In the beta it was +/-.

I just got done playing it.

My opinion on the quality of the story is lukewarm. I thought the missions were more fun than most of the cutscenes. I agree with the sentiments that the plot progression seemed much slower and more muddled than SC & BW. I was despairing a bit during the first 3 or 4 missions. I thought they made Jim Raynor too gruff and noir-ish. He seemed (in some ways) optimistically naive in the first game. I miss that about him. After all that's happened, some bitterness is understandable, but I have a hard time believing that he could really drink that much and remain healthy and coherent. I think he fell too far too fast for me to comfortably believe it. But enough of the time, one could still "feel" Raynor's predicaments for it to be interesting. Tychus was my least favorite character. He was too over-the-top. I groaned at him putting out the cigar on the fly. He did salvage a bit of sympathy from me towards the end, with his hinting at his fear of being obsoleted and his last few words with Raynor. Kerrigan was not as menacing as I'd hoped. I do wish they'd kept the same voice actress. I was happy to see Zeratul again, though he seemed a bit watered down. I wish they'd given Mengsk (who was one of my favorite characters) a good scene with the lead cast, but as was said earlier, he's just a face on a screen the whole time. I liked Matt Horner. Who else thinks he was the commander that you embodied in the very first Terran campaign? If you didn't know, the player embodied Artanis during the SC's Protoss campaign (the UED commander and the cerebrate(s?) you embodied in the other campaigns are presumably dead; I don't know who the player embodied during BW's Protoss campaign). I thought Ariel was annoying. I kinda liked Tosh, though he and Ariel both ended up feeling disposable and unnecessary. At first, when forced to choose an alliance, I thought it would have a significant impact on the rest of the story and it made the choices deliciously tense. However, the choice bears no apparent significance on future events, and it caused their story-lines to lose credibility. The news stories were really irritating at first too. No way would any propaganda-minded outlet allow a reporter to almost say too much over and over again. They did grow on me eventually, though.

For more general story criticisms: I did find the whole idea of another force behind the Overmind to be a lazy choice on the part of the storytellers. It's easy to make a seemingly endless string of "the real evil behind the first evil"-type scenarios. I'm guilty of it myself with the Doodan campaigns (and in fact, the "real evil" behind the first evil was also named "The Fallen One" in the Doodan stories). Of course, it's a bit early to call it. Maybe Zeratul just got excited in his version of events. I just hope the story can maintain the moral ambiguity that I loved about SC & BW without getting too wrapped up in the forces of "good and evil" that I think weakened WC's later storylines. In life, there is no true good or evil, merely conflicting perspectives. I think SC & BW captured that well and I hope the makers don't lose sight of that. I think some of the cheesiness that resulted from the dialogue was a symptom of having too much space to fill. The terseness of the original games' stories forced the writers to figure out what information absolutely mattered and what could be left up to speculation. WoL's story felt padded in some places, and I am a bit disappointed.

But there was plenty to like. As I said, I really enjoyed the gameplay itself. Some parts of the story were really effective. Some of the cutscenes were well done (my favorite was when Raynor and Horner smoke cigars after 'Media Blitz'). Some of the acting was pretty good. I had fun with the permanent upgrades you could purchase & research along the way. I enjoyed exploring the ship for click-ables. The section I spent explaining what I disliked is longer than this one, but I was honestly enjoying myself most of the time. If there's still time for them to hear some of this criticism and to act on it, I hope Blizzard will. IMO, some of the OMFGRAGE comments I've seen here so far were a result of over-hype. I intentionally avoided looking into SC2 very much throughout its development for that very reason. If you really want Blizzard to listen, I'd suggest toning down the bleeped-out swearing and the accusations of various parties covering various items with fecal matter.

Overall, I still feel like I've gotten my money's worth so far. The apparent weaknesses are not beyond fixing and may be, in some cases, purely subjective. I still respect Blizzard's quality standards and I look forward to the next installment.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 2 2010, 2:14 am by Doodan.

The remnants of the UED exist in StarCraft II. Some of them are Goliath pilots, called as the Spartan Company; they are mercenaries. The same applies for the Confederates such as the War Pigs (Marines) and Devil Dogs (Firebats). Hammer Securities (Marauders) belong to the Kel-Morians.

