Starcraft II was one of the most anticipated sequels to one of the most memorable RTS games of all time. Starcraft II Wings of Liberty was a great start to the new trilogy and that start was built on in the later sequel Heart of the Swarm. Legacy of the Void is the finale of the story that started with the original Starcraft game and after having experienced the ending I can say is quite satisfying.
I'll start off with one of the biggest flaws of the game in that I never really connected with the Protoss. The Protoss are an interesting faction but I've never been drawn to them because they seem so stoic, grandiose and entirely unrelatable. Protoss are like a race of people that love the boringly epic speeches. They can belt it out, make you believe solidly for a few minutes but hearing that all the time is like making a game of political speeches. At one point Alarak, a member of the evil Protoss faction joins the story and it's a nice alternative to the sweepingly epic good nature of Artanis but his character is just an evil alternate. It's an interesting alternative but the game lacks any middle ground or grey area that Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm created. That said, Alarak is voiced by the amazing John de Lancie and his vocal stylings are on display and quite incredible.
The story is solid, but for me it never hit the amazing heights of Heart of the Swarm. Legacy of the Void is a sweeping epic but nothing wowed me like some of my most favorite parts of Heart of the Swarm. I am a die hard Zerg player so I imagine that bias paints much of my opinion here. Legacy of the Voids missions bring you into the game and slowly ramp up over time and everything is very well tuned for a smooth experience. The experience is smooth but it wasn't too hard either. The last couple missions add more difficulty and they took me a couple tries to beat but them but in the end the game doesn't offer a ton of difficulty on the normal settings. You can increase the difficulty and in a future playthrough I may do this. Don't misunderstand me, the normal setting is lots of fun but if you "get Starcraft" nothing should offer much challenge save the last few levels.
Like like Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm you get a full set of Protoss focused missions and a conclusion. Because Starcraft 2 focuses on the Terran, Zerg and Protoss they included a extra set of three prolog missions that bring back the three main characters and factions for a nice trilogy wrap up. I was expecting Blizzard to leave the series wide open for more games but they wrapped it up so nicely I am not sure where they are going next?
Starcraft II is an epic RTS space trilogy that is solid throughout. Since i've already come back to replay Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm I plan on doing the same to Legacy of the Void. I also want to play all of the Starcraft II games back to back to see how well they flow together as a cohesive story. Blizzard is continuing the Starcraft-verse with Nova Covert OPS DLC mission packs and I plan on picking those up and playing them next year. It's nice to see the game live on and if the continuing missions are as good as Legacy of the Void we should be in for a good time.
I'll start off with one of the biggest flaws of the game in that I never really connected with the Protoss. The Protoss are an interesting faction but I've never been drawn to them because they seem so stoic, grandiose and entirely unrelatable. Protoss are like a race of people that love the boringly epic speeches. They can belt it out, make you believe solidly for a few minutes but hearing that all the time is like making a game of political speeches. At one point Alarak, a member of the evil Protoss faction joins the story and it's a nice alternative to the sweepingly epic good nature of Artanis but his character is just an evil alternate. It's an interesting alternative but the game lacks any middle ground or grey area that Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm created. That said, Alarak is voiced by the amazing John de Lancie and his vocal stylings are on display and quite incredible.
The story is solid, but for me it never hit the amazing heights of Heart of the Swarm. Legacy of the Void is a sweeping epic but nothing wowed me like some of my most favorite parts of Heart of the Swarm. I am a die hard Zerg player so I imagine that bias paints much of my opinion here. Legacy of the Voids missions bring you into the game and slowly ramp up over time and everything is very well tuned for a smooth experience. The experience is smooth but it wasn't too hard either. The last couple missions add more difficulty and they took me a couple tries to beat but them but in the end the game doesn't offer a ton of difficulty on the normal settings. You can increase the difficulty and in a future playthrough I may do this. Don't misunderstand me, the normal setting is lots of fun but if you "get Starcraft" nothing should offer much challenge save the last few levels.
Like like Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm you get a full set of Protoss focused missions and a conclusion. Because Starcraft 2 focuses on the Terran, Zerg and Protoss they included a extra set of three prolog missions that bring back the three main characters and factions for a nice trilogy wrap up. I was expecting Blizzard to leave the series wide open for more games but they wrapped it up so nicely I am not sure where they are going next?
