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Is Starcraft 2 worth checking out now?

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
Bought the game on release, but didn't get far in it and haven't touched it since. The game wasn't terrible but it was definitely a drop off from the original and even though the story doesn't matter in this type of games the writing in the campaign was so shitty it really gave me an indelible bad taste in my mouth and really helped cement my overall dislike for this game (which is a shame because the missions themselves weren't half bad, as i remember them).

Looking at it now, i wonder whether it might not be worth giving it a try, considering it is the only current traditional RTS, aside for Grey Goo (which i already got tired of). Blizzard's shit is expensive but i have the base game and if i risk going the G2A route i can get both expansions for about 30 euros total, which is doable i guess.

One thing i heard is that the AI in this game is actually pretty though. Is that true? I used to enjoy skirmish mode in this genre but i can beat the computer in Warcraft III on insane with my eyes closed and that's as though as it used to get.
 

A horse of course

Guest
I only played WoL and watched playthroughs of the other two on youtube. The writing in the expansions is even worse, culminating in a Dragonball Z battle in LotV.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,886
Story is bad, missions are fun. Skirmish has lots of choice of AI behaviour. Also the new thing that came with last expansion , Co-op missions, is fun.
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest
Campaing could be worth checking out but don't expect miracles.
 

mastroego

Arcane
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
10,250
Location
Italy
Reminds me I still have to finish Heart of the Swarm - bought the first two games when they were up for 20$ total.
Obviously I haven't bought the final chapter yet - will do eventually. When it's cheap I mean.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
Bought all games but haven't played them past a couple missions of the original SC2 campaign (WoL) back in 2010. Back then I thought I'd be able to go back to being a sperglord like my WC3 ladder days but that never happened. Back then, I used to scoff at campaign play in RTS games and only play the competitive multiplayer, but I'm old and slow now, so I plan to revisit SC2 campaign at some point - there's a shitload of missions, some of it at least should be fun.
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest
Heart of the Swarm had better campaign missions overall, LotV was too samey for me
 

Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,208
I think SC2 has one of the best campaigns I've seen in an RTS. The story is fucking shit but the missions themselves are very varied and interestingly designed and if you get all 3 games that's like ~80 missions in total, which is a lot of gameplay time. Also if you play on brutal difficulty then some missions are really challenging and actually require effort to beat. There's also multiplayer and skirmish but I'm not as fond of Starcraft multiplayer as I used to be. Too tryhard for me.
 

Azalin

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Messages
7,305
Story is crap,gameplay is similar to the original,a bit too similar you might say,single player campaigns are good,HotS is the weakest one since they got too many diablo elements in it and Kerrigan becomes OP soon enough.
The new feature added in LotV,the coop missions are good and they are in the middle of releasing a single player dlc expansion where Nova is the main character
 
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Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
Is it safe to buy from G2A or is Blizzard going to give me trouble? 7 euros for Heart of the Swarm and 21 for Legacy of the Derp. That's 12 euros cheaper than if i buy from Battlenet.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
I've never understood the campaign's acclaim. It is true that the missions all have lots of gimmicks and none plays out like a "vanilla" battle, but I'm not persuaded that that's an upside when the whole engine and balance is built around servicing "vanilla" battles. I am fairly certain that I played it on highest difficulty and had no trouble with any of the maps. But many of the maps were, I dunno, just like bad versions of Crusader No Remorse.

I still think the best StarCraft campaign may have been the Antioch Chronicles one built in vanilla Starcraft. It was one of the few where the resources were limited enough that you had to actually engage in some strategy other than massing and overwhelming.

Also, the story in SC2 is horrible. I don't understand how Blizzard can't just hire, like, the writers of some children's action cartoon show if that's what they want to make. Would be way better.
 

mastroego

Arcane
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
10,250
Location
Italy
Some of us just aren't interested in multiplayer games.
I may appreciate Starcraft as a game but not as an e-sport, I have no desire to face kids online with overcharged fingers flying zealously over the keyboard.
I play games to relax so Campaign mode suits me.
 

