The campaigns actually had two difficulties. The first, for average players, and the second, for players that bring up the chat window and type "power overwhelming".
I wouldn't ever use power overwhelming before I learned how to do the SC1 campaigns without cheats. I would just use "show me the money" since I didn't want to just romp through the mission without losing anything.
Hello! I am David from the interview. I would like to apologize for the beginning portion of the interview. I was a little nervous and excited to talk about one of my favorite games. I went into the interview completely blind. I didn't know what questions would be asked of me, save for a few general ideas. This was not the entire interview. The entire interview lasted for close to half an hour. This caused me to stumble over my words. However, I do think that I recovered and did pretty well for the second half. If you have any questions, comments, or criticisms, I would love to hear them. Thank you. Lastly, I want to thank Mr. Gervais for having me and for talking about a game that I love.
+SteelerFan716 I think you did well! What shined through was how much you Love the game. That for someone like me who's never played this game (and frankly am a little intimidated by it) really peaks my interest. I say your enthusiasm for the game was a good note to end the video on.
Something no one seems to talk about with Blizzard games is the box art. Every memory I have of going to Wal Mart, Target, or Best Buy as a kid includes the Starcraft box and the enormous 3 box bundle of Diablo games. I genuinely think its a big part of those games' enduring popularity, the embossed faces and giant text were impossible to ignore. It might also be because not a lot of PC games had as much mainstream appeal, and PC games came in those gigantic boxes so they'd always catch your eye in the electronics aisle.
The star craft one treasure box chest is literally the greatest PC game box ever made. It’s huge it’s ridiculous for no reason but to be ridiculous. It comes with full strategy guides for both star and brood war. It’s amazing
The first Starcraft didn't have difficulty options but it did allow you to change the game speed. I was able to beat the harder missions by setting the game to a slower speed so I could micro better.
In regards to the revelations about the Zerg and Kerrigan; Metzen has a redemption fetish. He has used "villain gains redemption" as a plot twist in damn near every thing he's ever done. WoW does it multiple times!
Too bad the one character that could have used it, Arthas Menethil, didn't get such an arc. As for Kerrigan, there was no inkling of coercion on Kerrigan during Brood War, so all those betrayals and murders that she performed in that game were for real and were done with free will. What they should have done to make her redemption plausible is take a page out of KOTOR: have it so that after being de-infested, Kerrigan is still her evil self, and she tells Raynor and Zeratul to finish her, but have Zeratul or some Protoss (Dark Templar already have mind control powers via Dark Archons) erase Kerrigan's memories of everything after Mengsk abandoned her on Tarsonis. Basically, she reverts back to the good person that she was in Rebel Yell, that way Raynor can just pick her up and her being a good guy would be plausible. Then she learns of all the evil she did under the Zerg's influence, and she is horrified. But Zeratul and Valerian want her to command the Zerg for more noble purposes to make up for her past crimes. Then it will be a repast of the Darth Revan storyline: a former villain taken out of power, who comes to terms with their previous actions and who redeems themselves through defeating an evil that had some personal connection to them. Also, Narud should have been the main bad guy, not Mengsk. Mengsk should have either been A) taken down by Raynor's Raiders after the Media Blitz destroyed his political credibility and Valerian made him look like a wuss by defeating Kerrigan, or B) puppeted by Narud since the end of Brood War, which would explain his irrational actions all throughout Starcraft 2. Then Kerrigan would face the choice of sparing Mengsk to learn what he knows about the Protoss-Zerg Hybrids, or killing him, and that would be a true moral dilemma. On the one hand, this man knows everything you need to know about hybrid production and where all the sites are where they're being made, since he worked with Narud. On the other hand, Kerrigan blames him for his betrayal and her becoming a murderous Zerg abomination. Of course, they spare Mengsk so that Kerrigan, Artanis, and Zeratul can use what he knows about the Hybrids to put them down as a threat once and for all, and Kerrigan forsaking vengeance for the sake of the greater good akin to a Jedi like Luke Skywalker shows how much she's changed since Brood War, where she was a power-hungry psychopath in the same vein as Littlefinger and Emperor Palpatine.
It's interesting to me that you embrace the cheesy presentation of SC2 so much. While they deliver the cheesy dialogue and characterization with plenty of zest, I did feel somewhat let down by comparison to the more subtle approach to dialogue/voice acting found in SC1. Perhaps it was merely a result of the conversations being so LONG in SC/BW (dialogue was the ONLY means of advancing the plot, after all) but the people felt more genuine, and as a result, so did the friendships, hatreds, tenuous alliances, and countless betrayals. In SC2, the Korprulu denizens I had come to love were reduced to caricatures of themselves. Zeratul in particular is a nonstop fount of cryptic, hyperbolic, mystical goobledygook that seems as though it was written more to sound good in a trailer than actually function in conversation. As you point out, it's pretty self-aware, and both styles work after a fashion in isolation, but there's some dissonance for me when making the transition from 90s StarCraft to 2010s StarCraft. Anywho, I'm loving your channel. Keep it up!
Yeah SC2 is let down by its presentation far more often than it works, especially because the actual plot is limited to about 6-10 missions per game with the rest being obvious filler.
I've played this game for like a million hours and I still watched the whole video. it's that good. you have a clear voice and speak articulately, and there's something about that old footage of you trying to move marines to build a bunker that just tugs on my nostalgia flaps
I remember getting Starcraft in the clearance section at walmart. I think I was about 7 when I got it, though. So all the story went right over my head. So I couldn't tell you a single event that happened in the game... but it was fun!
I would come home late on weekends at college to see my roomie and his friend going at it with Starcraft. Roomie would play Terran usually, but would get too turtled. His friend...Dude would play Protoss like Zerg...was insane to watch. He'd usually win. Best thing ever was the sound of the ding when you make a carrier and it was under 2 minutes in the game still, roomie was like "Nuuuuuuu IMPOSSIBLE!" Good times.
Yeah, seeing the way GSC with STALKER morphs into 4A and Metro 2033 would be fascinating, I feel there's a great interesting story there (completely aside from the fact that I love these games)
Heart of the Swarm was my least favorite because of Kerrigan's character arc, which I found to be extremely weak. There are a number of missions where she commits the atrocities you've come to expect from the Queen of Blades -- such as massacring an entire Protoss expedition because they're in the way and then captures and tortures one of the survivors for information -- then spends the next dialogue sequence mewling about how "I had no choice" and "It's not my fault". They're trying to tell a very Vampire-esque story of someone torn between the power of their monstrous nature and the remains of their humanity, but don't put her in any situations where that dilemma is challenged. At almost every turn she could make different choices that would result in less gratuitous destruction and smack down her advisors to maintain her authority the way she always does should they question her. Her character comes off as childish, unwilling to take responsibility for her actions and deflecting it onto anyone she can, rather than the self-confident "Queen Bitch of the Universe" who, while completely evil and not particularly complex, was far more respectable as a character and a villain.
Agreed. A character like Kerrigan only works if she's either completely redeemed or if she is completely ruthless. It would have been much more impactful if she had turned completely back into her "Queen Bitch of the Universe" mode to exact revenge against Mensgk only for her to find out Raynor is still alive and then she has to deal with the repercussions of what she did and _actually_ change and redeem herself to get him to trust her again. As it is, she doesn't _really_ change that much except for basically shrugging and saying "eh, collateral damage" every time she commits an atrocity. It would mean a lot more if after Raynor's rescue and confrontation, she _actually_ starts stopping and considering the death and destruction she's causing and changing her decisions accordingly. It would be interesting if, say, after she decided to not be so destructive you start getting a counter and you get penalized for killing excessively or killing bystanders or something. Do _something_ to integrate this change into the gameplay. There's plenty of ways that having restrictions like this could create really interesting gameplay challenges. Another way to show this cha he would be to have a mission where Kerrigan shows up to save a Dominion colony from some disaster or maybe even Mensgk himself, and so the challenge is that you have to get to that base to rescue the Terrans, but of course they're attacking you while you do. So you need to attempt to take down their defense systems without killing anyone so you can come in and pick up the (extremely unsettled) settlers. There are a ton of ways you could play with this concept.