Starcraft II is an epic RTS space trilogy that is solid throughout. Since i've already come back to replay Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm I plan on doing the same to Legacy of the Void. I also want to play all of the Starcraft II games back to back to see how well they flow together as a cohesive story. Blizzard is continuing the Starcraft-verse with Nova Covert OPS DLC mission packs and I plan on picking those up and playing them next year. It's nice to see the game live on and if the continuing missions are as good as Legacy of the Void we should be in for a good time.
John de Lancie!!! I can't wait to hear that one!
I think in the end, I'm more of a Terran player. I like the Siege Tanks and the Battle Cruiser. I also LOVE being able to call down a nuke strike with Ghosts!!
I only slightly disagree with you here regarding difficulty. I've found LotV to be a challenge, even on Normal difficulty. Maybe it's because it's been a while since I've played any StarCraft. I've actually looked up some help on most of the missions.
Also, I'm having a video issue. It's hard to explain. I just finished helping Raynor and got the...what's it called again? Crystal? Rune? Something like that. When I freed the big ship and was able to select which planet to visit, I went for Korhal. So, I just finished those two missions. I went back to the Bridge because it said a conversation was available and Artanis was talking to a Terran, but because of a video glitch, I couldn't see his face. Something similar occurred before and I think it had to do with a shadow.
Also, take a look at the picture below. The panel on my Blizzard.net looks funky after I play the game.
http://i.imgur.com/goT9vR1.png
Yeah, have you checked out updating your video drivers? Beyond that i'd look at the Blizzard tech support site, i've never seen that personally.
My drivers are up-to-date as of 12/21 at about 8am. But, yeah, you're right. I'm not sure how to get a screen shot in-game, which would be helpful to show Blizzard tech support. I could probably find out though. I do wish the game had an in-game browser like Steam, though.
I finished LoTV a month or so ago and I thought I'd share my experience with you, sorry this is so late. I'll be completely honest with you, I found it to be a bit challenging, perhaps a little too much for my taste. I know I could have turned down the difficulty, but I didn't. I was hoping to get those Normal Difficulty achievements, although what I'm about to tell you contradicts that. There are a few of missions that I decided to cheat on. That would be the last one in the main quest line and then two of the missions in the epilogue. By the time I reached those missions that I cheated on, I was ready for it to be over. I'm not saying it was horrible, but the difficulty was frustrating and I wasn't enjoying it very much. Two of those missions were VERY difficult. The last one in the epilogue with the Zerg, I decided "f" it, I didn't feel like continuing with the challenge.
It took a little while for me to get used to playing SC2 again and with the Protoss, but I managed to get through most of the missions on Normal difficulty without cheating. I often made as many peons (those things that mine minerals) as I could, that was helpful. I often used the ship's ability to harvest vespene gas for me. I enjoyed some of the other abilities with it, too. I did enjoy some of the units, in fact I think I really liked many of them a lot.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share with you my progress on the game. Like I said, I'm sure it's been a month or more since I finished it.
I totally agree Greg, those missions were really hard and required me to play them a couple times to actually beat them!
Thanks for sharing. What did you think of the trilogy wrap up and such? Are you getting the new Ghost missions? I still need to pre-order those.
Well, that one character died in the beginning, that was unexpected. It'd be a spoiler to reveal his name, I think I remember it. I liked the John de Lancie voice over, that was cool. I liked how pretty much all the factions needed to come together. Ok, that's a bit of a spoiler. LOL. I liked the ending, I think. I liked that the two Terrans were reunited, one, it seems, was granted salvation.
I pre-ordered the new Ghost missions about the time I started playing LotV. I'm hoping they'll be more fun, kind of like when you control certain named powerful characters. I'm not sure if I recall any of those missions in WoL, but I believe there were some in HotS. There was at least a mission or two where you did that in LotV. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
SPOILER ALERT GREG!!!!
I liked the ending too. I felt it was pretty solid and a nice way to wrap things up, which I didn't expect I am sort of used to bittersweet endings and this one was actually really satisfying. Again, so much so I wonder what's next? Everything seems fixed. But there are Taldarim, maybe they will be the new bad?