The Kel-Morian and the Umojan Protectorate did not play a major role in the original StarCraft, with an exception where Fenix leads the Zerg to raid a Kel-Morian planet for minerals. I personally believe Blizzard thought they are not as interesting as the Dominion. The Kel-Morians were too busy mining minerals, and are always on the defensive. The Umojans were minding their own business.
I don't think Raynor is interested about them; he only wanted to lead a revolution against the Dominion government. The Dominion labeled Raynor as a terrorist (Before the invasion of Char) until the end of Wings of Liberty.

The Episode I player character was an unnamed Mar Sara Magistrate, who may or may not be retconned to be Jim Raynor or Matt Horner (Who was also one of my fav. characters).

Episode II was literally an unnamed Cerebrate - they aren't named until they live for hundreds of years. Tassadar and Zeratul kill it in Episode III.

Episode III was Artanis.

Episode IV was, I believe, Selendis.

Episode V was an unnamed UED Captain who presumably died at the end of Brood War.

Episode VI was another new Cerebrate, and is killed by Kerrigan in between SC1 and 2.

On the subject of clickables, did you enjoy the various Zerg sample descriptions as much as I did? I found the explanations of the hyper-evolutionary virus on a cellular level and their burrowing very believable.

Solid reply Doodan, and just the sort of thing I wanted to see in this thread.

Kerrigan was a big letdown. After calling herself the Queen Bitch of the Universe in BW, having double-crossed everyone and taken out the UED, Fenix and Duke, she comes back in SC2 as nothing but a slightly-menacing bogey-girl that does nothing except throw petty insults and threats. She was really underused on Char as well, a simple re-incarnating boss on the final level and that's it? They could've set up the final level with your having 2 bases, one 'main' one and a 'backup' one, and had Kerrigan come in an utterly decimate the 'main' one to show her powers off to the extreme. Also the new voice actress was lame, and sometimes it was difficult to even hear what she was saying (I have captions turned on though). Anyone else notice that Kerrigan and Nova look like twins except for the hair colour? Check out the account portraits available, Nova is one of the middle ones while Kerrigan is one of the last.

Hanson (Ariel is such a cliche name) and Tosh were definitely underused, and to top it off their final missions were both choices, so there is no clear canon answer as to which outcome happened, although it's easy to presume that Hanson stays uninfested and you chose to side with Tosh. As I mentioned earlier, it would've been very easy to tie both of these storylines in with the artifact and Kerrigan's fate, but instead these two storylines appear to be complete sidelines that mean nothing and go nowhere.

I was talking with my flatmate about the shortcomings of the storyline and he generally agreed with me. We both can't understand how Blizzard managed to deliver something so lack-lustre after having such a long time, and resources, to make something better. He suggested that to give a better handle on what was really happening in the sector with the zerg invasion, there should've been a level (or two) where you could choose to protect a dominion planet from a zerg invasion, or some other mission instead, and because of limited time-pressure you could only choose one and it would have consequences for the rest of the campaign (a la spectres vs ghosts).

As others have said, the Kel-Morians only showed up in BW in the level with Fenix where you have to harvest 10,000 minerals for the assault on New Augustgrad. It's funny how fast you actually burn through them once you start that mission, thinking that 10k is going to make it heaps easier...

In SC2 there is a description that the lava planet was abandoned by the Kel-Morians. If you click on the bar tender, he will sometimes say "I've got one of those rare Umojan beers in the back". But otherwise neither of these factions make appearances in SC2. Really I always got the impression that they were small-time outfits that generally kept to themselves and controlled maybe 2 or 3 planets at most, compared to the Confederacy that controlled at least a dozen.

Also yes, the Zerg sample descriptions were pretty interesting, much better than the Protoss ones. The actual research options themselves were pretty strained though, and IMO the choices for which upgrades to pick is mostly obvious (first 3 on the right for Zerg).

Of course I tried that. Was the same in bw. But to no avail.

4 Missions to go.

I certainly did enjoy the clickables.