You make interesting points. I was somewhat more positive on the story, but I see what you're saying. I think I liked it partly because I was sick of Blizzard stories where things can seemingly only ever get worse. For example (Spoilers below): WC2: Hooray, you closed the Dark Portal. Wait, no, you just destroyed the building - the portal is still there. Diablo: Hooray, you beat Diablo. Oops, he survived and possessed you. SC1: You destroyed the Overmind. Uh oh, the Zerg went berserk and are even more dangerous. (Something they would repeat with the Lich King at the end of WotLK.)
No. Brood war is hard. It's not impossible, i've beaten it. But missions like Z8 and T5 (a or b) made me want to blow my brains out. I beat them but I was utterly determined to beat it. Unless you're really good at the game you're not going to casually beat Z8.
The campaigns in SC1 actually does have a difficulty select of sorts: changing the game speed. All this does is give you more time to consider action and makes playing the game a bit easier
I loved StarCraft 1 for the online fan made maps. Playing through the various “Defense” games and random RPG style maps, cat and mouse games, mazes, and whatever else people could come up with were always a lot of fun even if I was terrible at the multiplayer battles.
That comment right there, from your friend near the end of the video, about SC II being stressful is the main reason I stopped playing. I started in high school, but even then I realized the amount of time I had to invest to just be good at the game was by far greater than the fun I was having. And that's coming from a lowly silver! I was watching streams, perfecting my timings, but I realized I wasn't having fun, only stress.
I've often wondered about Noah's perspective on Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, since they seem very impactful influences on Warcraft and Starcraft respectively.
As a hardcore starcraft 2 player and fan, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the video and appreciate your effort for making such a well rounded case and review of the game. However, I think the last 5 minutes where the multiplayer aspect of the game is discussed fails in correctly assesing the last SC2 expansion, Legacy Of The Void. I was a top master/low grandmaster player in the EU server (between the top 400-200 players in Europe) for a few years and I cannot agree less with your friend. I think Starcraft is a game that you enjoy and understand the more and better you get, so I do believe that most pros play this game because they find a personal kind of satisfaction and fulfillment that is very rare to explain. It´s one of those feelings you have to live to comprehend. Secondly, and most importantly, your friend´s opinion on there being more micro and similarities with Brood War I must say is not true at all (and I can understand his view as he is a casual player that does not delve into all the strategy and tactics this game offers). The game´s depth and variety has waned considerably due to a set of changes (ie. faster economy, more focus on worker harassment) that have radically shrinked a player´s ability to win based on strategic options and efficient moves. This was seen as showing the middle finger to many of the Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm fans like me that were for many months of Beta testing watching how our already declining in popularity game was being rapidly deteriorated by Blizzard´s multiplayer design team, who instead of listening to reasonable complaints by the professionals and casuals alike decided to keep going along with their flawed view on how the game should be changed. Long story short, the game is now at its worst state, with viewership and playerbase (and the number of progamers) heavily, heavily declining due to the implemented changes that proved to be more of a liability than an asset to the game. While it is true that Starcraft 2 will have its own niche and will most likely not fully disappear, it is for me the living example of what a videogame company and design team that wants to create a healthy E-sports title should not do. Having finished this, I cannot thank you enough for making this video. I´m subscribing.
I don't know if you got a new mic or changed your sound mixing or something, but the audio in this video is a huge improvement. It sounds freaking great!
+Stephen Rubio Both of those, I got a microphone from my girlfriend for Christmas, but wasn't able to use it until I got a power booster for it. I used it in the Game Natures video, but without any mic boost, and it turned out too quiet. I think I figured it out this video.
+Noah Caldwell-Gervais Good work, and thanks for the boost. I liked the nature vid, but even on max volume, you were insanely quiet. Ah well... Keep up the good work! (if I may suggest a topic for an episode, would you cover and examine the cultural differences in games that make them unique? Like Metro 2033 or Witcher.)
+Noah Caldwell-Gervais i love the imperfect takes and low tech aspect as it helps focusing on the content and really sets your universe appart rom that of other youtubers.
As someone who prefers Brood War and high APM play, I think you did a great job explaining the appeal of Brood War, even though you don't personally like the game as much. Great work and a very professional video!
I personally love the way Blizzard ended the cycle in LotV. Because at the end we don't really know if Raynor really got happy with Kerrigan or if that was an allucination of his inner self. In the film Romeo is Bleeding (Gary Oldman) we see something similar at the end, but we know the character of Gary Oldman got mad.
This was an incredibly impressive video, both in its impressively coherent long-form writing and in its depth as it dives into the subject matter. Hats off to you.
I mostly like the story, but I was disappointed Kerrigan remained so fixated on Mengsk through Heart of the Swarm. By this point it's clear that there are bigger fish to fry - SC1 made it clear that Mengsk was a footnote in the epic conflict between Zerg and Protoss. Brood War built on that by having the UED clobber Mengsk and teasing the true threat through Duran. And WoL had put a large focus on fighting Mengsk as well. I have to imagine most players were well and truly ready to move on to Amon.
Fellow terrible starcraft player here, I love hotkeys. I always hate the idea of wasting time issues orders when I could be saving convenience and just plain kicking more ass. While I am definitely gifted in the memory/fast learning department, I think most the hot keys make sense and aren't too hard to memorize, being relatively few in number. I've always found something empowering about "just push keys instead" and gaining that great leap in power. EDIT: I think I'd sharply disagree about the position of heart of the swarm. To me WoL stood out better as a stronger narrative and cinematic experience. HoTS was still by many means excellent, but it relied on characters (with the exception of Kerrigan) who had already had their depth and intricacies spelled out. All the characters you met in HOTS seemed to very often be driven almost entirely by function and extremely little through personality, if only because of their alien and aggressive nature. The exception to this is actually only Abathur. While he is still a pretty flat characters in history and motivations, he feels like a genuine artisan, and he has some brilliant philosophy that's stayed with me with how simple yet how true it is. I know there's always that one bit about "Perfection moving target. Cannot catch. Only chase.", which as a perfectionist I resonate with heavily. That being said, along with the mechanical and rigid characters that lacked relatability, something as simple as the way it hinted at research and objectives that just felt EXTREMELY anti 4th wall to me. "Quillgore biomass" is a joke I make sometimes to reference annoying, blatant objectives being shoved into your face. To me, wings of liberty and "getting samples for Steton's research" was completely logical and highly conducive to the 4th wall. HOTS was not so nice. HOTS did a great job with the zerg origin story though and I genuinely enjoyed a coupled of the things I saw. Roaches (AK47's with feet, as I often compare them to) I god damn love period. So getting to see a roach subspecies that went feral and bonded with microorganism symbiotically, gaining new powers? Cool as fucking hell. Watching primal zerg instantly just copy all the work, research, and refinement of the hivemind zerg swarm? Hilarious, but believably functional. And while I admit there are cheesy moments and aspects to WOL, from Tychus pushing "this big button with a skull on it" to all sorts of small shenanigans to backstories about marauder pilots in the armory, I think it did very well to encapsulate relatable motives, likeable characters, strong bonds and friendships, and a lot of the political atmosphere. For example, you jokingly say what Final Fantasy game Valarian came from, but I think he's a great example of what the identity of something "Royal" and "worthy of succession" would look like. Strong. Proud. Fearless and detached. Beautiful like some sort of God King waiting to be. He seemed to amount to the incredible amount of pressure and structure his life has been no doubt warped into, and it bleeds every inch of his character. No doubt fairly blunt, but a very strong identity that makes a great new acquaintance. His qualifications for being your ally were inalienable. Points like this kind of drag on, but I think the point is the same. WOL was more human, and it made it believable, relatable, but comedically inclined none the less. Heart of the swarm was pretty minimal on humor, and while it had moments of compelling drama (zergling pup sensing Kerrigan's discomfort) and better encapsulated gameplay, I don't think it was superior as a user experience, when multiplayer repercussions are cut from the considerations.
