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Szarrukin posted:
It's not meant to be a plot twist when its in the introductory movie. Though there is the minor twist that the actual mission Mengsk gave him is to kill Kerrigan, not Raynor.
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Jun 3, 2023 10:06
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PurpleXVI posted:But do we ever get the answer to the most important question? ARE our children using Stimpaks?! It's just to help focus for the exams, they can stop any time they like Yeah, the news segments are a bit too much "repeating the same gag every mission". Going for that joke every time rather undercuts the vibe you're supposed to be getting from Mengsk's totalitarian rule if the news is constantly cutting off their own reporters in the middle of questioning it. Surely at some point you'd just start pre-recording the reports. Like most of the writing in Starcraft 2, the news reports could have been good setting fluff, they just chose not to be. Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 11:52 on Jun 3, 2023 |
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Jun 3, 2023 11:49
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Sanguinia posted:It's not meant to be a plot twist when its in the introductory movie. Though there is the minor twist that the actual mission Mengsk gave him is to kill Kerrigan, not Raynor. Here's the thing though: Blizzard can be accused of bad writing but in a more general sense they are trying to be subtle. There's a lot of things left unsaid in the writing for SC2, not that the answers actually improve anything, and Tychus is one of them. The fact that Tychus was actually in prison for the entirety of SC1 means that he has no context for a lot of things that Raynor and veterans of the series take for granted. In this way he can function as a viewpoint for new charcter, and as a means by which other characters get to espouse things about the setting at him. Seriously, by missing out on SC1, Tychus (CW:suicide) genuinely has no knowledge of what the Zerg even are, and barely any understanding of the Protoss. I've seen at least one theory that Tychus' position in the narrative is him commiting Suicide by Cop after making what he thought was a simple assassination deal with Mengsk that immediately spiraled into 'try to kill the most powerful single being in the universe, BTW according to your old pal Jimmy she's also a victim of Mengsk DealsTM, formerly a human and if she dies the entire sector dies, so she has to stay alive.'
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Jun 3, 2023 11:53
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We're already starting to see, by omission, probably the biggest part of Brood War's plot that SC2 would very much like you to forget: that Mengsk is only still alive because Raynor and Kerrigan saved his life. Raynor saved him from the UED on Kerrigan's orders, and then Kerrigan twice explicitly had the opportunity to kill him but decided that it would be more entertaining to let him live, having lost everything he'd worked so hard to achieve. Brood War had implied that the Dominion was flat-out dead at the end.
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Jun 3, 2023 12:24
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Would now be a good time to point out that, when I first went into Starcraft 2, i completely missed the fact that the narrator in the opening cinematic letting Tychus go was Mengsk? By the time discussion of how Tychus did or did not escape starts happening, I had completely forgotten about the opening cinematic entirely, so I wasn't able to get a read on Tychus at all. But all things considered, taking what we know about him, he's honestly my favorite character in Starcraft 2.
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Jun 3, 2023 14:05
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MagusofStars posted:So like, in 2500, he's so short on soldiers ships, and equipment that he has to play tons of politics to even defend his own territory against the omnipresent Zerg threat, but within two years, he's got enough free liquidity to throw away resources completely rebuilding the entire ecological system and atmosphere of a lovely backwater colony nobody cared about? Technically Mar Sara was recolonized because presumably Dr. Narud was looking for the artifact we just jacked. This doesn't make it less stupid, but it is at least internally consistent. no, it's honestly not better.
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Jun 3, 2023 16:57
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Love the gameplay in this, even if the writing is lacking. It's just a fun campaign, even on Brutal (though I've no idea how I ever beat the last mission, what a difficulty spike). Enjoying the LP so far!
