pW's (Rather Comprehensive) Review

[flabortast]

Is this another case of unpleasable fanbase? StarCraft 2 SP Campaign has done things that most RTS game campaigns can only dream of. Has there been a SP campaign of an RTS that comes close to this?

[Eligor]

Is this another case of unpleasable fanbase? StarCraft 2 SP Campaign has done things that most RTS game campaigns can only dream of. Has there been a SP campaign of an RTS that comes close to this?

It did only a fraction of what it easily could have done had the writing been more consistent. It's not a question whether it's a good RTS game campaign (it is) but rather whether it's a good StarCraft story.

[pure.Wasted]

For example, when you embarg on Valerians ship, you just blast out of an airlock and gun down a few goons and reach Valerian?
Sure Valerian "planned" to let you in but jesus that was like the most quick and bizzare part of the game.

One second you're with Horner (Ohhh this is a baaad idea)
Next you're busting out of an air lock and gun down some marines with PG Rated Action
Then Valerian says I can cure Kerrigan...
Next you're suddenly back with horner in your stained white t shirt and just like "Yeaaah..."
Errhmm..Okay.

The issue here is time. How much time can they devote to any single cinematic? I agree that the cut there was far from ideal. How did the Hyperion get in range without a shooting match going off? How did all this go down? Would have been nice to see. That said, they can only devote so much to every cinematic, so they concentrated on that which was most important. We got our character moment (Raynor/Tychus/Matt), we got our action moment, we got our plot moment.

It's not ideal, but we don't live in fantasy land where cinematics can be two hours long and include every detail we want to see. Just think: no other RTS would have had a cinematic for that period (including WC3). They would have had these units talk it out as bubble heads (SC1, RA3, etc) or very poorly animated low-rez models (WC3).

So this isn't a fall from grace for Blizz due to a poorer than expected cinematic, it's an amazing gift from Blizz due to including a cinematic that's at least AVERAGE by all possible objective standards, that would not have been there in any other game.

Or the Intro cinematic..
I didn't like how they recycled the reveal cinematic, then dubbed in Mengsk's entire cheesy gameplay with vague words about war and how he is basically a pawn.
It gave away the story, and it lead you to believe the game was going to be some epic brawl. When in reality, you were just a space cowboy helping out lil' old Dr. Hanson and being duped by Valerian.

I agree about it giving the story away. I think there were some great moments regarding Tychus's "mission" throughout, but they were very poorly dispersed without any sort of cohesive thread. One after this mission, one before that mission, it didn't build and that's why the resolution felt awkward.

But that wouldn't have changed had they simply cut Mengsk's voice out. We would have suspected things almost immediately anyway. So at least that cinematic got to be more awesome.

The rally call cinematic before "ALL IN" mission
Uh yah ....the clouds magically parted away just for Raynor. This is STARCRAFT, not a FREAKING ANIME. Where is the darkness? The mood? The nitty gritty terran atmosphere?
Like crap, this is CHAR. A VOLCANIC WORLD. Not to mention there were probably less than a handful of dominion marines left. More cliche, it's like this was the final stand at the Alamo or some shit.

To be fair, Blizz does this so rarely that I think it's something of a subversion to GET such a scene. I mean, statistically speaking, you're bound to have an epic speech combined with de-clouding at SOME point.

Is this another case of unpleasable fanbase? StarCraft 2 SP Campaign has done things that most RTS game campaigns can only dream of. Has there been a SP campaign of an RTS that comes close to this?

I think that in SOME ways, the SC1 and the WC3 campaigns are superior to the WOL campaign. That said, however they may be superior, they still do not compare in my eyes. As shallow as it might make me seem, presentation is important, and SC2 ain't got nothing if not presentation to spare. (I use the term 'presentation' loosely; not just cinematics, but also presenting the entire world, the characters of the world, and so on.)

[ZealotPowerade]

The issue here is time. How much time can they devote to any single cinematic? I agree that the cut there was far from ideal. How did the Hyperion get in range without a shooting match going off? How did all this go down? Would have been nice to see. That said, they can only devote so much to every cinematic, so they concentrated on that which was most important. We got our character moment (Raynor/Tychus/Matt), we got our action moment, we got our plot moment.