What an awesome video about Starcraft! It makes totaly clear that you have not to be ambitious to have fun with the game. And if your really can't pass the 20 apm mark or just refuse to use grid hotkeys (qwert, asdfg, yxcvb) there are also tons of enjoyable arcade maps to play. That i never saw a person playing a game so slow for such a long time and never heard that someone just couldn't beat the campagne in my nearly 18 years of starcaft made it even better =D. Great!
I think a big part of it is the culture of competitiveness, and the associated pride and shame.There are probably plenty of casual starcraft players over the years who have beaten the campaigns and just dipped their toes in multiplayer and custom maps. But they're not really going to engage with intricate balance discussions, build orders, and competitive drama which defines most community discussion.
Your presentation and speech are excellent, a lot of other game review channels could learn from you. I think this is the first hour-long self-made RUclips video I've ever sat through and enjoyed all the way to the end!
My mixed feelings about the game really come down to Amon being a terrible villain. He really is just Diablo, and that's why Kerrigan turns into an angel to defeat him. Because he's Diablo. There are so many more interesting directions they could've taken it. I agree with you that Starcraft is essentially Kerrigan's story, and that's part of why I'm frustrated with the ending.
It is fantasy, and far far from the tone of the original game and Brood War. Nowhere in the gritty and grimy world, of space confederates vs alien swarm vs dying race of zealots vs military dictatorship, does the idea of cosmic good genocider vs cosmic evil slaver seem reasonable.
I have incredibly found memories of playing the original Starcraft games when I was little. Granted, I played them with the cheat codes on but I found them incredibly absorbing none the less. They also counted as the first games I ever played where I was absorbed by a narrative, everything from the presentation and characters to the cinematics (which were mind blowing to me at the time). Even though I'll probably never touch the sequels, you did an awesome job at examining the series as a whole. Keep up the fantastic work, Noah!
Personally I like hotkeys because they reduced the amount of clicking and moving the screen. Like hotkeying a specific group of units that you're using to attack, using the attack hotkey etc. It felt like it reduced the awkwardness of selecting the same group of units over and over again to attack while switching between your base and the battlefield. It also made having lots of units feel more elegant since you'd just use two keys to switch between your marines and firebats. Whenever I play a different RTS now like Age of Empires I miss a lot of the hotkeys.
Starcraft 1 and Starcraft brood war and Starcraft 2 wings of Liberty Starcraft 2 heart of swarm and finally the finale to the Starcraft 2 saga Starcraft legacy of the void I love this story so much :)
now all we need is the borderlands retrospective, a thorough look at xcom the entire franchise and all about the diablo universe. maybe as bonus do a genre video on the moba/arts ascension
Yeah its total bullshit not only did she get away with all of her genocides and betrayals she was rewarded for it (and not in a this was intended to shock you) sort of way.
I'm almost done playing through Starcraft & Brood War for the first time completely legitimately. I've dabbled in it since I was 8, but always cheated at some point.
I think this was a really good analysis and I appreciate the video! I share your general opinion of the story arc and had a similar experience, following this game since I was really young. In my eyes, Brood War in particular remains the most perfect multiplayer game of all time and I still play it almost every single day.
As for Kerrigan, there was no inkling of coercion on Kerrigan during Brood War, so all those betrayals and murders that she performed in that game were for real and were done with free will. What they should have done to make her redemption plausible is take a page out of KOTOR: have it so that after being de-infested, Kerrigan is still her evil self, and she tells Raynor and Zeratul to finish her, but have Zeratul or some Protoss (Dark Templar already have mind control powers via Dark Archons) erase Kerrigan's memories of everything after Mengsk abandoned her on Tarsonis. Basically, she reverts back to the good person that she was in Rebel Yell, that way Raynor can just pick her up and her being a good guy would be plausible. Then she learns of all the evil she did under the Zerg's influence, and she is horrified. But Zeratul and Valerian want her to command the Zerg for more noble purposes to make up for her past crimes. Then it will be a repast of the Darth Revan storyline: a former villain taken out of power, who comes to terms with their previous actions and who redeems themselves through defeating an evil that had some personal connection to them. Also, Narud should have been the main bad guy for Heart of the Swarm, not Mengsk. Mengsk should have either been A) taken down by Raynor's Raiders after the Media Blitz destroyed his political credibility and Valerian made him look like a wuss by defeating Kerrigan, or B) puppeted by Narud since the end of Brood War, which would explain his irrational actions all throughout Starcraft 2. Then Kerrigan would face the choice of sparing Mengsk to learn what he knows about the Protoss-Zerg Hybrids, or killing him, and that would be a true moral dilemma. On the one hand, this man knows everything you need to know about hybrid production and where all the sites are where they're being made, since he worked with Narud. On the other hand, Kerrigan blames him for his betrayal of her and her becoming a murderous Zerg abomination. Of course, they spare Mengsk so that Kerrigan, Artanis, and Zeratul can use what he knows about the Hybrids to put them down as a threat once and for all, and Kerrigan forsaking vengeance for the sake of the greater good akin to a Jedi like Luke Skywalker shows how much she's changed since Brood War, where she was a power-hungry psychopath in the same vein as Littlefinger and Emperor Palpatine.
Funny that this comes out almost exactly a year before StarCraft: Remastered was announced, which gives BW league play and the ability to rebind hotkeys while still being the 1998 classic.
Great review man. Right in the feels. Grew up playing Starcraft... Also loved Starcraft 2 especially the story and the lore. I only hope there'll be a Starcraft 3 one day. Really wanna know where Raynor and Kerrigan went.
I actually found Brood War not too hard, even though I'm nowhere near good enough to do well at multiplayer. The trick I used was to simply fortify in order to take minimal losses on enemy attacks and have time to build a sizable army. (Archons+shield batteries were very useful in episode 4.)
Great video, very insightful. I'm in the same boat, where I never really graduated from an amateur skill level, but this game is just as fun as it was for me 13 years ago (when I started playing brood war).
You mentioned that the theme was heavily influenced by "Alien", but it was actually influenced by Games Workshop's "Warhammer 40k" series, and in fact begun its life as officially licensed by games workshop. Just an FYI, take what you will from this.
Kinda funny knowing that the Zerg are most likely inspired by the Tyranids, which were inspired by the Xenomorphs, so that comparison is still sort of apt.
@@whatshappeninganymore2473 its funny that when you go down the rabbit hole of what inspired so many modern sci fi universes, Ridley Scott /James Cameron's alien and aliens lay at the core of most of them. Really speaks to how impactful those movies were and still are.
@@cobra29935Alien is still so damn insane to me watching it. It's design is just so iconic and so... Powerful. Someday I want to study what influenced THEM, but I haven't done so.
You could massively benefit from the use of Hotkeys. It spreads the load of clicking across more digets, its more efficient with mouse movements & allows you to be faster & devote more attention to more interesting parts of the game. Its more rewarding.
My feeling regarding star craft 2 is similar to yours -- the story arcs and the overall plot is cheesy and worse than I'd expect, but there is good story in the small moments, which is weird, I suspect its because the junior writers who write the little moments are actually better than the the head writers.
"This slideshow means that this is definitely, totally, for realsies the end you guys. So anyway, Nova Covert Ops." A bit of a shame this video came out before Nova Covert Ops. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Personally, I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, even though it wasn't nearly as deep or fleshed out as the main campaigns. I still felt like it did an admirable job with the relatively small amount of missions it was working with, and managed to feel about as complex as they could have realistically made it. Granted, I did play them after they were all out. I can imagine the experience might have been less enjoyable if I was waiting between releases. Given how short the overall campaign was, breaking it up episodically like that feels like a miscalculation imo.