Picking Tosh over Nova allowed not only Tosh to live and give the ability to train Spectres, but hearing him talk after very mission is pretty cool. Like Ghosts, he can read minds, but he takes that ability and acts like a therapist. The cool kind of therapist, not the annoying, worthless kind. Regardless how everyone, including Raynor, didn't like him staying in the Hyperion, he happens to be trustworthy.
He told Raynor that one of the crew in the Hyperion will turn bad, probably working for Mengsk. He was right, Tychus Findlay was about to kill uninfested Sarah Kerrigan under Mengsk's command. He read Raynor's thoughts about his experience of the Hybrid chasing after him, and even he fears the Hybrid as well.

For Dr. Ariel Hanson, I wish I could of heard all of her discussions with Raynor before her departure. That means the choice between saving the colonists or cleaning the infestation will be the last mission before Char. That's if I want to hear all of her dialogue.
She even told Raynor that Nova was lying about the Spectres' recklessness, and Spectres are just as humane as the Ghosts. Because of that, I was like "Thank you, Ariel. I now know Tosh and the Spectres will never backstab Raynor." Because of that, I picked her over Selendis. And I really didn't find her as annoying like what Doodan had said.



Edit: Anyways, I remember back at BlizzCon in 2008, the player had a set of choices of what to say to each character. And you had to buy units, instead of Swann using schematics. Before Raynor talks to Swann, one of the Hyperion crew bumps on to Raynor. Clicking to the next area showed Raynor walking. And this was before the announcement of three separate titles, or known as the trilogy. If all 3 titles were in one, and had that much detail, it would have been beyond 9 and 10 ratings the game is receiving. But Blizzard would not release the game on 2010 if that happened.

Edit: Sarah Kerrigan did not sound as menacing as she was in Brood War. I believe Blizzard is taking all of the resources and voice acting from her into the expansion pack "Heart of the Swarm".

Edit: Story aside, I love how fun and unique the levels are.

• Chasing trains with Diamondbacks awfully reminds me of other games with train levels, and especially Wild West themes (Since clearly Blizzard aimed for country and southern American style culture for the Terrans).
  
• The mission Outbreak is an obvious reference to zombies, like 28 days later.
  
• Supernova is like another version of avoiding the incoming lava.
  
• The cave level with Raynor, Tychus, Swann and Stettman reminded me of Alien Swarm and Left 4 Dead.
  
• The level that allows you to control Nova is a whole level dedicated to stealth and StarCraft Ghost, which was postponed.
• The third mission of the game is based on the mission in the original StarCraft, with an achievement where you assault the Zerg (Which players can easily do in SC1) instead on the defensive.
• The missions with the Odin is a clear reference to Godzilla and King Kong, especially at Korhal.

There are other levels in StarCraft II I like to mention and describe, but I just want to say Blizzard made sure the campaign is unique, not a list of skirmish practice for multiplayer.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Aug 2 2010, 3:01 am by KrayZee.

I'm confused. On the starcraft wiki site, it says that Heart of the Swarm picks up directly where Wings of Liberty left off, and will focus on Infested Kerrigan and the development of a zerg empire (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/StarCraft_II:_Heart_of_the_Swarm). However, Kerrigan becomes uninfested at the end of Wings of Liberty.

Is is confused.

[rant]Also, why is Kerrigan's hair still zerg-ish at the ending cutscene? And why would Tychus agree to kill Kerrigan for Mengsk, someone he hates (and how did he contact Mengsk without anyone else noticing?)? And why doesn't Kerrigan have anything to say at the end? I mean seriously, I wish you could stay on the hyperion after the end and chat with her like you do with all the other characters. Ask her how she's feeling now that she's uninfested, whether or not she remembers anything, etc. But no, she's just the silent little damsel in distress that Raynor carries off into the sunset, complete with romantic music and all - misogynist much? [/rant]

Kerrigan has Zerg hair, she probably still controls the Zerg Swarm. She has Zerg hair because, well it's hair. The Xel'Naga artifact eliminates anything Zerg, but anything human is immune. Remember, Kerrigan is still human; her Zerg form is wiped out. In the beginning of the game, Arcturus announces to Tychus that he will exit the Barracks for freedom; his marine suit will be his prison, his escape from the 'prison' is to kill Sarah Kerrigan. This is why Tychus believed she doesn't seem tough, and Matt asked Tychus that he doesn't know who she is.
Everyone had their attention to Kerrigan, especially Jim Raynor. Pay attention to Kerrigan, she felt like she was burnt from the Xel'Naga blast. She has that "unconscious awakening" feeling (Like those shows where a character wakes up in the hospital). I mean literally, the Zerg is burned by the Xel'Naga artifact's blast, she possibly feels the burning pain.

