Heart of the Swarm: An Empire, or a Menace?

[Gradius]

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=404043

A popular review on TL which highlights many of the systemic problems in HoTS. I think it's great that people can come to the same conclusions about the story independently, with this one echoing many of the things I've been saying for a long time: Raynor's bipolarity, the fact that the story is bad if it relies on outside material to make sense, Blizzard making their stories accessible only to a younger audience, and pretty much everything I covered in my HoTS review.

This one's 12000 words long so put your reading hats on.

[DemolitionSquid]

12000?!



Also:



Now, with that out of the way, I actually did just read it and it has moar than sated my bloodlust for the time being.

[Hawki]

I re-read the argument again and...please tell me I'm not the only one who noticed the emotional manipulation at the start and finish, what with all the strawman arguments and the like. I'm not faulting his review of the game itself, but when he harps about being an "artist" and "I've been playing games since I was five, so bow before me"...gah.

[RetlocLive]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet was how HotS pretty much turned another one of WoL's arcs into Filler.

I always thought that at least Matt's Rebellion storyline in WoL would lead somewhere, especially into an expansion that was almost nothing but getting revenge on Mengsk. Turns out it's just another Filler plot that plays out (almost) similar to the Tosh and Hanson arcs. The rebellion after Media Blitz affected nothing in HotS, because apparently to Blizzard, bringing back Mira (and even Orlan) was a lot more important then continuing the citizen's revolting plotline. You even return to the planet the revolt took place and nothing looks out of the ordinary for having started a revolution there in the previous game. Nice going storywriters. All that build up to starting a revolt on Korhal became pointless.

I actually liked the Rebellion arc the most in WoL which is why this bugs me greatly at the moment.

As for the TL post, I enjoyed reading it. Some of it was kinda weird like when he went into the problems with the sound since that's apparently something he does for a living that he probably found annoying that most likely wouldn't bother anyone else, but I still enjoyed reading it nonetheless.

[Gradius]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet was how HotS pretty much turned another one of WoL's arcs into Filler.

I always thought that at least Matt's Rebellion storyline in WoL would lead somewhere, especially into an expansion that was almost nothing but getting revenge on Mengsk. Turns out it's just another Filler plot that plays out (almost) similar to the Tosh and Hanson arcs. The rebellion after Media Blitz affected nothing in HotS, because apparently to Blizzard, bringing back Mira (and even Orlan) was a lot more important then continuing the citizen's revolting plotline. You even return to the planet the revolt took place and nothing looks out of the ordinary for having started a revolution there in the previous game. Nice going storywriters. All that build up to starting a revolt on Korhal became pointless.

I actually liked the Rebellion arc the most in WoL which is why this bugs me greatly at the moment.

Every single plot arc from WoL ended up being filler. Even Tosh was shown in like...one frame, with his back turned towards us.

That's probably why I enjoyed HoTS more. It made me feel like WoL never happened. :P

As for the TL post, I enjoyed reading it. Some of it was kinda weird like when he went into the problems with the sound since that's apparently something he does for a living that he probably found annoying that most likely wouldn't bother anyone else, but I still enjoyed reading it nonetheless.

Blizzard's sound department is almost as under-performing as their writing department, but I won't get into that now.

[DarthYam]

Totally. Heart of the Swarm wasn't perfect, and I feel they could have done things differently. But it never felt bipolar, or that it was for younger audiences. It felt like it was trying to manipulate me (which to be honest is what most critical reviews gradius and other guys like andrew pimp feel like; namipulative nostalg

[Drake Clawfang]

Reading it now, the paragraph about how he's an artist and singer so he has higher standards about storytelling made me roll my eyes. Also, this jumped out at me big time:

"if you rely on external materials/information to give your story proper context or explain things, fill in gaps, etc... (and this happens very often in video games) then your story is poorly written." - This is a fair opinion to have, but if it is his opinion, the entire Starcraft franchise collapses in on itself.

"I won't be reading Flashpoint because it is episodically unimportant material." - Deeply flawed logic, just because it isn't in the games doesn't mean it isn't important, I would wager it's to save money (games are expensive to make, duh) and because some stories don't work for video games. The Dark Templar Saga is hugely important to understanding the sequel, but it flat would not work if adapted to a video game.

[Hawki]

Reading it now, the paragraph about how he's an artist and singer so he has higher standards about storytelling made me roll my eyes.

I'm glad I'm not the only one (see above post). And unfortunately, it's not a blip...