Can't quite agree on the Westwood bit. I think only Dune 2 was mirrored in terms of units, no? From the first Command & Conquer onwards, the units were asymmetrical. Not to the degree of Starcraft, mind, and having three factions was definitely a great idea, but they improved it, they didn't invent it.
StarCraft (as well as Warcraft) might have had a little bit of “inspiration” from Warhammer 40k. Big blue space marines (poster boy Ultramarines) and Zerg alien bugs (Tyranids) They’re not exactly subtle with it.
I love how he doesn't do another recording when he mucks up his lines, like it's just part of the show now. Still, for a guy who is reading off a script he manages to inject a bit of personality into it without the typical up-down rhythm that most people do. That and his videos are epic in size, it's disgusting how few subs and views he has on these videos. I think it might be a result of this 'tldr' cultural generation, plus the whole, let's watch someone play a game instead of playing it yourself. Fucking weirdos.
One of your best retrospectives yet, just as insightful as your earlier videos, only with much better production values ( the sound quality is so much better with your new mic ). Any chance you might tackle Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment at any point?
The "BMX bikes and Code Red" line had me chuckling. Partly because it's a funny mental picture, and partly because I too ride a BMX bike and drink Code Red. Do you plan on making a retrospective on the Diablo games in the future?
i played SC + BW in the 90s. campaign. over and over. no interest in MP. waited so long for SC2, all three parts. by the epilog-epilog of LotV i cried. so badly. even got wet eyes just seeing it here again... thank you for this video
Great video! Such wonderful nastalgia. I will say I don't think it wasn't very balanced, especially in SC1. The Protoss had a distinct advantage. I always play the humans in all games, but the Protoss were so much more powerful I made an exception. One example is one single unit protects against ground and sky. Cuts defense costs in half. Another is what you said, their probes aren't taken up while building, allowing you to maximize resource gathering while building mutliple structures.
The ending slides are a framing device - if you remember, Wings of Liberty's original installer displayed a number of slides that gave you a quick recap of the previous game and set the stage for the events of SC2. And SC2 ends the same way it began before it even began - with slides wrapping up the story ;)
Ive just been rushing to build sattelite bases and upgraded carriers as the protoss for over 15 years at this point and i still have a blast every time i play
Former NA Diamond (ie. I don't 100% suck, I just sorta suck), and I enjoyed this every bit as much as if I did really suck at starcraft. I think you'd benefit from learning hotkeys and using control groups Noah.
The reason Heart of the swarm campaign missions was so hero focus was because Blizzard wanted to conduct design experiments for their own MOBA title Heroes of the storm, hence HOTS(Heart of the Swarm) alluded to HOTS(Heroes of the storm).
I can't believe you've made a 1 hour 10 minute video about Starcraft and I can see you're not using hotkeys. It's impressive that you manage to play this game at all.
Dude your Dialoge is crazy good, Starcraft taught me how to best utilize the power of the mouse. Keyboard is maxed out in potential The end dialoge is nice too as guest speaker. I think Even if it's not starcraft story the Warcraft mechanics will be a good place to start.
I couldn't beat the last Terran mission in Starcraft I. So many lockdowns and the inability to toggle through unit abilities and select more than 12 units at a time made me throw in the towel. The same could be said for the later Zerg and Protoss missions.
...Just build up like 24 Battlecruisers and send them all in. The Hammer Falls is easy. The entire Zerg campaign of SC1 without BW is just mass Hydras/Mutas. And by the time the Protoss campaign is starting to get challenging, you get Carriers, and again it becomes easy. The hard part is BW, make no mistake.
StarCraft Remastered does a fantastic job of elevating the original game's feel and look without compromising the aesthetics that made it amazing in the first place. And if you know about the track record of this remaster trend then you know that's quite the achievement.
when the game went out on battle.net originally it was widely known that you could just "zerg rush" and usually win most multiplayer matches, it was cheesy but people did it, hell I did it a few times, and the phrase "zerg" still comes up in many mmos because of this.
The campaigns actually had two difficulties. The first, for average players, and the second, for players that bring up the chat window and type "power overwhelming".
This comment right here
what about black sheep wall?
I wouldn't ever use power overwhelming before I learned how to do the SC1 campaigns without cheats. I would just use "show me the money" since I didn't want to just romp through the mission without losing anything.
However I think radio free Zerg is fair and ok to use during the campaign missions.
Show me the money!!!
Hello! I am David from the interview. I would like to apologize for the beginning portion of the interview. I was a little nervous and excited to talk about one of my favorite games. I went into the interview completely blind. I didn't know what questions would be asked of me, save for a few general ideas. This was not the entire interview. The entire interview lasted for close to half an hour. This caused me to stumble over my words. However, I do think that I recovered and did pretty well for the second half. If you have any questions, comments, or criticisms, I would love to hear them. Thank you.
Lastly, I want to thank Mr. Gervais for having me and for talking about a game that I love.
+SteelerFan716 I think you did well! What shined through was how much you Love the game. That for someone like me who's never played this game (and frankly am a little intimidated by it) really peaks my interest. I say your enthusiasm for the game was a good note to end the video on.
+Tmarie2u I greatly appreciate it. Try it! I guarantee you'll have fun!
+SteelerFan716 You did fine, a helpful contribution to Noah's retrospective.
+SteelerFan716 You did fine, a helpful contribution to Noah's retrospective.
It's always great to hear someone gush over something they're passionate about. Don't sweat the stumbles - we understand :)
"what anime did that guy get fired from to wide up in a game like starcraft 2 anyway" the burns lol
Just as I looked at the comments he said this. It is a great line
Something no one seems to talk about with Blizzard games is the box art. Every memory I have of going to Wal Mart, Target, or Best Buy as a kid includes the Starcraft box and the enormous 3 box bundle of Diablo games. I genuinely think its a big part of those games' enduring popularity, the embossed faces and giant text were impossible to ignore. It might also be because not a lot of PC games had as much mainstream appeal, and PC games came in those gigantic boxes so they'd always catch your eye in the electronics aisle.
Oh yea as a little kid i thought there was toys in the box
The star craft one treasure box chest is literally the greatest PC game box ever made. It’s huge it’s ridiculous for no reason but to be ridiculous. It comes with full strategy guides for both star and brood war. It’s amazing
Seriously. The face of the Protoss will forever be burned into my head, and everytime I see it I am brought great joy.
The first Starcraft didn't have difficulty options but it did allow you to change the game speed. I was able to beat the harder missions by setting the game to a slower speed so I could micro better.
"I'm terrible, let's do this" is my new personal motto.
In regards to the revelations about the Zerg and Kerrigan; Metzen has a redemption fetish. He has used "villain gains redemption" as a plot twist in damn near every thing he's ever done. WoW does it multiple times!
What about Garrosh?
Which is lame enough, but Kerrigan didn't even earn the redemption.
she didn't even sacrifice anything to become supermegagod.
aka the Darth Vader effect
Too bad the one character that could have used it, Arthas Menethil, didn't get such an arc. As for Kerrigan, there was no inkling of coercion on Kerrigan during Brood War, so all those betrayals and murders that she performed in that game were for real and were done with free will. What they should have done to make her redemption plausible is take a page out of KOTOR: have it so that after being de-infested, Kerrigan is still her evil self, and she tells Raynor and Zeratul to finish her, but have Zeratul or some Protoss (Dark Templar already have mind control powers via Dark Archons) erase Kerrigan's memories of everything after Mengsk abandoned her on Tarsonis.
Basically, she reverts back to the good person that she was in Rebel Yell, that way Raynor can just pick her up and her being a good guy would be plausible. Then she learns of all the evil she did under the Zerg's influence, and she is horrified. But Zeratul and Valerian want her to command the Zerg for more noble purposes to make up for her past crimes. Then it will be a repast of the Darth Revan storyline: a former villain taken out of power, who comes to terms with their previous actions and who redeems themselves through defeating an evil that had some personal connection to them.