It's not ideal, but we don't live in fantasy land where cinematics can be two hours long and include every detail we want to see. Just think: no other RTS would have had a cinematic for that period (including WC3). They would have had these units talk it out as bubble heads (SC1, RA3, etc) or very poorly animated low-rez models (WC3).

So this isn't a fall from grace for Blizz due to a poorer than expected cinematic, it's an amazing gift from Blizz due to including a cinematic that's at least AVERAGE by all possible objective standards, that would not have been there in any other game.



I agree about it giving the story away. I think there were some great moments regarding Tychus's "mission" throughout, but they were very poorly dispersed without any sort of cohesive thread. One after this mission, one before that mission, it didn't build and that's why the resolution felt awkward.

But that wouldn't have changed had they simply cut Mengsk's voice out. We would have suspected things almost immediately anyway. So at least that cinematic got to be more awesome.



To be fair, Blizz does this so rarely that I think it's something of a subversion to GET such a scene. I mean, statistically speaking, you're bound to have an epic speech combined with de-clouding at SOME point.



I think that in SOME ways, the SC1 and the WC3 campaigns are superior to the WOL campaign. That said, however they may be superior, they still do not compare in my eyes. As shallow as it might make me seem, presentation is important, and SC2 ain't got nothing if not presentation to spare. (I use the term 'presentation' loosely; not just cinematics, but also presenting the entire world, the characters of the world, and so on.)

I think our problem is that blizzard managed to tell a better story 10 years ago with nothing but text and talking heads. It was grand, dark and mysterious. Everything about it was beautifully done with the technology and tools available at the time. Now that they have SO much more it's just so sad to see it fall so far behind the original.

[Hammy]

Nice attempt at a review. I don't share your opinion on most of the "good", and I don't really care about half of the "bad" you pointed out... Taste and colors.

[pure.Wasted]

I think our problem is that blizzard managed to tell a better story 10 years ago with nothing but text and talking heads. It was grand, dark and mysterious. Everything about it was beautifully done with the technology and tools available at the time. Now that they have SO much more it's just so sad to see it fall so far behind the original.

Again, it depends on what you mean by "story." There are things that I absolutely love about WOL (many things) that SC1 never even broached, let alone did, let alone did successfully.

Was SC1 more structured, more cohesive, with more plot twists and a stronger narrative? Probably yes to most of those. But it suffered from that, too. It was grand in scope, but limited only to grandness. We saw nothing about the everyday existence of these people, what life is really like for Raynor and his gang. What it's like to not just see the HIGHLIGHTS reel of his adventures, but live them day-to-day. It had a stronger narrative, but I dare say it did not have a richer one.

Characters in SC1 were good characters, but for the most part they remained only that. Because their concerns were always so epic, you could never get close to them. SC2 is a lot more intimate. You have scenes like "Queen of Blades" -- SC1 could not have had anything remotely resembling this, and when I watch that cinematic, honest to God I have trouble believing that these are just computer generated images, and not real people. As far as plot goes, it's a complete non-scene -- the exact opposite of everything in SC1, which was driven, driven, driven. But as far as creating a compelling image of the K-Sector and the folks that inhabit it, it is so far above SC1's ambition that it's not even on that game's radar.

So if we boil it down to which had the better 'story' you might be right in going with SC1, but that's not as complete and total a victory as you make it sound. It turns out there's a lot more to games than that.

[Pandonetho]

Characters in SC1 were good characters, but for the most part they remained only that. Because their concerns were always so epic, you could never get close to them. SC2 is a lot more intimate.

Screw intimate man. The SC universe is a big universe, it's boring to limit yourself to Mr Rebel Raynor and see his everyday life. I don't care about that in a universe that's way bigger than him.

If you think about it the story related with the Zerg is so bad. 4 Years after the BW, Kerrigan has been evolving her race. She had finished demolishing everybody else, and ruled the whole sector. Then what? Mr Raynor hunts a lame artifact and Kerrigan, with her cheesy lines and attempts at being 'bad' fail in every mission against Raynor. I mean, really? Your huge army of Zerg failed against Raynor and his 1 battlecruiser crew? You know how retarded that sounds?