It would have been nice if you could talk to her in the Hyperion, though.

Another thing I don't get is Infested Hanson (from the protoss branch in the Haven mission). The situation presents the following questions (WARNING: Spoilers):

1.) From what I've heard, Horner confirms after Raynor kills her that she was infested from the start. Yet on the other ending (the one I chose ), she remains uninfested, although her cure is not mentioned again. However, it is reasonable to assume that she was able to develop a cure for herself while you were completing the mission - but then, why wasn't she able to develop the cure while you were completing the protoss version? Perhaps the zerg virus' speed increases with stress, or she was too distracted to work on the cure?

2.) Starcraftwiki says that most terrans lose their intelligence upon being infested. However, Infested Hanson apparently recognizes Raynor and mocks him for killing "her children" (presumably the colonists), which suggests that she retained at least part of her memory, as well as the ability to speak (the infested terrans in the second Hanson mission say something at one point, but I couldn't make out a word of it. I assume it was gibberish.). Perhaps these are the last things that the virus attacks? (Her DNA was 91.3% zerg, according to the research console in the cutscene. The top half of her head was still human, so it could be possible that her brain was just beginning to be damaged.)
EDIT: Wait, the infested guys in the mission where you blow up the nydus network and fill it with lava say "Join us..." at one point. Infested terrans can talk, I guess.

3.) All the infested terrans in the game are portrayed as slow, zombie-like, and humanoid. Infested Hanson is apparently highly mobile (and non-humanoid), being able to swiftly crawl around on the ceiling and jump towards Raynor before he shoots her. Why is this?

4.) Where the heck was Egon Stettman (the geeky scientist dude) during that cutscene? Did he realize what was happening to Hanson and run away before she attacked? Was he outside of the room when she locked herself in the lab?

5.) Zerg are never fought or shown in the mission where you choose to save the colony. Where did the infection that caused the whole uproar in the first place go? Does Hanson's cure work on 100%-infested humans?


Hmm. I can see a way Blizzard can incorporate the Hanson story into Heart of the Swarm, since they failed to do much with her in Wings of Liberty after the Haven mission (as others have said, her cure should have taken a part in the last mission or something, but Blizzard made it a dead end):

Make the branch where you choose to save the colony canon. Hanson goes back to Haven without Raynor and appears completely human, her cure having worked like a miracle. However, it is discovered later that instead of actually curing the zerg virus, it merely delays it's progress. As a result, Hanson slowly becomes infested anyway, and is roughly 23.7% zerg (hooray for arbitrary numbers!) by the time Heart of the Swarm begins. At this stage of progress in the infestation, she retains most of her intelligence and still appears human on the outside (for now), and serves as an advisor to whoever leads the zerg (if this is still Kerrigan, make the Haven colony a renegade fringe brood). Taking note of her past relationship with Raynor, (insert whoever leads the zerg on Haven here) sends her on a covert mission: Return to the Hyperion and secretly infect Raynor, which would put him under his/her control in a few hours if successful. However, Egon Stettman detects the zerg DNA in Hanson, and warns Raynor.
The player then begins an installation mission where the player must defend Raynor from any zerg. Hanson will eventually come as a boss (similar to how Kerrigan comes in the last mission), and must be killed before she gets too close to Raynor or any other major character.

And that's all I've got so far . Sound like a good mission plot?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 2 2010, 7:30 pm by Jesusfreak.