Also, Narud should have been the main bad guy, not Mengsk. Mengsk should have either been A) taken down by Raynor's Raiders after the Media Blitz destroyed his political credibility and Valerian made him look like a wuss by defeating Kerrigan, or B) puppeted by Narud since the end of Brood War, which would explain his irrational actions all throughout Starcraft 2. Then Kerrigan would face the choice of sparing Mengsk to learn what he knows about the Protoss-Zerg Hybrids, or killing him, and that would be a true moral dilemma. On the one hand, this man knows everything you need to know about hybrid production and where all the sites are where they're being made, since he worked with Narud. On the other hand, Kerrigan blames him for his betrayal and her becoming a murderous Zerg abomination.
Of course, they spare Mengsk so that Kerrigan, Artanis, and Zeratul can use what he knows about the Hybrids to put them down as a threat once and for all, and Kerrigan forsaking vengeance for the sake of the greater good akin to a Jedi like Luke Skywalker shows how much she's changed since Brood War, where she was a power-hungry psychopath in the same vein as Littlefinger and Emperor Palpatine.
Which shows that he's an awful writer. Ironically Garrosh is the one who would've deserved a redenption the most
It's interesting to me that you embrace the cheesy presentation of SC2 so much. While they deliver the cheesy dialogue and characterization with plenty of zest, I did feel somewhat let down by comparison to the more subtle approach to dialogue/voice acting found in SC1. Perhaps it was merely a result of the conversations being so LONG in SC/BW (dialogue was the ONLY means of advancing the plot, after all) but the people felt more genuine, and as a result, so did the friendships, hatreds, tenuous alliances, and countless betrayals. In SC2, the Korprulu denizens I had come to love were reduced to caricatures of themselves. Zeratul in particular is a nonstop fount of cryptic, hyperbolic, mystical goobledygook that seems as though it was written more to sound good in a trailer than actually function in conversation.
As you point out, it's pretty self-aware, and both styles work after a fashion in isolation, but there's some dissonance for me when making the transition from 90s StarCraft to 2010s StarCraft.
Anywho, I'm loving your channel. Keep it up!
yeah i agree. i can't help but feel that he went pretty easy SC2.
Not really cheesy.
Yeah SC2 is let down by its presentation far more often than it works, especially because the actual plot is limited to about 6-10 missions per game with the rest being obvious filler.
I've played this game for like a million hours and I still watched the whole video. it's that good. you have a clear voice and speak articulately, and there's something about that old footage of you trying to move marines to build a bunker that just tugs on my nostalgia flaps
I remember getting Starcraft in the clearance section at walmart. I think I was about 7 when I got it, though. So all the story went right over my head. So I couldn't tell you a single event that happened in the game... but it was fun!
Well, now I want a Command & Conquer retrospective. Can we have it? Pretty please?
+Jota B YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! I WANT ONE TOO NOW!!!
+Jota B Including Red Alert!
Upvote for more YES! YES! YES!
ABSOLUTELY
Bump
I would come home late on weekends at college to see my roomie and his friend going at it with Starcraft. Roomie would play Terran usually, but would get too turtled. His friend...Dude would play Protoss like Zerg...was insane to watch. He'd usually win. Best thing ever was the sound of the ding when you make a carrier and it was under 2 minutes in the game still, roomie was like "Nuuuuuuu IMPOSSIBLE!"
Good times.
Will we get a retrospective of S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Metro, if you've played them? Same goes for XCOM.
that's what i wanted to ask :))) especialy STALKER
STALKER would be brill!
uhh x-com! (and xcom!)
Yeah, seeing the way GSC with STALKER morphs into 4A and Metro 2033 would be fascinating, I feel there's a great interesting story there (completely aside from the fact that I love these games)
@Le Fishy To be fair the originals are way too complicated for their own good. Maybe a remaster with a better UI is what they need.
Heart of the Swarm was my least favorite because of Kerrigan's character arc, which I found to be extremely weak. There are a number of missions where she commits the atrocities you've come to expect from the Queen of Blades -- such as massacring an entire Protoss expedition because they're in the way and then captures and tortures one of the survivors for information -- then spends the next dialogue sequence mewling about how "I had no choice" and "It's not my fault". They're trying to tell a very Vampire-esque story of someone torn between the power of their monstrous nature and the remains of their humanity, but don't put her in any situations where that dilemma is challenged. At almost every turn she could make different choices that would result in less gratuitous destruction and smack down her advisors to maintain her authority the way she always does should they question her. Her character comes off as childish, unwilling to take responsibility for her actions and deflecting it onto anyone she can, rather than the self-confident "Queen Bitch of the Universe" who, while completely evil and not particularly complex, was far more respectable as a character and a villain.
I agree. I respect Noah's opinion but I could not disagree with him more on that one.
Agreed. A character like Kerrigan only works if she's either completely redeemed or if she is completely ruthless. It would have been much more impactful if she had turned completely back into her "Queen Bitch of the Universe" mode to exact revenge against Mensgk only for her to find out Raynor is still alive and then she has to deal with the repercussions of what she did and _actually_ change and redeem herself to get him to trust her again. As it is, she doesn't _really_ change that much except for basically shrugging and saying "eh, collateral damage" every time she commits an atrocity.
It would mean a lot more if after Raynor's rescue and confrontation, she _actually_ starts stopping and considering the death and destruction she's causing and changing her decisions accordingly. It would be interesting if, say, after she decided to not be so destructive you start getting a counter and you get penalized for killing excessively or killing bystanders or something. Do _something_ to integrate this change into the gameplay. There's plenty of ways that having restrictions like this could create really interesting gameplay challenges. Another way to show this cha he would be to have a mission where Kerrigan shows up to save a Dominion colony from some disaster or maybe even Mensgk himself, and so the challenge is that you have to get to that base to rescue the Terrans, but of course they're attacking you while you do. So you need to attempt to take down their defense systems without killing anyone so you can come in and pick up the (extremely unsettled) settlers. There are a ton of ways you could play with this concept.
You make interesting points. I was somewhat more positive on the story, but I see what you're saying.
I think I liked it partly because I was sick of Blizzard stories where things can seemingly only ever get worse. For example (Spoilers below):
WC2: Hooray, you closed the Dark Portal. Wait, no, you just destroyed the building - the portal is still there.
Diablo: Hooray, you beat Diablo. Oops, he survived and possessed you.
SC1: You destroyed the Overmind. Uh oh, the Zerg went berserk and are even more dangerous. (Something they would repeat with the Lich King at the end of WotLK.)
"Starcraft II is a deep fried ball of gourmet cheese" dis dood know deductive logic.
I don't even play Starcraft yet I sat through this all and listened intently. Bravo
"For people who are bad at Starcraft"
Aw shucks, you didn't have to make a video just for me.
+Alacron ONE OF US, ONE OF US!
+InnerPartisan GOOBLE GOBBLE GOOBLE GOBBLE
im sure he was talking about himself xD he sounds horrible, broodwar isnt as hard as hes making it seem..
Starcraft can easily be as demanding as a second job if you really wanna go high up the ranking ladder.
No. Brood war is hard. It's not impossible, i've beaten it. But missions like Z8 and T5 (a or b) made me want to blow my brains out. I beat them but I was utterly determined to beat it. Unless you're really good at the game you're not going to casually beat Z8.
The campaigns in SC1 actually does have a difficulty select of sorts: changing the game speed. All this does is give you more time to consider action and makes playing the game a bit easier
I loved StarCraft 1 for the online fan made maps. Playing through the various “Defense” games and random RPG style maps, cat and mouse games, mazes, and whatever else people could come up with were always a lot of fun even if I was terrible at the multiplayer battles.
