Heart of the Swarm (followup)

Now I mentioned back in my first post that I was a huge fan of Heart of the Swarm correct? Of course I did, rhetorical question. And I mentioned that I had already prepared to buy it. Well I have been planning this little follow-up for a little bit, but wanted to wait until I had played some matches online so as to experience the full game. So now with all of my new knowledge I would like to start by saying that not all of the problems I thought it would have were there.

The story was awesome

Now the biggest thing that I was worried about was the storyline, as Heart is the middle entry in a series, and it has to find a way to turn a villain into a hero, while setting up a new villain and bringing closure to two character's stories. Heart does this surprisingly well, Kerrigan goes from being a restored human back to being a zerg of her own choice, but more importantly is that the games new villain, while unseen, is still interesting. 

The new villain is the Xel'Naga, or rather a Xel'Naga named Amon, who the game actually does a pretty good job of introducing, giving a backstory and motivation, and making him sound like a real badass dude. It managed an even more impressive version of Wings story by giving Kerrigan an arc, but also expanding the mythos and everything else.

Great supporting cast

One thing that elevated Wings of Liberty was its cast. The characters were interesting and relatable, yeah sure they weren't exactly perfect, some arcs ended too early, but overall it was pretty good. The interesting thing about many of the supporting cast was how they played off of Raynor, the hero from Wings. Tosh, a rogue ghost/specter, considered him and Raynor to be very similar because of how many people that they had killed in order to achieve their goals. And this clashed with Matt Horner, Raynor's second in command, who was a standup guy who was very selfless and believed in Raynor, even when he was motivated solely by revenge. 

Since Heart focuses on the Zerg, who we've seen to be very simple-minded, you'd think that the supporting cast would suffer because of it, which is certainly how things look for the first half. The new version of the Adjutant is stupid, the new version of Swann is basically a less annoying fairy from Skyward Sword, and the guy that you pick up on Zerus has a really irritating voice. 

But the two that I really like were Zegara and Alexei. Alexei was actually a character from Brood Wars, he was the head of the Earth Defense Force. Here he's been turned into a Zerg, and enlists Kerrigan's help in shutting down Mengsk. This is mostly because I like Brood Wars and always dig phony accents, but Alexei was really fun. Zegara actually serves as the emotional heart of the story after Kerrigans initial arc is complete. I won't say anymore for fear of spoilers, but she's my new favorite character in the universe of Starcraft. 

But just because I liked some stuff, didn't negate the parts that don't work, and there are quite a few things that annoy me about the new units and additions to the story.

New unit balance issues

First one major thing has been altered that I do like, changing Reapers into non-tech units without an anti-building bonus. Aside from that, all of the new multiplayer units irritate me, either because they are too good, or because they suck. First of all, the really boring guys...

Hellbat, Viper = suck 

The Hellbat is just boring.

The Viper can't attack air units. It can in story mode, but not in multiplayer. Dumb.

Swarm Host, and Oracle are way too good.

At first when I played with the Swarm Host in single-player I thought that they sucked. They are basically a bad Lurker. But in multiplayer they are amazingly good, and because of their range they can basically take out an entire non-Siege tank defended base without having to adjust themselves more than once.

I mentioned that Oracles were probably too good, well as it turns out I was correct. It takes them 2 shots to kill 1 probe, and can reduce a group of 27 probes to 11 before you get your Stalkers over there to defend your minerals.

Conclusion

The game is really good, but the multiplayer element needs a bit of balancing. The range of the Swarm Hosts could use some reducing, or at least program marines, after killing the locusts that were spawned, to try and take down the Swarm Hosts, even if they aren't in visible range. The Oracle is far too strong, especially combined with the fact that it flies, if the damage is reduced to... 4 shots to down one probe then I'll consider it balanced.