Not only that, Raynor and HALF A FLEET manage to spearhead an invasion into Char, the main planet of 10+ billion Zerg, and defend themselves there for a long time before finally activating the Artifact.

I don't even know why they needed to land on the planet to charge it, I mean... they couldn't charge it beforehand or what?

[pure.Wasted]

Screw intimate man. The SC universe is a big universe, it's boring to limit yourself to Mr Rebel Raynor and see his everyday life. I don't care about that in a universe that's way bigger than him.

If you think about it the story related with the Zerg is so bad. 4 Years after the BW, Kerrigan has been evolving her race. She had finished demolishing everybody else, and ruled the whole sector. Then what? Mr Raynor hunts a lame artifact and Kerrigan, with her cheesy lines and attempts at being 'bad' fail in every mission against Raynor. I mean, really? Your huge army of Zerg failed against Raynor and his 1 battlecruiser crew? You know how retarded that sounds?

Not only that, Raynor and HALF A FLEET manage to spearhead an invasion into Char, the main planet of 10+ billion Zerg, and defend themselves there for a long time before finally activating the Artifact.

I don't even know why they needed to land on the planet to charge it, I mean... they couldn't charge it beforehand or what?

If you read the OP you'd know that I agree on all those counts, and raised them myself. My point has never been that SC2 has a good story, or that it could not have found a better balance between the epic and the intimate.

Merely that SC2 is not an outright setback. It is a different sort of success, and I do regret that it could not be both things at once more than it is. But given the lessons Blizz must have learned here, it's my hope that Heart and Void will combine the best aspects of both, and deliver a product that will be superior in every way, instead of being just as good -- but at different things.

[mr. peasant]

Screw intimate man. The SC universe is a big universe, it's boring to limit yourself to Mr Rebel Raynor and see his everyday life. I don't care about that in a universe that's way bigger than him.

If you think about it the story related with the Zerg is so bad. 4 Years after the BW, Kerrigan has been evolving her race. She had finished demolishing everybody else, and ruled the whole sector. Then what? Mr Raynor hunts a lame artifact and Kerrigan, with her cheesy lines and attempts at being 'bad' fail in every mission against Raynor. I mean, really? Your huge army of Zerg failed against Raynor and his 1 battlecruiser crew? You know how retarded that sounds?

Not only that, Raynor and HALF A FLEET manage to spearhead an invasion into Char, the main planet of 10+ billion Zerg, and defend themselves there for a long time before finally activating the Artifact.

I don't even know why they needed to land on the planet to charge it, I mean... they couldn't charge it beforehand or what?

I think if you look back at all of Blizzard's past games, that has always been how it worked; when playing a campaign, the player's faction always wins. Sure, there may be an occasional failure mentioned somewhere but this is always someone else and happens off-screen, and often times only serves as a set-up for the player to eventually come up on top. The closest we ever saw was when Stukov died during the BW Terran mission and even then, the player still wound up saving (and thereby gaining) the Psi Disruptor.

[pure.Wasted]

I think if you look back at all of Blizzard's past games, that has always been how it worked; when playing a campaign, the player's faction always wins. Sure, there may be an occasional failure mentioned somewhere but this is always someone else and happens off-screen, and often times only serves as a set-up for the player to eventually come up on top. The closest we ever saw was when Stukov died during the BW Terran mission and even then, the player still wound up saving (and thereby gaining) the Psi Disruptor.

Actually, that's not entirely true. TFT has plenty of missions where the protagonists manage to kill stuff but don't really come out ahead (at all), and one mission where the protagonist explicitly loses (Maiev in Sargeras's Tomb) in every conceivable way.

Even back in SC1 days you had stuff like Raynor destroying the Infested Command Center and being punished for it, Raynor and Kerrigan being betrayed and not "winning" that mission at all, Kerrigan fighting Tassadar while Zeratul happily slays Zazz. Like "Cutthroat" only much more meaningful.

I don't think it's particularly fair to let Blizzard off the hook on this one.