I'm (South) Korean, and I suck at StarCraft. Yeah. So I need this video, thanks.
+team56th u would make an awesome mockumentary m8
wait this is even possible? bad at sc and from south Korea
Wauw... that's like a Chinese who doesn't know Kung Fu!
SHAME ON YOU!!! jkjk xD
But Kung-Fu is just any study, learning, or practice that requires patience, energy, and time to complete.
Always a pleasure watching (well, podcasting) your videos.
That comment right there, from your friend near the end of the video, about SC II being stressful is the main reason I stopped playing. I started in high school, but even then I realized the amount of time I had to invest to just be good at the game was by far greater than the fun I was having. And that's coming from a lowly silver! I was watching streams, perfecting my timings, but I realized I wasn't having fun, only stress.
I've often wondered about Noah's perspective on Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, since they seem very impactful influences on Warcraft and Starcraft respectively.
Warcraft maybe, starcraft not even close.
As a hardcore starcraft 2 player and fan, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the video and appreciate your effort for making such a well rounded case and review of the game. However, I think the last 5 minutes where the multiplayer aspect of the game is discussed fails in correctly assesing the last SC2 expansion, Legacy Of The Void.
I was a top master/low grandmaster player in the EU server (between the top 400-200 players in Europe) for a few years and I cannot agree less with your friend. I think Starcraft is a game that you enjoy and understand the more and better you get, so I do believe that most pros play this game because they find a personal kind of satisfaction and fulfillment that is very rare to explain. It´s one of those feelings you have to live to comprehend.
Secondly, and most importantly, your friend´s opinion on there being more micro and similarities with Brood War I must say is not true at all (and I can understand his view as he is a casual player that does not delve into all the strategy and tactics this game offers). The game´s depth and variety has waned considerably due to a set of changes (ie. faster economy, more focus on worker harassment) that have radically shrinked a player´s ability to win based on strategic options and efficient moves. This was seen as showing the middle finger to many of the Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm fans like me that were for many months of Beta testing watching how our already declining in popularity game was being rapidly deteriorated by Blizzard´s multiplayer design team, who instead of listening to reasonable complaints by the professionals and casuals alike decided to keep going along with their flawed view on how the game should be changed.
Long story short, the game is now at its worst state, with viewership and playerbase (and the number of progamers) heavily, heavily declining due to the implemented changes that proved to be more of a liability than an asset to the game. While it is true that Starcraft 2 will have its own niche and will most likely not fully disappear, it is for me the living example of what a videogame company and design team that wants to create a healthy E-sports title should not do.
Having finished this, I cannot thank you enough for making this video.
I´m subscribing.
I'm glad Raynor got to finally lose his V-card, even if it took an apocalypse or two.
He had a son.
@@k-leb4671 who said, that he did make him?
Every time you make a video I can't help but think about the amount of work you put into it. I always enjoy your quality content.
I don't know if you got a new mic or changed your sound mixing or something, but the audio in this video is a huge improvement. It sounds freaking great!
+Stephen Rubio Both of those, I got a microphone from my girlfriend for Christmas, but wasn't able to use it until I got a power booster for it. I used it in the Game Natures video, but without any mic boost, and it turned out too quiet. I think I figured it out this video.
+Noah Caldwell-Gervais Good work, and thanks for the boost. I liked the nature vid, but even on max volume, you were insanely quiet. Ah well...
Keep up the good work!
(if I may suggest a topic for an episode, would you cover and examine the cultural differences in games that make them unique? Like Metro 2033 or Witcher.)
+Noah Caldwell-Gervais i love the imperfect takes and low tech aspect as it helps focusing on the content and really sets your universe appart rom that of other youtubers.
As someone who prefers Brood War and high APM play, I think you did a great job explaining the appeal of Brood War, even though you don't personally like the game as much. Great work and a very professional video!
I personally love the way Blizzard ended the cycle in LotV. Because at the end we don't really know if Raynor really got happy with Kerrigan or if that was an allucination of his inner self. In the film Romeo is Bleeding (Gary Oldman) we see something similar at the end, but we know the character of Gary Oldman got mad.
***** Any finale we could imagine is as sad as this one )'=
Starcraft review...Noah you just know what I want to see even I when I don't
This was an incredibly impressive video, both in its impressively coherent long-form writing and in its depth as it dives into the subject matter. Hats off to you.
I mostly like the story, but I was disappointed Kerrigan remained so fixated on Mengsk through Heart of the Swarm. By this point it's clear that there are bigger fish to fry - SC1 made it clear that Mengsk was a footnote in the epic conflict between Zerg and Protoss. Brood War built on that by having the UED clobber Mengsk and teasing the true threat through Duran. And WoL had put a large focus on fighting Mengsk as well. I have to imagine most players were well and truly ready to move on to Amon.
Fellow terrible starcraft player here, I love hotkeys. I always hate the idea of wasting time issues orders when I could be saving convenience and just plain kicking more ass. While I am definitely gifted in the memory/fast learning department, I think most the hot keys make sense and aren't too hard to memorize, being relatively few in number.
I've always found something empowering about "just push keys instead" and gaining that great leap in power.
EDIT: I think I'd sharply disagree about the position of heart of the swarm. To me WoL stood out better as a stronger narrative and cinematic experience. HoTS was still by many means excellent, but it relied on characters (with the exception of Kerrigan) who had already had their depth and intricacies spelled out.
All the characters you met in HOTS seemed to very often be driven almost entirely by function and extremely little through personality, if only because of their alien and aggressive nature. The exception to this is actually only Abathur. While he is still a pretty flat characters in history and motivations, he feels like a genuine artisan, and he has some brilliant philosophy that's stayed with me with how simple yet how true it is. I know there's always that one bit about "Perfection moving target. Cannot catch. Only chase.", which as a perfectionist I resonate with heavily.
That being said, along with the mechanical and rigid characters that lacked relatability, something as simple as the way it hinted at research and objectives that just felt EXTREMELY anti 4th wall to me. "Quillgore biomass" is a joke I make sometimes to reference annoying, blatant objectives being shoved into your face.
To me, wings of liberty and "getting samples for Steton's research" was completely logical and highly conducive to the 4th wall. HOTS was not so nice. HOTS did a great job with the zerg origin story though and I genuinely enjoyed a coupled of the things I saw. Roaches (AK47's with feet, as I often compare them to) I god damn love period. So getting to see a roach subspecies that went feral and bonded with microorganism symbiotically, gaining new powers? Cool as fucking hell. Watching primal zerg instantly just copy all the work, research, and refinement of the hivemind zerg swarm? Hilarious, but believably functional.
And while I admit there are cheesy moments and aspects to WOL, from Tychus pushing "this big button with a skull on it" to all sorts of small shenanigans to backstories about marauder pilots in the armory, I think it did very well to encapsulate relatable motives, likeable characters, strong bonds and friendships, and a lot of the political atmosphere.
For example, you jokingly say what Final Fantasy game Valarian came from, but I think he's a great example of what the identity of something "Royal" and "worthy of succession" would look like. Strong. Proud. Fearless and detached. Beautiful like some sort of God King waiting to be. He seemed to amount to the incredible amount of pressure and structure his life has been no doubt warped into, and it bleeds every inch of his character. No doubt fairly blunt, but a very strong identity that makes a great new acquaintance. His qualifications for being your ally were inalienable.
Points like this kind of drag on, but I think the point is the same. WOL was more human, and it made it believable, relatable, but comedically inclined none the less. Heart of the swarm was pretty minimal on humor, and while it had moments of compelling drama (zergling pup sensing Kerrigan's discomfort) and better encapsulated gameplay, I don't think it was superior as a user experience, when multiplayer repercussions are cut from the considerations.
just build a solid economy and then mass produce ranged units and focus fire on one anemy at time, no need to learn hotkeys to beat the campaign
What an awesome video about Starcraft! It makes totaly clear that you have not to be ambitious to have fun with the game. And if your really can't pass the 20 apm mark or just refuse to use grid hotkeys (qwert, asdfg, yxcvb) there are also tons of enjoyable arcade maps to play.