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Jun 3, 2023 17:04
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Kate Lockwell being the gadfly truth teller who says stuff over and over that would get her fired or worse if she was actually the controlled opposition in the cruel UED, the shoe never drops its just beating subtlety to death with a hammer. This was when my head started pinging "uh-oh" that I was in for a bad time story-wise, although the raynor/kerrigan pining was also a big warning sign: "Sometimes I think it would have been better if you had just died that day" is an absolutely absurd statement given the context of the previous games. Its the sort of thing someone parrots because they've seen it in different media and thought it sounded cool Incidentally, There's a mod campaign that's the Wings of Liberty Campaign but you play from the other side. It's pretty interesting, but the creator decided to give Raynor a ton of cheats and resources in most of his levels, alongside some other big changes that kind of take away the "counter-op" feel of it. Like I feel that the entire point of the endeavor is pointless if outside of a couple missions you're basically playing something completely different, if it was too easy then thats the point!
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Jun 3, 2023 17:04
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The news network is put to some good use in just giving us an idea that there's actually a society out there where things Jim does are having an effect, and will have some good moments. They do overplay that one joke, though.
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Jun 3, 2023 17:06
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Tenebrais posted:All three armies manage to feel significantly more powerful while still being more or less balanced, which is always good. Hell, as far as I can tell pro Starcraft 2 is thriving better these days than the original, now that it's been long enough that you can't chalk that up to recency bias. The main downside, at least when it comes to the e-sport, is that the control and pathfinding improvements mean the optimal strategy most of the time is to gather your army into a deathball and smash it into the enemy rather than fighting for territorial control over many fronts. Both games are very much worth watching if you're into that kind of thing. The days of Starcraft 2 pro multiplayer being almost only about building one large army and smashing them directly into each other hasn’t been a thing for years now - some exceptions excluded (most often Skytoss as an example).
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Jun 3, 2023 18:26
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Phelddagrif posted:Love the gameplay in this, even if the writing is lacking. It's just a fun campaign, even on Brutal (though I've no idea how I ever beat the last mission, what a difficulty spike). Enjoying the LP so far! A month ago I did a run through Brutal and for the first time figured hey I'll try the air version since I got all the ship upgrades for an achievement anyway. I won the mission with 0 supply remaining having bought the last ten seconds by floating all my buildings and running my SCVs into the zerg head first after my entire army died to the last wave.
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Jun 3, 2023 18:45
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The bad family of RTS's won and so here we are, stuck in the failure time line. I remember hearing a few times that SC1 was partially written by outside contractors, which may help explain the cohesion gap between SC1 and BW that works just fine, even now, and SC2 that, well, really doesn't all that much.
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Jun 3, 2023 19:43
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ChaosDragon posted:So Mar Sara was terraformed by Kel-Morian Combine which was a intact political organization? So after Mar Sara got glassed by the protess, Kel-Morian Combine reterraformed Mar Sara then the dominion came in?
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Jun 3, 2023 19:46
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Cythereal posted:We're already starting to see, by omission, probably the biggest part of Brood War's plot that SC2 would very much like you to forget: that Mengsk is only still alive because Raynor and Kerrigan saved his life. Raynor saved him from the UED on Kerrigan's orders, and then Kerrigan twice explicitly had the opportunity to kill him but decided that it would be more entertaining to let him live, having lost everything he'd worked so hard to achieve. Brood War had implied that the Dominion was flat-out dead at the end. I still wonder why Blizzard decided to ignore basically everything that happened in Brood War except hybrids.
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Jun 3, 2023 22:00
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Szarrukin posted:I still wonder why Blizzard decided to ignore basically everything that happened in Brood War except hybrids. The spoilered bit is the most sequel-friendly part of Brood War, really. Its ending was... pretty brutally final for a lot of people and could be reasonably interpreted as not having much room to go forward for anyone but the Queen Bitch of the Universe.
