StarCraft 2

Tenks said:

I think the problem with SC2 is they went too fantasy with all the shit. Like others said the best parts were the politics part and that was pretty much the entire storyline for SC/BW. Its like how ASOIF is worse now with all the fantasy elements being central instead of just straight up backroom politics.

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SC2 story was shit because Metzen needed to write grandiose universe-spanning stories that are just a pile of clichés propped up by some amazing cinematics and design. It's the same problem W3 managed to avoid by making most of the characters much more interesting than the overarching story. BW managed that by recurring characters switching sides frequently based on what suits them, therefore downgrading you to their level. SC2 had UI elements upgraded into fully voiced and animated characters where the main character can do no wrong. It was interesting in WoL as a narrative choice, where the game accomodated all of your choices as the correct ones, however eventually it fails to achieve any kind of tension.

Really, my only beef with the Nova missions is that you can't choose to not kill Davis and be loyal to Mengsk, instead you kill her and go "Eh, who else is Dominion gonna call", even though she has nothing left.

spoileeeerrrsss

I haven't gotten around to the last mission yet but I'm surprised they didn't give you a choice. I hope that's because whatever event(s) drive the next mini-campaign will have something to do with Davis being killed instead of arrested and not because they were too cheap/lazy to do both endings.

I bought Abathur for Co-op, because I love all things Zerg. He is fun, but I would consider him the weakest hero of all the Co-op commanders. I pretty much only play Brutal. On that game mode, you need a few things.

1. Call downs or nukes that can target anyplace on the map. The margin for error is slim and you will be challenged in multiple areas all at the same time. Abathur is all about the strong deathball doesn't have many mobility or any global options.
2. A deathball clear. Either a commander or global area effect nuke/ability. Abathur doesn't have anything like this outside of mico'd Ravager bombs.
3. Quickly replace your army. Abathur can make units just as quickly as any other zerg, but their power doesn't come in numbers but rather buffed up individual units from Biomass. On Brutal, your army is going to die and be replaced multiple times, which is bad for Abathur's play-style.

I guess he is fine, but is definitely more of a challenge than most of the other commanders where you can just face-roll to victory.

Jeez, spoilers! Well I haven't even bought the Nova pack yet... how many hours worth do you get out of it (without replaying x times for achievements)?

30 minutes per mission is realistic and conservative I'd say. 3 chapters, 9 total missions... You are looking at at least 3-4 hours of good SC2, even if you just burn through it on Normal. It was worth it to me.

Mr Creed said:

Jeez, spoilers! Well I haven't even bought the Nova pack yet... how many hours worth do you get out of it (without replaying x times for achievements)?

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4 hours I'd say, depends on how good you are etc. I'd say the design is even more polished than LotV, especially the last map is an absolute masterpiece, even if the final fight is a bit too easy. I got my money's worth.

Were the Nova Chronicles the last campaign for SC2? Is anything else announced at this point?

just coop commanders and goofy microtransactions at this point.

Fight said:

I bought Abathur for Co-op, because I love all things Zerg. He is fun, but I would consider him the weakest hero of all the Co-op commanders. I pretty much only play Brutal. On that game mode, you need a few things.

1. Call downs or nukes that can target anyplace on the map. The margin for error is slim and you will be challenged in multiple areas all at the same time. Abathur is all about the strong deathball doesn't have many mobility or any global options.
2. A deathball clear. Either a commander or global area effect nuke/ability. Abathur doesn't have anything like this outside of mico'd Ravager bombs.
3. Quickly replace your army. Abathur can make units just as quickly as any other zerg, but their power doesn't come in numbers but rather buffed up individual units from Biomass. On Brutal, your army is going to die and be replaced multiple times, which is bad for Abathur's play-style.

I guess he is fine, but is definitely more of a challenge than most of the other commanders where you can just face-roll to victory.

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The only difficult part about Abathur is preserving your mutas until you build up critical mass while still supporting your partner. Even on brutal mutas don't get chewed up very badly once you get rolling, and if you have to you can just run them away long enough to get a couple seconds of regen before you turn around and re-engage. I once had a bad muta wipe on the first optional due to the interaction between the pbaoe stun from the pirates and timestop and even then I was still able to support my partner well enough to finish the map by spamming roaches. When I muta rush (which is basically always, I don't like roach/queen) I support my partner with toxic nests and mend if necessary while rushing out a couple mutalisks to start picking up biomass. I'll usually end up with a leviathan or two from doing this while I expand and tech up, which are more than enough to back up my partner, and then I periodically pull my mutas back to give them a couple seconds of regen before re-engaging.

Unless my partner is Swann. Then I just play balls to the wall because I have so much gas I can actually max my supply with mutas.

Yeah, he went from Han Solo to Cpt Cuck.

Various options in campaign->Game ends the same way, nothing is ever lost because you chose one thing (to my recollection). Hey remember that planet you ignored for 11 missions? Ya nothing will be different if you go back and do it.

It had all the hype of "oh man muh choices" and then.. yup. Come on :/.

I'd kill for a battle for middle earth 2 war of the ring / dawn of war (the expansion with the necrons) style "here's a big world. now fight over it mode of PVE play. where you're expected to conquer parts of the world, develop defenses, and the whole thing takes dozens of missions to finish.

Big Phoenix said:

Entire sc2 story was disjointed garbage.

Raynor was turned into the galaxies biggest pussy whipped white knight. You murdered my best friend? Np mlady!

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Well, to be fair, she was infested with the evil zerg strain.

... said:

I'd kill for a battle for middle earth 2 war of the ring / dawn of war (the expansion with the necrons) style "here's a big world. now fight over it mode of PVE play. where you're expected to conquer parts of the world, develop defenses, and the whole thing takes dozens of missions to finish.

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Oh god yes, all of the campaigns pretty much ended just as you got all the toys you could play with. Even the Nova missions could use one more where you had the whole arsenal.

Cybsled said:

Well, to be fair, she was infested with the evil zerg strain.

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Which is just a convenient and terrible retcon. Kerrigan after SC1 Vanilla was not under control of anyone.

No, you see, she was actually corrupted, duh.

I would love it if they retconned the epilogue ending and turned her into a giant squid. That would be a brilliant twist. Raynor would love her anyway.

He would let her stick 2 tentacles in his anus.

Sick game.

And yes, that's Rain of SC2 fame.

Can't wait for the BW:HD remaster to make the viewing experience of this tournament even better.

This is one of the hardest mutations they have ever done, mostly because of how damn many hybrids there are on the rak'shir map.