That i never saw a person playing a game so slow for such a long time and never heard that someone just couldn't beat the campagne in my nearly 18 years of starcaft made it even better =D. Great!
I think a big part of it is the culture of competitiveness, and the associated pride and shame.There are probably plenty of casual starcraft players over the years who have beaten the campaigns and just dipped their toes in multiplayer and custom maps. But they're not really going to engage with intricate balance discussions, build orders, and competitive drama which defines most community discussion.
Your presentation and speech are excellent, a lot of other game review channels could learn from you. I think this is the first hour-long self-made RUclips video I've ever sat through and enjoyed all the way to the end!
My mixed feelings about the game really come down to Amon being a terrible villain. He really is just Diablo, and that's why Kerrigan turns into an angel to defeat him. Because he's Diablo. There are so many more interesting directions they could've taken it. I agree with you that Starcraft is essentially Kerrigan's story, and that's part of why I'm frustrated with the ending.
It is fantasy, and far far from the tone of the original game and Brood War. Nowhere in the gritty and grimy world, of space confederates vs alien swarm vs dying race of zealots vs military dictatorship, does the idea of cosmic good genocider vs cosmic evil slaver seem reasonable.
Please PLEASE do a video on the No One Lives Forever games and the spinoff someday! Those games deserve to not be forgotten! :'(
"The Starcraft Retrospective For People Who Are Bad At Starcraft"
You sure know how to make a gal feel special.
Your a girl who plays Starcraft? Be still my heart : )
Long live the weeaboos
It's weeaboo. Fucking degenerate...
Wth is a weeabo? .....Sounds like a branded kids toy from the '90s
I love the open-mindedness and awareness of how the game can appeal to different people in different ways
I have incredibly found memories of playing the original Starcraft games when I was little. Granted, I played them with the cheat codes on but I found them incredibly absorbing none the less. They also counted as the first games I ever played where I was absorbed by a narrative, everything from the presentation and characters to the cinematics (which were mind blowing to me at the time).
Even though I'll probably never touch the sequels, you did an awesome job at examining the series as a whole. Keep up the fantastic work, Noah!
Personally I like hotkeys because they reduced the amount of clicking and moving the screen. Like hotkeying a specific group of units that you're using to attack, using the attack hotkey etc. It felt like it reduced the awkwardness of selecting the same group of units over and over again to attack while switching between your base and the battlefield. It also made having lots of units feel more elegant since you'd just use two keys to switch between your marines and firebats. Whenever I play a different RTS now like Age of Empires I miss a lot of the hotkeys.
With all the new content now still being maintained but balance patches being suspended, it's interesting to see this retrospective again
Starcraft 1 and Starcraft brood war and Starcraft 2 wings of Liberty Starcraft 2 heart of swarm and finally the finale to the Starcraft 2 saga Starcraft legacy of the void I love this story so much :)
I'm curious, how long is a script for a video like this?
+Aj Koorstra 24 single spaced 12-point pages.
Wow, my capstone paper in law school was shorter.
+Aj Koorstra Now that's dedication, am I right?
+Aj Koorstra Now that's dedication, am I right?
*****
sure is. Noah loves us. Or loves Starcraft anyway
now all we need is the borderlands retrospective, a thorough look at xcom the entire franchise and all about the diablo universe. maybe as bonus do a genre video on the moba/arts ascension
Great video as always! As a huge Starcraft fan for both the single and multi player, I really liked seeing the story get some analytical love.
Kerrigan should have sacrificed herself to kill Amon. The fact that she is still alive and with the power of a god annoys me too much.
the whole Sc2 story is super shitty
Yeah its total bullshit
not only did she get away with all of her genocides and betrayals she was rewarded for it (and not in a this was intended to shock you) sort of way.
No. I'd rather go for the Spear of Adun kamikaze Amon approach
I love the idea of a retrospective for those of us with passing curiosity of the game and low skill. Has made me want to explore the series.
"...he was just an insufferable dick about it." That made me laugh.
I'm almost done playing through Starcraft & Brood War for the first time completely legitimately. I've dabbled in it since I was 8, but always cheated at some point.
Dude you seriously need more subscribers. These videos are great and I find myself watching them over and over.
I think this was a really good analysis and I appreciate the video! I share your general opinion of the story arc and had a similar experience, following this game since I was really young. In my eyes, Brood War in particular remains the most perfect multiplayer game of all time and I still play it almost every single day.
I'll be honest: I never though for a second I would watch this whole thing. Very well done indeed.
As for Kerrigan, there was no inkling of coercion on Kerrigan during Brood War, so all those betrayals and murders that she performed in that game were for real and were done with free will. What they should have done to make her redemption plausible is take a page out of KOTOR: have it so that after being de-infested, Kerrigan is still her evil self, and she tells Raynor and Zeratul to finish her, but have Zeratul or some Protoss (Dark Templar already have mind control powers via Dark Archons) erase Kerrigan's memories of everything after Mengsk abandoned her on Tarsonis.
Basically, she reverts back to the good person that she was in Rebel Yell, that way Raynor can just pick her up and her being a good guy would be plausible. Then she learns of all the evil she did under the Zerg's influence, and she is horrified. But Zeratul and Valerian want her to command the Zerg for more noble purposes to make up for her past crimes. Then it will be a repast of the Darth Revan storyline: a former villain taken out of power, who comes to terms with their previous actions and who redeems themselves through defeating an evil that had some personal connection to them.
Also, Narud should have been the main bad guy for Heart of the Swarm, not Mengsk. Mengsk should have either been A) taken down by Raynor's Raiders after the Media Blitz destroyed his political credibility and Valerian made him look like a wuss by defeating Kerrigan, or B) puppeted by Narud since the end of Brood War, which would explain his irrational actions all throughout Starcraft 2. Then Kerrigan would face the choice of sparing Mengsk to learn what he knows about the Protoss-Zerg Hybrids, or killing him, and that would be a true moral dilemma. On the one hand, this man knows everything you need to know about hybrid production and where all the sites are where they're being made, since he worked with Narud. On the other hand, Kerrigan blames him for his betrayal of her and her becoming a murderous Zerg abomination.
Of course, they spare Mengsk so that Kerrigan, Artanis, and Zeratul can use what he knows about the Hybrids to put them down as a threat once and for all, and Kerrigan forsaking vengeance for the sake of the greater good akin to a Jedi like Luke Skywalker shows how much she's changed since Brood War, where she was a power-hungry psychopath in the same vein as Littlefinger and Emperor Palpatine.
Funny that this comes out almost exactly a year before StarCraft: Remastered was announced, which gives BW league play and the ability to rebind hotkeys while still being the 1998 classic.
Great review man. Right in the feels. Grew up playing Starcraft... Also loved Starcraft 2 especially the story and the lore. I only hope there'll be a Starcraft 3 one day. Really wanna know where Raynor and Kerrigan went.
I actually found Brood War not too hard, even though I'm nowhere near good enough to do well at multiplayer. The trick I used was to simply fortify in order to take minimal losses on enemy attacks and have time to build a sizable army. (Archons+shield batteries were very useful in episode 4.)
Great video, very insightful. I'm in the same boat, where I never really graduated from an amateur skill level, but this game is just as fun as it was for me 13 years ago (when I started playing brood war).
Excellent summary of the Campaign - good analysis, good commentary.
"I got your zerg right here, heh heh" Sips beer. SPLAAAAT! I love how campy this game was, call it nostalgia but I prefer it's tone to that of SC2
Amazingly engaging analysis and a proper love letter to the whole franchise. I applaud you, sir.
Noah you're the best. You're videos get better all the time! Keep up the great work!