Finally, and this is a huge disclaimer, but as an artist I know that our viewpoints on topics can be widely different at times when talking about certain ideas or executions, so keep in mind these are my own personal thoughts as someone who has more than 25 years of experience in creating and performing.

As pretentious as this is, 25 years in the business is still impressive and-

I'm 30,

Oh son of a...!

...would love to see how long his resume is if he's going down to the age of 5 for "experience."

late having the meaning of the last 4-5 years as I've known Blizzard as a gamer since 1994

And the first Blizzard game I played was The Lost Vikings, which came out in 1992. Suck it!

[quote=Reviewer]

Look at children's programming or cartoons and you'll see these executions all over the place. They can clearly set up certain elements that can be easily parsed out by a young mind, they can even be humorous and fun while still retaining a measure of seriousness... and this works for this demographic. However, here is where I take serious umbrage with this mo.

(Insert impassioned defence of cartoons here)

I started gaming when I was 5. My first games included the Legend of Zelda, Duck Hunt, Ultima I-IV, Pool of Radiance, Super Mario Bros., Battletoads, and a laundry list of now ostensibly 'classic' video games. I've been around a long enough time to have developed highly sophisticated tastes in what I watch, like to play, and additionally developed a good eye for detail and nuance in narrative ideas along the way.

Isn't that an age when we all started playing games roughly (or is, going by the statistics he provides later?) Or is it that the games he played are just so much more sophisticated than anyone else's?

I guess my childhood memories of the Megadrive aren't that important really. Even if I was playing videogames since at least the age of 4.

That is frightening, and so disheartening on a personal note. I grew up with Blizzard. The first game I ever played of theirs was Warcraft 1, and I played Diablo 1-2, War2-3, and Star1 as soon as they came out. Now? Well I'm an adult now and I don't play games anymore because I have a job, and a real life that takes up so much of my time and...oh wait...

(Insert facepalm here)

"Also, this jumped out at me big time:

if you rely on external materials/information to give your story proper context or explain things, fill in gaps, etc... (and this happens very often in video games) then your story is poorly written." - This is a fair opinion to have, but if it is his opinion, the entire Starcraft franchise collapses in on itself.

"I won't be reading Flashpoint because it is episodically unimportant material." - Deeply flawed logic, just because it isn't in the games doesn't mean it isn't important, I would wager it's to save money (games are expensive to make, duh) and because some stories don't work for video games. The Dark Templar Saga is hugely important to understanding the sequel, but it flat would not work if adapted to a video game.

Yeah, well, there's pros and cons. I'm all for EU supplementing a setting but if it's required to understand it...

That being said, I don't think Flashpoint is really that necessary to understand HotS. Half of it deals with events that, while important, are established quickly anyway (game quickly establishes that they're in an Umojan lab, artifact is missing, etc.). Other half deals with relationship material that anyone previously familiar with the EU already knew, and anyone previously familiar with SC1 likely already picked up on (obviously not the reviewer, so maybe that's the purpose). And the half that occurs in the present could hypothetically be a campaign if you used game mechanics to tell it (Umoja-esque missions for the Prometheus, the Space Missions for the Hyperion and Bucephalus retreating, etc. It's the type of thing that I could see being DLC if there was a means to charge for it.

On the other hand, I don't see the DTS being easily adapted to a game by any means. Course, that does raise the issue of the Tal'darim in HotS. My initial impression was along the lines of "huh, so there's another branch of Tal'darim" rather than "retcon! retcon!" But if people haven't read the books, I can see that conclusion not being reached.

Meh. EU's kind of par for the course nowadays. You can argue whether that's a positive or negative.

[RetlocLive]

As someone who barely read Flashpoint. I can directly point out that nothing about the transition between WoL and HotS felt out of place compared to the jump from BW to WoL 3 years ago. I definitely didn't have to read Flashpoint to understand how HotS established it's set-up.

The closest thing I can think of is how Valerian is all buddy/buddy with the Umojans all of a sudden, and why the Umojans are, for some reason, fine with housing what use to be the Queen of Blades that had recently just launched a Zerg Invasion that got a lot of Terrans killed, but that's me just nitpicking trying to find "something" that might of felt off about the transition between the two games.

It's not like the Umojans have really been established anyway. I think that was their first actual appearance in a StarCraft game.

[Turalyon]

It's not like the Umojans have really been established anyway. I think that was their first actual appearance in a StarCraft game.

It's not like the Umojans were any more established in HotS either. Swap out the name Umoja and replace it with any other made up faction name or random planet and we'd be none the wiser.