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Jun 3, 2023 22:43
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Szarrukin posted:I still wonder why Blizzard decided to ignore basically everything that happened in Brood War except hybrids. Personally, my theory is that Blizzard had much the same mentality that EA did when handing Bioware orders about Mass Effect 3: they did not want to create a feeling that players of this game needed to play the previous game(s) to understand what's going on. Starcraft 2, to me, feels like a very generic space opera setting. Tychus is the everyman viewpoint character so the writers can explain the setting to the audience, everyone's histories and motives are simplified (dumbed down, if you prefer), the story is a very simple heroic rebels versus evil empire tale for the most part in Wings, and the mandatory ancient precursor race goes from an occasionally-mentioned curiosity to a driving force of the plot.
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Jun 3, 2023 22:51
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Maybe, but Brood War ends with every faction except Kerrigan's zerg either wiped out or at least badly beaten and licking their wounds, and most of their named characters dead. If anything they were in an ideal position to set up a clean slate. I don't think it's particularly unreasonable for Kerrigan to have not gone and wiped out the sector even if she could - nothing could meaningfully threaten her, she could just settle in on the worlds the zerg controlled and get to reconfiguring the Swarm to suit her tastes (which is what canonically she did), leaving the terrans and protoss to set up any way the story writers might have liked. ...at least if there was a larger time skip in which to do that. Mengsk reasserting control with the Dominion is honestly fine, if he'd had time for it. It fits his character and capabilities. I do think it's worth making a distinction between writing problems relative to Brood War and writing problems within Starcraft 2 itself. The initial state in WoL is weird after the way Brood War ended, but if this had been the start of a series it wouldn't be a problem for Raynor to be a rebel against the evil empire pining over his lost love, even if that last bit is a bit pat. There'll be plenty of that second kind of writing problems later on but most of Wings is the first kind. The news reporter bit could have worked really well if the next news segment had a different reporter and this one was never heard from again. Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 00:12
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Tenebrais posted:The news reporter bit could have worked really well if the next news segment had a different reporter and this one was never heard from again. That gag would actually get funnier with repetition too, which is an added bonus.
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Jun 4, 2023 02:00
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D'you know, I like Tychus. I like the character. I like how laid back he is, and he's not really into this revolutionary stuff. And he seems to be genuinely friends with Raynor, but since I've never completed the game, I have no idea if that's meant to be an act. Of course, that just made that opening cinematic so confusing, because it looks like he's supposed to be used to get at Raynor, and he doesn't immediately, which sorta threw me off.
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Jun 4, 2023 02:09
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Cythereal posted:Personally, my theory is that Blizzard had much the same mentality that EA did when handing Bioware orders about Mass Effect 3: they did not want to create a feeling that players of this game needed to play the previous game(s) to understand what's going on.
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Jun 4, 2023 02:37
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You know, I never realised the time between the end of Brood War and this was only 2 years. I remembered thinking (the first time playing the game) that it was a 12 year skip, and that was why things were "better". Mar Sara got fixed up, the Dominion has stabilized, Kerrigan is just off chillin' like a villain. Seeing that it is actually only 2 years makes me wonder what the heck. Heck, even the stated 4 years in the later dialogue is a stretch, but better than a quick 2 years. Also, while it may seem odd that Kate Lockwell continues to be one of the main reporters, I think later cutscenes show that the writers either didn't really understand how cruel actual authoritarian rulers are, or they didn't want the game to have too dark a tone. If the latter, I guess that makes checks out if the writing wasn't in-house
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Jun 4, 2023 03:19
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Tychus is one of the new characters introduced I actually like. He's got a fun personality, a great voice performance, and he's got a fair number of scenes that are actually not bad. He also takes center stage on some of the most fun missions in the campaign. Even when stupid poo poo with him happens in the plot, he has fairly good reasons for doing what he does and the stuff that doesn't work about those scenes has nothing to do with him. There's only one new character I think is better then Tychus, but he doesn't appear until Legacy of the Void.