Also I love your voice.
The game eases the player into more complex actions as the story progresses and I wish more games did this especially combat simulators.
You mentioned that the theme was heavily influenced by "Alien", but it was actually influenced by Games Workshop's "Warhammer 40k" series, and in fact begun its life as officially licensed by games workshop. Just an FYI, take what you will from this.
Kinda funny knowing that the Zerg are most likely inspired by the Tyranids, which were inspired by the Xenomorphs, so that comparison is still sort of apt.
@@whatshappeninganymore2473 its funny that when you go down the rabbit hole of what inspired so many modern sci fi universes, Ridley Scott /James Cameron's alien and aliens lay at the core of most of them. Really speaks to how impactful those movies were and still are.
@@cobra29935Alien is still so damn insane to me watching it. It's design is just so iconic and so... Powerful. Someday I want to study what influenced THEM, but I haven't done so.
You could massively benefit from the use of Hotkeys. It spreads the load of clicking across more digets, its more efficient with mouse movements & allows you to be faster & devote more attention to more interesting parts of the game. Its more rewarding.
My feeling regarding star craft 2 is similar to yours -- the story arcs and the overall plot is cheesy and worse than I'd expect, but there is good story in the small moments, which is weird, I suspect its because the junior writers who write the little moments are actually better than the the head writers.
"This slideshow means that this is definitely, totally, for realsies the end you guys. So anyway, Nova Covert Ops."
A bit of a shame this video came out before Nova Covert Ops. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Personally, I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, even though it wasn't nearly as deep or fleshed out as the main campaigns. I still felt like it did an admirable job with the relatively small amount of missions it was working with, and managed to feel about as complex as they could have realistically made it.
Granted, I did play them after they were all out. I can imagine the experience might have been less enjoyable if I was waiting between releases. Given how short the overall campaign was, breaking it up episodically like that feels like a miscalculation imo.
Can't quite agree on the Westwood bit. I think only Dune 2 was mirrored in terms of units, no? From the first Command & Conquer onwards, the units were asymmetrical. Not to the degree of Starcraft, mind, and having three factions was definitely a great idea, but they improved it, they didn't invent it.
StarCraft (as well as Warcraft) might have had a little bit of “inspiration” from Warhammer 40k. Big blue space marines (poster boy Ultramarines) and Zerg alien bugs (Tyranids) They’re not exactly subtle with it.
Warhammer 40k Space Marines Debuted in 1987 and Tyranids in 1993.
Yep. Not sure why he's talking about the Aliens franchise when it's pretty well known that StarCraft is a 40k ripoff.
The godfather of video essays🙌 how did i not find your channel until now?
A video from Noah on my birthday? Pretty freaking sweet :)
I love how he doesn't do another recording when he mucks up his lines, like it's just part of the show now. Still, for a guy who is reading off a script he manages to inject a bit of personality into it without the typical up-down rhythm that most people do. That and his videos are epic in size, it's disgusting how few subs and views he has on these videos. I think it might be a result of this 'tldr' cultural generation, plus the whole, let's watch someone play a game instead of playing it yourself. Fucking weirdos.
It's not like watching people play games is anything new, I grew up doing it and that was BEFORE RUclips and other video sites were a thing.
imagine complaining about people watching other people play games like a boomer on a starcraft video(yknow, grandaddy of modern esports) of all places
Man you're so much better than everyone else huh
"No Epilogue to the Epilogue's Epilogue." Then the Nova missions happened...
Yay, another Noah Video! Keep up the great work
One of your best retrospectives yet, just as insightful as your earlier videos, only with much better production values ( the sound quality is so much better with your new mic ). Any chance you might tackle Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment at any point?
I love going back and seeing comments like this, requesting topics that he actually goes on to do!
Are you going to do a video on Thief or Diablo by any chance?
+Pipolo Silva awesome video, thanks for sharing the link with the rest of us!!!
The "BMX bikes and Code Red" line had me chuckling. Partly because it's a funny mental picture, and partly because I too ride a BMX bike and drink Code Red.
Do you plan on making a retrospective on the Diablo games in the future?
i played SC + BW in the 90s. campaign. over and over. no interest in MP.
waited so long for SC2, all three parts. by the epilog-epilog of LotV i cried. so badly.
even got wet eyes just seeing it here again...
thank you for this video
The Epilogue legitimately pissed me off.
what a horrible story arc.
@@KaiserMattTygore927 Never understood why it pissed of everyone.
Brood war bgh is intense and fun to watch videos for. SC2 looks like a game of golf in comparison
Great video! Such wonderful nastalgia.
I will say I don't think it wasn't very balanced, especially in SC1. The Protoss had a distinct advantage. I always play the humans in all games, but the Protoss were so much more powerful I made an exception.
One example is one single unit protects against ground and sky. Cuts defense costs in half. Another is what you said, their probes aren't taken up while building, allowing you to
maximize resource gathering while building mutliple structures.
Thank you, as always, for your incredible content! Godspeed, Noah!
This is a TRUE old school video 😊.
Nice review of this legendary game
The ending slides are a framing device - if you remember, Wings of Liberty's original installer displayed a number of slides that gave you a quick recap of the previous game and set the stage for the events of SC2.
And SC2 ends the same way it began before it even began - with slides wrapping up the story ;)
Sometimes bookends are bad.
like in the case of SC2.
Ive just been rushing to build sattelite bases and upgraded carriers as the protoss for over 15 years at this point and i still have a blast every time i play
You're the best, Noah. Keep up the amazing work.
You deserve more subs, because you put so much into your work.
Aw man, I would really love to see a retrospective for the Command&Conquer Series now.
Never played this game, so this was cool to watch.
Awesome, im always happy to see you post!
Former NA Diamond (ie. I don't 100% suck, I just sorta suck), and I enjoyed this every bit as much as if I did really suck at starcraft. I think you'd benefit from learning hotkeys and using control groups Noah.
The reason Heart of the swarm campaign missions was so hero focus was because Blizzard wanted to conduct design experiments for their own MOBA title Heroes of the storm, hence HOTS(Heart of the Swarm) alluded to HOTS(Heroes of the storm).
What an entertaining video. I love your voice, it's like listening to a news documentary on Al Jazeera
I can't believe you've made a 1 hour 10 minute video about Starcraft and I can see you're not using hotkeys. It's impressive that you manage to play this game at all.
Dude your Dialoge is crazy good, Starcraft taught me how to best utilize the power of the mouse. Keyboard is maxed out in potential
The end dialoge is nice too as guest speaker. I think Even if it's not starcraft story the Warcraft mechanics will be a good place to start.
Battle on the Amerigo is literally a homage to the Hive Battle scenes from Aliens.
I couldn't beat the last Terran mission in Starcraft I. So many lockdowns and the inability to toggle through unit abilities and select more than 12 units at a time made me throw in the towel.
The same could be said for the later Zerg and Protoss missions.
...Just build up like 24 Battlecruisers and send them all in. The Hammer Falls is easy. The entire Zerg campaign of SC1 without BW is just mass Hydras/Mutas. And by the time the Protoss campaign is starting to get challenging, you get Carriers, and again it becomes easy.
The hard part is BW, make no mistake.
Kill the red base by sieging them and build up a dropship fleet to head directly to the Ion Cannon.
StarCraft Remastered does a fantastic job of elevating the original game's feel and look without compromising the aesthetics that made it amazing in the first place.
And if you know about the track record of this remaster trend then you know that's quite the achievement.
when the game went out on battle.net originally it was widely known that you could just "zerg rush" and usually win most multiplayer matches, it was cheesy but people did it, hell I did it a few times, and the phrase "zerg" still comes up in many mmos because of this.
The arcade in Sc2 is legendary, I still play regularly today. All of the new games come and go but sc2 is always waiting at the ready.
When I was a kid, I never complete the 3rd Terran mission.
To difficult, to scary!