A horse of course

Guest
MRY is right (for once). The WoL singleplayer campaign tries its best to cobble additional features onto the core gameplay, but they make the game feel like it's trying to escape from itself. Reminds me of how desperately Mists of Pandaria attempted to mix up the basic MMO experience with absurd, poorly implemented side-activities in the dailies - such as jumping minigames that didn't fit the engine and momement mechanics at all. "Gimmicks" is the right word.

It's also true that Blizzard writing deserves much greater notoriety. People complain about videogame writing all the time, but Blizzard really are entitled to credit for having such fantastically, aggressively awful dialogue, characterization and narrative development. I honestly don't think there's a large developer active in the world capable of matching them, and that's including the tumblr hacks at Bioware.
 

GrainWetski

Arcane
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
5,080
Todd Howard would like a word with you. He's proud of Bethesda's accomplishments in the field.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
MRY is right (for once). The WoL singleplayer campaign tries its best to cobble additional features onto the core gameplay, but they make the game feel like it's trying to escape from itself. Reminds me of how desperately Mists of Pandaria attempted to mix up the basic MMO experience with absurd, poorly implemented side-activities in the dailies - such as jumping minigames that didn't fit the engine and momement mechanics at all. "Gimmicks" is the right word.

It's also true that Blizzard writing deserves much greater notoriety. People complain about videogame writing all the time, but Blizzard really are entitled to credit for having such fantastically, aggressively awful dialogue, characterization and narrative development. I honestly don't think there's a large developer active in the world capable of matching them, and that's including the tumblr hacks at Bioware.

The bad part is that people actually think the writing is good:



I seriously can't even.
 

mastroego

Arcane
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
10,250
Location
Italy
Honestly the original was a game of great quality, all considering. It's still games we're talking about.
I did enjoy the campaign, I bought even the expansion back then... DESPITE being strictly a single-player gamer.

So I figure I was gonna get this anyway, but yes the decline is strong.
Look no further than the change of voice actress for Kerrigan (when the original actress was still available!) and the beautification of the characters: "glamour" vs consistency, the signs were there from the start.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,819
Location
Italy
i've been a HUGE starcraft fan, so HUGE i could hardly enjoy any other rts after playing it so much, for so long.
then, after dawn of war, company of heroes and such, i see no reason why i should ever play starcraft 2 over any of them. it's so old in its mechanics it'll give you instant alzheimer's. i had to uninstall it as soon as possible, unable to even finish the second mission, in disgust.
 

AMG

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 15, 2012
Messages
374
i've been a HUGE starcraft fan, so HUGE i could hardly enjoy any other rts after playing it so much, for so long.
then, after dawn of war, company of heroes and such, i see no reason why i should ever play starcraft 2 over any of them. it's so old in its mechanics it'll give you instant alzheimer's. i had to uninstall it as soon as possible, unable to even finish the second mission, in disgust.
Yeah me too m8, I was a HUGE Fallout fan.
Then after playing Fallout 4 and Dragon Age Iquisition, I see no reason why I should ever play Underrail over any of them. It's SO old in it's mechanics. No quest compass? Fuck that. Uninstalled before second quest to avoid alzheimer's.
Fuck them old games xD
 

MilesBeyond

Cipher
Joined
May 15, 2015
Messages
716
The highlight of the game is definitely basic matches, whether it's multiplayer or against AI. SC2 has got, without a doubt, the single most sophisticated AI I've ever seen in a strategy game (though it's a toss-up as to whether that's in praise of SC2's AI or a criticism of every other game's AI). It will plan ahead and react to your moves, you can customize it so that you can practice against certain builds or strategies, I believe it's regularly updated to reflect the shifting metagame, and, best of all, it never, ever cheats unless you play on the very highest difficulty.