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Jun 4, 2023 03:28
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Aces High posted:You know, I never realised the time between the end of Brood War and this was only 2 years. I remembered thinking (the first time playing the game) that it was a 12 year skip, and that was why things were "better". Mar Sara got fixed up, the Dominion has stabilized, Kerrigan is just off chillin' like a villain. Drawing the line on tone to some degree seems more likely to me. Starcraft 2 tonally has a lot less grit and grimness than the originals, and while they don't want to totally abandon that there's a pretty clear effort to make everything just a little cleaner and less Gen X Subtextual Edgy. They didn't go as far as they did when they did the same with Diablo 3, or something like the shift from the original Star Wars to the Prequel trilogy, but its similar. Maybe Indianna Jones Crystal Skull is a good point of comparison. That wasn't nearly as big a tone shift as the other examples I mentioned but there was a distinct uptick in family friendliness and cartoonishness.
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Jun 4, 2023 04:03
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Mostly I choose to believe that Kate Lockwell is related to someone Mengsk can't afford to piss off (yet) and she knows it.
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Jun 4, 2023 04:24
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UNN News Reports running gag had one interesting moment with Donny having a BSOD and muttering "I had a brother there" while realizing what Mengsk has done to Tarsonis but it immediately got killed by "mental breakdown is le funny" joke. For the same reason I hated JJJ running gag in Spiderman: Miles Morales; there are only so many way you can have "bumbling rear end in a top hat who obviously isn't meant to be taken serious talks bullshit about main character" joke without boring people to death. Somebody fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 09:35
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Donny vermillion is a national treasure and all of you are mad. 
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Jun 5, 2023 23:56
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Szarrukin posted:UNN News Reports running gag had one interesting moment with Donny having a BSOD and muttering "I had a brother there" while realizing what Mengsk has done to Tarsonis but it immediately got killed by "mental breakdown is le funny" joke. JJJ as an unhinged podcast host never stopped being funny. edit: I only played the Peter Parker one so far though, so I guess it's possible he stopped being funny in Miles but I doubt it.
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Jun 6, 2023 01:15
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SirSamVimes posted:JJJ as an unhinged podcast host never stopped being funny. PSverse Jameson strikes me as one of those "I don't acknowledge that Miles is Spider-Man for ONE VERY SPECIFIC REASON THAT YOU CAN EASILY GUESS BUT I'LL NEVER SAY OUT LOUD" types of folks. E: Hell, every incarnation of JJ probably is that type of person 
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Jun 6, 2023 01:17
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nine-gear crow posted:E: Hell, every incarnation of JJ probably is that type of person No way! Some J.Js are men of real integrity, like in the Raimi movie when Green Goblin threatens him to reveal who Spider-Man's photographer is, and he refuses to give him up. Same thing happens in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon. He's a good dude. Also, this. 
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Jun 6, 2023 03:07
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That shows a lot of why I love JJJ - for all his borderline cartoonish a$$holishness at times. At heart he's a good (admittedly insanely grumpy) old man that has the bcak of (most of the) people who worked ofr him at the Bugle.
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Jun 6, 2023 04:02
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SoundwaveAU posted:No way! Some J.Js are men of real integrity, like in the Raimi movie when Green Goblin threatens him to reveal who Spider-Man's photographer is, and he refuses to give him up. Same thing happens in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon. He's a good dude. the best iterations of JJ are self-centered, petty assholes, with exactly one redeeming virtue: he has worked long and hard to get himself into a position where he can tell people more powerful than him to gently caress off, and he relishes the opportunity to do so. working for the man is hell. and probably not worth it. but does come with the certainty that if a politician, a supervillain, or worst of all, a rival news outlet has you in its sights, JJ will drop everything in the name of making them regret it. because gently caress you.
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Jun 6, 2023 04:04
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wedgekree posted:That shows a lot of why I love JJJ - for all his borderline cartoonish a$$holishness at times. At heart he's a good (admittedly insanely grumpy) old man that has the bcak of (most of the) people who worked ofr him at the Bugle. My favorite takes on Jameson are the versions where he finds out Peter is Spider-Man for whatever reason and then just continues to treat Peter no better or worse than he usually does as a person. They're so incredibly rare, and of course thanks to Marvel's continual Spider-Man continuity resets, are usually often always erased anyway.