Some of you guys are missing a lot of other lore.
The hybrids showed up in "In Utter Darkness" as well as "A Sinister Turn" and the Secret level, Narud is Duran backwards. Kerrigan Destroyed the UED at the end of BW they are gone, the "Fallen one" is a dark entity dwelling in the void that is a malevolent creature imprisoned by the Xel'Naga, which was released by some terran scientist, this entity might be the "higher power" Duran is serving. This void entity was also what was pulling the overmind's strings and prompted the zerg to "break the cycle"

Also there is more lore saying in order not to be a mindless zombie when infested, a person has to be genetically compatible, Kerrigan is one such case.
You guys can bitch after all three games are released, but the games aren't the primary source of the lore, mind you.

Kel-Morians have a mention, Confederacy and UED are dead, etc etc.

But yes, the side missions should twine together into something in the end, and I'm not fond of the choices, we should just play the Tosh Mission and then the Nova Mission promptly afterward, or just the Tosh Mission, and make some other entirely different part of the campaign revolving around Nova.

Hanson/Selendis, I'm not sure of that one, but the choices create way to many unnecessary plot branches. And too many people end up dying, before we are done here, we are going to run out of characters.

Exactly, but who would be the enemy in that installation then? The Hybrids? The Dominion? Some Ignorant Protoss?
Would Kerrigan have allies such as the Raiders?

It leaves a lot of mystery and I would rather have her de-infested in HotS or LotV

I expected to see more Hybrids, hopefully in later campaign installations,
and I hope to see Xel'Naga cause a lack of Xel'Naga is really disappointing.
and Hanson's cure should have taken a part, I could really care less about the Jorium and Terrazine as Spectres are just a cool new unit.

and are you really going to complain about a lack of "Installation missions"? Those w/o a base?
I think Echoes of the Future should have been like Whispers of Doom, and the Secret mission/First mission was like that, I think the Tosh Mission in the Prison could've been like that Raynor, possibly Tychus, some medics, some marines, some spectres. but they aren't really necessary, you don't play with small groups of units in usual multiplayer, remember this is supposed to put priority on showing noobs how to play whilst immersing them in the story and adding some extra features, which is probably why some of you think the campaign is so crappy.

If you need story grab a book or graphic novel, I came looking for the new gameplay because it is the main part of the whole game.

Doodan I agree with you, you wrote a well written opinion, Kerrigan did need a little more essence, but unfotunately we will sort of have that good and evil thing, well we might end up with "evil" and "forces struggling to survive on their own"

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Aug 2 2010, 8:51 pm by Cheese.

Your difficulty level defines the game speed. Brutal is forced to be played on fastest.

Yes, but I am a firm believer that you should NOT need to read the books in order to find this stuff out. It should be mentioned in the game, or at worst in the manual. It doesn't need to go into full details or anything, but these things should be mentioned. There was plenty of scope for this background info to be given during the Protoss levels, the fact that it was not is a flaw on Blizzard's part.

They should be. In other series such as Star Trek, Star Wars and Stargate what is presented in the main shows is always canon while anything presented in books is more backstory/second tier. Important points should at least be mentioned in passing in the main text to the point that things make sense. Blizzard does not expect everyone to read all the books, if they did they would include them with the game.

Yes, I agree. I strongly get the feeling that WoL was simply a set-up for the HotS campaign storyline which evidently requires Kerrigan to be de-infested. It makes WoL feel more like a prologue than anything else.

Yes, the jorium and terrazine are very-much minor points, and I would suggest that using both of them would've seemed a bit contrived. But the terrazine being called "breath of creation" by the protoss and being linked to the Xel Naga does tie in well with the artifact while also giving the whole storyline a lot more cohesion.

Yes.

Yes, Echoes of the Future should've been more like Whispers of Doom, in fact it at almost is like that anyway because the Zerg don't present any sort of organised threat. It's basically a re-run of the Outbreak level as it is.

The first mission does not count because it was the first mission. It is designed to be easy and to introduce players to the controls etc.

The secret mission is exactly what I wanted to see - a strong hero character who is periodically reinforced with a squad, while having interactive things like cameras etc. Raynor's powerups were further icing on the cake. This level shouldn't have been a secret one, and there should've been another level along the same vein.