Now, that being said, the AI at its absolute toughest is still going to only play at the level of a Platinum or so human player, but nonetheless it's impressive for what it is - and it completely blows any other strategy game I've ever played out of the water.

As for the campaigns... It's a tough call. My main issue with the story is the tone. Starcraft 1's writing was cheesy and derivative, but it embraced that. Terrans were goofy space rednecks and Zerg were B-movie scifi horror pulp and Protoss were long-winded drama queens. They had fun with it. Starcraft 2 is still cheesy and derivative, but they've lost the sense of humour. Those moments where you roll your eyes and grin in spite of yourself are gone. Now you just cringe. The writing definitely goes downhill in the expansions, too, so if you thought Wings of Liberty was awful, you ain't seen nothing yet.

However, even though the story is a lot more in-your-face, it's still ultimately just the excuse for having missions tied together, and the missions themselves are quite good. I agree with people on both sides in this thread - I thought the mechanics were cool, but there's also a sense in which I wish the maps had played a bit more like "basic" Starcraft 2. Still, it's a lot of fun. Wings of Liberty was definitely the best. Varied mission objectives, and all sorts of cool mechanics. Heart of the Swarm was kinda lame. Super easy, and I admit that the only reason I enjoy it is because I'm a Zerg player. Legacy of the Void is better. The mission objectives are super repetitive and get old after a while, but it's balanced out by being probably the hardest campaign I've ever played in any strategy game ever (at least until you get Void Rays - or so I've heard. I immediately replaced them with Arbiters because nostalgia > efficiency). Every other mission has the objective of "Go destroy these five things on the map," but it's effective because they've taught the AI to wait until you move out to hit an objective before they attack your base. Static D usually won't be enough to hold them off, so you've got to split your forces effectively and intelligently.

It's not exactly Deep Blue, but again, never played a strategy game with AI better than this.

So, to answer your question: Legacy of the Void is absolutely worth checking out. That's all you need if you want to play matches against humans or AI, and that is easily the highlight of the game. If you're interested in the campaign, Wings of Liberty is definitely a good starting point, then do LotV. Either way, you can safely skip Heart of the Swarm.
 

kris

Arcane
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
8,835
Location
Lulea, Sweden
I've never understood the campaign's acclaim. It is true that the missions all have lots of gimmicks and none plays out like a "vanilla" battle, but I'm not persuaded that that's an upside when the whole engine and balance is built around servicing "vanilla" battles. I am fairly certain that I played it on highest difficulty and had no trouble with any of the maps. But many of the maps were, I dunno, just like bad versions of Crusader No Remorse.

I still think the best StarCraft campaign may have been the Antioch Chronicles one built in vanilla Starcraft. It was one of the few where the resources were limited enough that you had to actually engage in some strategy other than massing and overwhelming.

Also, the story in SC2 is horrible. I don't understand how Blizzard can't just hire, like, the writers of some children's action cartoon show if that's what they want to make. Would be way better.

the problem is neither the engine, balance nor the missions. The problem is that the gameplay design is built in a way that makes only one tactic viable. build a big blob of an army and win. In multiplayer more comes into it as you meet another blob and because there is early battle gameplay. In the campaign the AI is already setup so you dont have the early play and the AI dont build a "max supply blob", so when you made one you will just sweep the map and win.
 
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Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
Well, bit the bullet and bought both expansions. Swarm of Shit was at 50% and the completist in me couldn't ignore it. Bought the other from G2A. The email i got was even in Russian, which was hilarious. Battlenet accepted the key no problem though.

So far seems i got what i was looking for. A basic RTS i can have fun with in skirmish and online. Pricy considering what i spent all together but there really don't seem to be any alternatives, so whatever.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
Starcraft 1's writing was cheesy and derivative, but it embraced that.

I think the difference is that Blizzard knew what to steal, and understood what they were stealing. Their current writing team have no fucking clue in any sense. It is mystifying that a multi-billion dollar company couldn't hire more capable people, but there you have it.
 

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