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Jun 6, 2023 05:53
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Man, I remember this game dropping and my dad being excited as hell, the original Starcraft was never my jam, warcraft 3 is when I really caught the rts bug, but that cinematic made us both incredibly excited for the game. Now I can't bring myself to support any blizz games at all. Tychus kicks rear end and the way his personality bounces off of the other characters feels great, it's part of why I played him so much in Heroes of the Storm.
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Jun 7, 2023 02:39
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Original Starcraft and Warcraft 3 was when I played most of my RTS games. Not so much the campaigns, mind you, I was kind of eh on those, and cheated my way through the latter third or so of Starcraft because it didn't really excite me much, but the UMS maps on Battle.Net had me loving addicted. For Starcraft it was wild what motivated designers could force the engine to do, and then Warcraft 3 just took it to a whole other level as a lot of those jury-rigs suddenly became baked-in and allowed for fresh levels of insanity.
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Jun 7, 2023 10:08
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PurpleXVI posted:Original Starcraft and Warcraft 3 was when I played most of my RTS games. Shoutout to the DBZ map that covered everything from the Saiyan saga to Buu. Also shoutout to Mass Attack maps.
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Jun 7, 2023 11:10
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I don't understand why use Mar Sara. I mean, anybody who remembered it also (probably) recalled it was nuked from orbit. Ain't getting nostalgia points from a blunt retcon, y'know?quote:Mengsk can only control you if you let him quote:they're digging aliens artifacts
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Jun 7, 2023 15:39
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Gun Jam posted:Do unexploded Protoss bombs from five years ago count as artifacts? Please, the Protoss don't use anything so primitive as bombs.
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Jun 8, 2023 11:23
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Mar Sara 3: Zero Hour   Another set of things to look at before our next mission, but note the credit count in the top right. After this mission, we'll be able to spend our hard earned money. >Talk to Tychus.    Moebius? They're a legitimate research group. Why the hell are they talkin' to you? Soon as yer boy Mengsk made it illegal to trade in alien goods, they got desperate. And you know me, Jimmy -I am a great patron of the sciences.>Examine badge.  He was countin' on it. Guess my 'tough guy' reputation kept things nice and quiet 'round here. All the time I wore that badge, I never had to shoot anybody. Well where's the fun in that?>Watch news.      Anyone found in possession of these items will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. Look on the bright side, partner; you're a wanted man either way. Thanks, Tychus.  Actually, the only civilian deaths appear to be collateral damage from overzealous Dominion Security Forc- >Examine skull.  All the scrapes we were in back in the day, all the narrow escapes... ...none of it compares to how terrible they are, Tychus. You don't know what real fear is 'till you've got a thousand of these sons of bitches barreling down on ya'.>Examine hunt photo.  It's been four years, and they're still finding burrowed dens out in the wastelands. Well, a trophy like that's gotta' fetch a good price on the black market. Up for some huntin', partner? Knock yourself out, Tychus. Me, I've hunted enough zerg for two lifetimes.Turns out the Protoss are bad at actually cleansing a planet of zerg, if there's enough survivors for there to be an annual hunting contest. >Examine freedom poster.  You really mean that, Tychus? Nah. I was just kiddin'.Also, if you look to the left, you can actually see a small thank you card made by a kid. >Start mission. Video: Zero Hour   Caution is advised - Dominion security forces may succeed in tracking the artifact to the station.Our last mission on Mar Sara is the most time-honored of RTS traditions: a timed defense mission.    Haha, japed! You thought it was a timed defense mission against terran but it was actually against zerg instead! Just like Terran 03 in SC1!    The zerg are already starting on a base, and is that... a portapotty in the back there? I sure hope no one is using it, but you gotta admit-  If it is occupied, having a swarm of zerg drop down 50 feet away from you must be the galaxy's best cure for constipation.  