Starcraft 2 HotS

[Atekimogus]

Anyone tried this out yet?

I am a bit sceptical to be honest. I was pretty pissed with the first one. It had great production values and gameplay, a soundtrack worthy of a blockbuster, absolutely fantastic cutscenes both pre-rendered and ingame-engine etc. etc. but the story was so stupid, nonsensical and contradictory that it ruined it quite a bit to be honest.

Now I was not Mass Effect 3 pissed but it did kinda ruin the franchise for me. Now I am not expecting Shakespeare when playing Starcraft but the narrative should at least be free of huge plotholes, retcons and inconsistencies.....so anyone gave it a go?

Wings of Liberty was a huge story-blunder (and they also had threads numbering in the hundreds raging about it) and if I am again in the end, scratch my head and think "This doesn't make any bloody sense!" I am not interested to be honest.

(Why is it that they spend so much money on soundtrack, graphics and gameplay but so often do not manage to come up with a convincing script to hold it all together )

(Please no spoilers, just in case...)

[Teaos]

It's the old story, they think loyal fans will buy it no matter what and they're the only ones who would notice. Everyone else doesn't know better. Treating your loyal fans like shit is a right of passage now.

[LaughingCheese]

Are we saying Blizzard is becoming like EA?

[Teaos]

Everyone is becoming EA.

[LaughingCheese]

Everyone is becoming EA.

lol

Bummer.


Even Valve??

[Deepcrush]

Valve doesn't care enough to put the effort into treating anyone bad.

[Tsukiyumi]

What was the problem with WoL again? I thought it was fun, and pretty great...

[Atekimogus]

What was the problem with WoL again? I thought it was fun, and pretty great...

Please don't make me remember again, I immediatly put it down as great nonsense and thankfully forgot most of it already.

But iirc it was full of retcons (like the supposed lovestory between Raynor and Kerrigan, which is shoved down our throat), the whole "twist" in the end with the Space Marine dude working for Mensk created a whole set of nonsense and plotholes, the ridicolous part with Mengsk' son ultimately led to nothing and felt completely detached, like it was the remainder of an story arc they dropped, the whole protoss-story arc with the prophecy was so mindboggingly stupid and contrivied and also contradicted huge parts of Starcraft 1 lore (like the protoss dude suddenly forgetting much of what he learned in SC1) and while the campaign was named WINGS OF LIBERTY you NEVER EVER actually free ANYBODY, all you do is roaming the galaxy, stealing and murdering your way through the empire for monetary gain only to attack the zerg in the last mission. (Freedom fighter or terrorist? I honeslty felt more like the latter the whole time.) But that is only from the top of my head after two years or so not thinking about it, if you want a more indepth read why it was complete garbage maybe I can dig up one or two of the 100+ pages threads with indepth analasis on the battle.net boards.


But as I said, the missions and gameplay itself were pretty fun and the production values (graphics, sounds, music, cinematics) were great, alas in my ripe age this isn't enough anymore for me to forget about the lackluster story, hence my quesion if HoTS manages to produce at least a coherent storyline compared to the babbling mess Wings of Liberty was.

[Teaos]

Its odd when you consider Warcraft is made by the same company and they have a much more involved story line spread over 8 games and a dozen novels and comic books and they have only done some minor retcons.

[Tholian_Avenger]

I've never been impressed with how they've treated the Starcraft fan community.

[Teaos]

I never readn any of the books in that series. I read a few Warcraft ones which actually werent bad but Starcraft never appealed to me as a story.

[Atekimogus]

Well the best part of the Starcraft story is in the original games manual and contains basically the origin story of the three factions. It's incredibly well done imho with lots of indepth info regarding protoss faction, overmind motivation etc. etc.

It's a relic of a glorious time when people were actually expected to read the fucking manual and it contained lot's of artwork and stuff, the Starcraft game manual...now that is what I call additional value and you really needed to read it in order to understand what is going on in the game.

The game-story itself wasn't "that" great to be honest, but at least it was coherent and interesting enough, however for Wings of Liberty they went all out soap opera for some reason and contradicted themselves incredibly often which is amazing considering that the story guys are supposedly the same who wrote the first game, but maybe basking in the glory of WoW they just can't be bothered anymore to deliever a half-decent job, who knows.


So from what I gathered nobody has tried it yet? Well, I guess I'll wait a few months and maybe pick it up on a discount. (If ever....those bloody online games just won't get cheaper anymore....another reason to just not buy them)

[Teaos]

Online reveiws are mixed between professional arse kissers who say its great and independents who say its better than WOL but still not great.

[Tholian_Avenger]

Well the best part of the Starcraft story is in the original games manual and contains basically the origin story of the three factions. It's incredibly well done imho with lots of indepth info regarding protoss faction, overmind motivation etc. etc.

It's a relic of a glorious time when people were actually expected to read the fucking manual and it contained lot's of artwork and stuff, the Starcraft game manual...now that is what I call additional value and you really needed to read it in order to understand what is going on in the game.)

Amen.
I felt bad for the Overmind, though it had intelligence, it did not appear completely free of will.
The UED is a component that was never fleshed out to my satisfaction, a role which could have been filled by the Umojan Protectorate more simply and consistently.
Likewise, the Protoss needed more examining as a chainsaw was put to the core of their millenia old civilization.


I liked the Terran Confederacy and I think, if not for Tassadar's expeditionary force, the authorities on Tarsonis could have dealt the swarm a grievous injury. I don't know if they could have killed the original Overmind with the Psidisruptor and a nuke but I am sure they would have given it the college try.

[Tyyr]

Blizzard is pretty much like Bioware, they write the same story over, and over, and over, and over. However unlike Bioware that does a decent job of disguising it Blizzard doesn't even give a shit. They don't bother to hide that it's the same story they just remake it for the fifth time and go.

The part that infuriates me the most,

Just like at the end of WoL Kerrigan gets saved by Raynor. Does anyone else remember when Kerrigan was Queen Bitch of the Galaxy and James was just a yokel trying to keep up with her? Just drives me nuts that someone like Kerrigan keeps getting "saved" by the guy who couldn't last half a second against the kind of things she regularly bitch slaps just because she's the woman and he's got a cock.

Online reveiws are mixed between professional arse kissers who say its great and independents who say its better than WOL but still not great.

The guys I trust are labeling it what I thought of WoL, pretty, but still just Starcraft all over again. They aren't innovating with it. That was really the most disappointing (non-storywise) part of WoL, it was just Starcraft with better graphics. After all that time they did nothing to innovate on the genre.

Oh, and fucking Battlenet has me locked out of my account with the original WoL on it so I can't fucking play WotS until I get it unlocked.