness all of this. It's kind of a big deal, thank you!".
There are more issues with HotS than just lore problems. The expansion is plagued all over the place by relatively small but really annoying unfinished/'lazy' details.
To name an easy example, I just realized that nearly all the relatively easy but supposedly hard "Mastery" achievements simply amount to "complete the mission within X minutes". I was mentally preparing to set out to get these achievements, but now I simply might not bother. In WoL, I wanted to get crazy ass achievements like destroying 4 Hatcheries in the Mar Sara hold-out mission that force the player to think outside the box and do weird shit. I don't mind a couple 'do this really fast' achievements and will power through them for the sake of completion, but they never make me feel as if I've genuinely accomplished something interesting within the game. I just "macro'd really well", which isn't much of an achievement in itself.
This kind of stuff makes me wonder 'what happened to Blizzard'. It wasn't too long ago that I was standing at Falcon Watch outpost in WoW's Burning Crusade expansion, looking out from on top of a fence and realizing that the freaking fence posts had small Blood Elf crests on them. Back then I marvelled at the sight and thought to myself that the reason that Blizzard games were so damn good was because they make sure EVERY LITTLE DETAIL is fucking PERFECT - not a stone in a world such as the one of WarCraft isn't thought about. HotS is for me the first definite proof that the company has stopped living up to it's reputation. It's still worth my money because it's still a really good game, but it is no longer perfect - I'm annoyed even by small things like those 'mastery' achievements.
Even so, I keep asking myself why you repeatedly say HotS is an improvement over WoL. I assume you're talking purely in the story department, but even just there I'd have to disagree with you? HotS has so many things that don't make sense or just feel "eh". Wings of Liberty, to me, had a GREAT feeling. The whole 'walk around your ship' thing coupled with the dark corridors and such you actually saw in cinematics like the Zeratul one REALLY made me feel like some kind of discarded rebel, far away from home in the cold reaches of space. The missions only added to that feeling by making me go to all sorts of random places where nobody in particular seemed to be around. HotS, to me, is more of a comfortable golden necklace roughly hooked together with ugly iron rings in several places. It's like several very interesting and well set-up short-stories that catch my interest well when presented alone but make me laugh at the clunkiness of the combination when presented together. WoL really felt like you were Jim, HotS felt like 'doing random semi-interesting crap while playing as Zerg'.