We're gonna have a real fight on our hands here.    We start with a decent base already built up and some resources to start us out.  The two bridges to enter the base both have one Bunker and 8 Marines on hand. Bunkers still have their innate +1 range to loaded units from SC1, and keeping a pack of four Marines safe from harm is still as good as ever.  We're also on a 20 minute timer before the mission ends. I put a squad of Marines in each Bunker, then move the excess to the far side of it. That way, the majority of damage will be on the chunky Bunker rather than letting my exposed Marines take damage.  And while the mission briefing didn't mention it, we also unlocked the good old Missile Turret.  And the Engineering Bay. Weapon and Armor upgrades are the only thing you have to research in every mission. This early on, we're limited to 1/1 which cost 100/100 each. Strangely, while all the production buildings keep the terran gimmick of being able to fly, the Bay loses it and is permanently grounded.  I send an SCV to each side to build a second Bunker. Once they're done, they'll stick around for repairs.  Shortly after, the camera is forced over to the western bridge.  A swarm of Zerglings are coming for us, but a few will take their time to destroy those neutral buildings.  They may start with 1 armor, but 8 Marines is more than enough to shred the Zerglings before they can do any serious damage.   The bonus for this mission is to save three sets of units that'll pop up at set times. They'll eventually get swarmed and die if you do nothing, but you have several minutes before that happens.  We just got attacked, so there should be enough time to go grab the first pack.  Of course, the zerg still love their burrow ambushes.  I lost two Marines making my way over.  But get five more and a free pair of caches as a reward.  Gas isn't particularly useful this early in the mission, so I only make a refinery now. The starting gas plus the cache is enough to get 1/1, and there's not much of a need for medics when the majority of combat is happening in Bunkers.  By multiple air bogeys, Tychus meant like four mutas.  Being in range of both my Missile Turrets, one Bunker, and my spare Marines means they don't survive.  I get add-ons for both my Barracks, and Zero Hour introduces the second add-on: the Reactor. The Reactor is opposite of the Tech Lab. It allows you to make units two at a time, but doesn't enable higher tech units, making you choose between quality and quantity. Right now it doesn't matter, as my only Tech Lab unit is the Medic and those don't need to be pumped out en masse.  The later groups we need to rescue will take more bodies to save, so I start building up an actual army. If you look at the minimap, you can see the zerg swarming in from the north, and the Creep starting to cover the northern edges of the map. Creep in SC2 got a bit of a buff, with non-worker zerg units getting a movement speed boost while on it. This makes a push on a zerg base more dangerous, as it takes a group of Zerglings even less time to cross the gap and start attacking.  With two Bunkers and SCVs covering on each side, the low ground is safe.  Reactor'd buildings get a tweaked queue design, and have their production cap doubled to 10 to match.  I wait a bit longer for the west side to get hit.  Then empty my Bunkers on that side and push up. There'll be more than enough time to move up, grab the second group, and head back before another attack wave hits.  Three Marines, a Medic, and another set of caches.  Attack waves are starting to get a lot more intimidating.  They also add in a new unit in front of the Hydralisk, the Roach. Roaches are significantly tankier than Hydras, but have much lower DPS and can only hit ground to compensate.  As a defense mission at the start of the game, Zero Hour has a lot of downtime. I just keep making more units.  Jimmy chimes in at the 10 minute mark.  And the final rebel group spawns in one minute later.  I grab my army and move up the west side like last time, but things already look worse. Those glowing purple things are Creep Tumors, which take the place of the old Creep Colony as a way to spread Creep. The big thing with a tentacle on top is a Spine Crawler, which replaces the Sunken Colony.  At 25 damage (+5 vs Armored) they can kill a Marine in two shots, but they're infinitely less cool than the Sunken Colony so they're automatically poo poo.  Five Marines, a Medic, and more caches. Now, I could pull back to my base right now...  But I made this army for a reason.  