Tosh's level was good and should stay the way it is. It is mostly the same as an installation mission already, but combined with continually spawning troops it makes it more into a SC multiplayer type mission. There was however no time pressure at all, so you could easily inch your way forward without any trouble, whereas the installation missions from SC1 (and the secret mission in SC2) generally had time limits.

Sorry, but I don't think it is "primarily on showing noobs how to play". I would say that is a secondary aspect, especially because you never get trained in how to play the Zerg, or indeed which units are particular counters for other units. Also there's the whole thing of buying upgrades with credits and never having to research them within the game - distinctly unlike MP, as well as the single-player units like firebat, medic and diamondback. In fact, there are 9 separate challenge maps specifically made to train you up in aspects of multiplayer - unit counters, how to attack a base to inflict maximum damage as well as a challenge dealing with defending against an early-rush.

Or, perhaps because SC1 and particularly BW had a fantastic story that was executed very well, we were expecting more of the same after Blizzard had 12 years to make it and millions of dollars? You may not be looking for SC2 for a great story, but I don't think you could say we were being foolish or unrealistic to expect one.

Yes, I never responded to the Good/Evil part in my reply to Doodan above, but I generally agree with him that one of the best things about SC/BW was a distinct lack of Good/Evil moralising - Kerrigan was generally evil but at the same time she did help out the terrans and protoss with their own problems (Neutral Evil rather than Chaotic Evil). SC2 is taking a distinct step in the direction of good vs evil with the introduction of The Fallen One and the grand plan to use the zerg to annihilate everyone.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 3 2010, 12:52 am by Lanthanide.

I enjoyed the campaign. Especially the part where you talk to Dr. Narud. I had goosebumps when I saw him. ^_^

Has anyone beat the first level on brutal yet? I can't do it

Also, is the last level of the Protoss missions the future, and not the past any more? (Because Zeratul dies...)

I thought that it seemed kinda stupid; just an opponent for the player to face. The enemy protoss were xel'naga fanatics, but for a gas to be made from the xel'naga seems kinda far fetched compared to the artifacts. Shouldda been breaking into some storage facility or something.
I did enjoy this mission; especially because of the items, and the choices. However, in general, I don't like super strong heroes much. Comparing Jimmy to any other man, his marine suit could be better, but shouldn't be god like. Having a hero marine with 6X the normal life is silly. Still, my second fav mission.
This is my fav mission. It's a challenge when you are trying to get the achievement on hard mode - beat it in 20 minutes (I did it in 19:45). My main reason for liking this is that it forces the player to use micro.

And since no one has mentioned this..: The rebel toss remind me of the covenant in halo.
Rebel toss: like artifacts/gas/things from the gods(xelnaga), who left amazing technology behind, and are now gone/dead.
Covenant: like the shiny rings and technology that their gods(forerunners) left behind.

The last level of the Protoss missions is the vision of the future that Tassadar showed Zeratul.

I beat that mission on hard mode, about halfway through the mission i realized that DTs wreck because they have no detectors on most of the waves. I ended up makeing a wall of DTs at each of the choke points and saving every wave. If they bring a detector in a wave i just load and position my void rays to snipe the incoming overseer. Im pretty bad at macro so i kept forgetting to pump units and upgrade so warp gates were life savers for me

I too just finished the level on Hard, and didn't really have any problems. I didn't explicitly consider the overseer situation, though. I did wonder why they turned up sometimes in the later attacks - makes sense now. I put collosi on each of the high-grounds by the entrances, and just used a mixture of immortals, dark temps, stalkers and zealots (only a couple of archons) to hold them back. Used the phoenix and their anti-grav beam as my main way to pacify the hybrids, along with void rays of course.

Interestingly my tactics worked really well for most of it, then suddenly after I met the 2000 kills acheivement the next wave through seemed to be very heavy on roaches/hydralisks, which just broke my lines. It's funny 'cause in Normal difficulty I ended up having to kill my own units since the hybrids seemed incapable of it.

Which level is this?

I dont think I played this one at all, which is really strange...

The mission where you decide to eliminate the Nydus Worms, instead of eliminating the air units such as Mutalisks and Brood Lords.