I start pushing into the northwest base. That big thing near the Hydras is a Nydus Worm. In player hands, it acts as a better version of the Nydus Canal. In campaigns, they're used as a way for enemies to spawn in limitless reinforcements without cheating and spawning them directly. The massive waves of Zerglings we've been seeing have been coming from Worms.  They really don't want you breaching this base.  But with 40 Marines and two Barracks constantly sending in more, they don't get a say in the matter.  If you've paid attention, you may have noticed that this is the same place shown in the mission intro, with the portapotty just past it.  Standing in front of it is a Tauren Space Marine, a nod to Blizzard's own Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain band.  Approaching him has him duck into the outhouse.  Clicking on it has it wiggle and start a countdown.  *click*  *click*  Clicking on the outhouse three time makes it uh...  Uh...  I'm sure that's the last we'll be seeing of the Tauren Marine and his rocket outhouse.  While we were gone, the zerg have been airdropping Creep Tumors behind our Bunkers. If you've been watching the minimap, you can actually see exactly when they landed!  Since we're now basically done, I can do what I wanted to do this entire time and abandon the low ground.  This also lets me show off a new ability of the Bunker. At any moment I can Salvage it, refunding me the full cost of the Bunker and letting me relocate elsewhere.  Tychus is set to say this line the moment any zerg manages to get too far into the base, regardless of whether or not I'm letting it happen on purpose.  And now I just wall off the top with Bunkers.  With 7 Bunkers firing at once, I flat out can't lose at this point. To make it even better, SC2 changed how high ground vision worked. While SC1 would allow low ground units to fire on a high ground attacker at a sharp accuracy loss, a low ground unit in SC2 physically cannot shoot over without some kind of unit granting vision, either a fellow low ground unit making it up a ramp or a flier. This means that unless there's a Zergling hugging my Bunkers, Hydras and Roaches can't chip away at my Bunkers.  Zero Hour actually loving sucks as a mission, gameplay-wise, because all that stuff you saw me do? Totally optional. There's absolutely nothing stopping me from just making a Bunker wall before the 5 minute mark and letting the rebel groups die, at which point you just snooze for the remaining 15 minutes. Design-wise it's cool as hell, watching the map slowly get overrun by Creep as night begins to fall and wave after wave of Zerg throw themselves at you, but it's just such a nothingburger of a mission. Hell, at least Terran 03 introduced Vultures and the Factory for you to play around with while you waited!  For the last three minutes, the zerg will start tossing drop pods directly into your base, which will hold either a Creep Tumor or a small batch of Zerglings.  For the last two minutes, the zerg will start an endless trickle of units that'll hit your Bunker wall and die. Even if you manage to clear out every single zerg base, they'd just start spamming Nydus Worms to try and get them through.  The only thing of note is that Spine Crawlers outrange Marines, meaning this Bunker keeps getting smacked every time it gets vision.  Take your time, Matt. No rush!There's one last notice at the one minute mark, and the lighting also starts to change to day time.  And done.  Battlecruisers in SC2 got-  -A fair bit of a glow up. Gone are the painfully slow cannon shots, now they spam lasers everywhere.   Good to see ya, Matt! Welcome to the party. Glad we made it in time, sir. Now let's get you boys outta there.  A Strong Offense - Destroy 8 Zerg Hatcheries in the "Zero Hour" mission on Normal difficulty. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Jun 10, 2023 04:21
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Is it possible to clear the whole map before the end? The computer will eventually cheat in units anyway, but can you clear the rest of it, and keep it clear?
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Jun 10, 2023 05:49
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I'm not all that fond of the defense missions in 2, and they overuse them enough that even the secondary gimmicks tend to get repeated eventually. I like the siege tank one, but the others tend to be blah or bad. It's a weak point in what is generally fairly solid mission design. I noticed a couple bits of interesting foreshadowing in the news ticker tape, I hadn't seen that previously. There's a few good jokes there throughout the game that you normally wouldn't notice. Blizzard put a surprising amount of effort into the strangest places.
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Jun 10, 2023 05:50
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