Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is first expansion for Starcraft 2. It is also second part of Starcraft 2 trilogy, and sequel to base game 'Wings of Liberty'. Base game was released on July 17th 2010 while Heart of the Swarm came out in March 2013. While Wings of Liberty itself was masterpiece, the battle.net had some issues and missing features on launch. It is time to see whether those issues are resolved in this expansion or left untouched. And what about the quality of the game itself? Are there any improvements over Wings of Liberty?
Story:
Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty's storyline was not complex or anything but it was good and enjoyable. Everything fits perfectly with the theme of the game, which is 'cowboys in space'. The game was designed like 80s sci fi movies, featuring badass and over the top characters. It was a fun experience but definitely not a deeper storyline like the original. What about Heart of the Swarm?
The Story of this expansion unfolds two major plots. One of the plots involves Kerrigan's fight against Mengsk and his Dominion, while the other plot is about the Zerg. If we only look at plot covering Mengsk then the story is a bit disappointing there because it is pretty straight forward and also has some silly moments. Luckily fight against Mengsk is not what the entire game is about. The game is also centered around the Zerg race. While, Terrans' story in Wings of Liberty was about Rebels fighting against Dominion and trying to stop the Zerg, it didn't explain anything about The Terrans because there is nothing to explain. They are humans like the rest of us, who arrived in Koprulu sector a long time ago (already explained before). However, The Zerg is a different race than Humans and Heart of the Swarm does a great job at explaining them. A huge part of the game is about origin and evolution of the Zerg, which is second big plot in the game and it is way more interesting than the other one.
There are also some missions, centered around The Xel'Naga and their return but that is sub plot in the game. The main story is about Kerrigan, who is trying to unit Zerg forces around the galaxy to fight back the Dominion. Along the way, you come to know more about the Zerg. A lot of main characters from the first game return in the expansion, and play big or small roles in the story. I was surprised to find some Zerg characters really appealing and after playing the campaign, I was no longer considering the Zerg as mindless and dirty killing machines with no brain. Heart of the Swarm does a great job at explaining their culture and how much they are similar to real life animals, where the strongest rule and other serve. Zerg feel less like dirty insects and more like Dinosaurs in this game. Overall, Story is OK and quite enjoyable, thanks to Zerg plot in the game. However, people expecting to see more about Mengsk or big twists and turns regarding the dominion politics, are going to be disappointed because that part is pretty straight forward.
Design:
Now that's the part where this game really shines. While story may not be as good as Wings of Liberty, Design is hugely improved over the base game. Now that was really surprising for me because I was impressed by Wings of Liberty a lot and thought that it'll be impossible to top it. Base game was pretty good at giving players variety in every mission of the campaign and had 26 missions. HOTS takes that to the next level. There is even more variety in missions than Wings of Liberty. In one mission, you'll find yourself in the middle of a boss battle, few moments later in the next mission, you'll be destroying Terran buildings while avoiding nuclear explosion, then soon after that you'll be searching for Zerg eggs while fighting the Zerg Queen and defending your base at the same time and so on. There are 27 missions in the game (20 main missions and 7 evolution missions) that take you to different parts of the galaxy.
Starcraft game never looked as beautiful as this one does, thanks to stunning art and beautiful places that you visit throughout the journey. Players will find themselves visiting cities, ice covered locations, forests, space ships and so on. My favorite missions in the game were the ones, that take place on Planet Zerus. Those missions are easily the best missions I've played since The Suicide Mission in Mass Effect 2. The game is over 12 hours long and just like Wings of Liberty, you are given a choice to complete the game in any order you want.
When Wings of Liberty first launched, it was missing some features in battle.net and had restrictions as well. Chatting is back in battle.net and the game is no longer region locked. It is also much easier to find people that match your skills which makes it easier to enter Multiplayer portion of the game. Skirmishes, trainings and map editor are all still there and further improved. You can unlock achievements when connected with the server but you don't receive them when playing the campaign offline. Balance tweaks now encourage players to send smaller amount of units against other player's base from time to time, instead of defending the base until the last moment then sending the entire army against each other. So, action is a lot more faster and aggressive than Wings of Liberty and you can feel that in campaign too.
Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm introduces 7 new units as well and User Interface is redesigned. New UI for menus look much better. Gameplay UI now encourages new comers to use shortcuts. It feels a bit odd in the beginning but soon you get used to it and it really starts to help you a lot, later on. Basically, the Campaign Missions ready you for the Multiplayer and harder difficulties, where using shortcuts are really important because it really makes your multitasking a lot faster and easier. Another thing that original game was praised for was how much controls were responsive. Blizzard improved that too and now they are even more responsive. Even when running a game on a potato, every single click counts and the game reacts to your actions immediately. Path finding is also excellent.
One thing that disappointed me a little bit was, every single fully acted cutscene in the game is pre rendered. These pre rendered cutscenes are rendered close to the quality of real time cutscenes in Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty (slightly better in some cases). Wings of Liberty had 4 pre rendered cutscenes and those 4 cutscenes looked like scenes from a CGI movie. Other cutscenes were all real time and looked amazing. In Heart of the Swarm, there are only 2 cutscene with that level of fidelity and there are no real time cutscenes. So, if you are having trouble running pre rendered cutscenes smoothly due to some codec problem, you'll have hard time enjoying the story because there is no way to improve the performance, unlike real time cutscenes where you can lower the settings to get better frame rates. De-synced audio and laggy cutscenes can really break the mood.
Just like WOL, after every mission you come back to your command center and there you can click on different characters or environments to interact with them. Clicking on characters, trigger real time conversations, which give you more information about the story and characters. You can also replay missions or re-watch cutscenes by clicking on archives. Overall, Desigin of Heart of the Swarm is super solid.
Gameplay:
Just like traditional RTS, you'll be building Command Center (Hive Cluster for Zerg) to gather resources. You create Zerg through Hive to collect resources for you. There are two types of resources in Starcraft; Minerals and Vespene gas. Thanks to new user interface, now the game tells you, how many workers should be assigned to collect Minerals and Vespene gas more efficiently, so you will no longer be creating less or more than amount of workers needed to gather resources correctly in each area. These resources allow you to create different buildings around your command center which allows you to create different types of units. Keep in mind that, you can only create Zerg buildings on creep. Every time when you create a structure at the end of a creep, it generates more creep. There are some units that can be moved around and used to create more Zerg friendly surface, like 'Spawn Creep Tumor'. Some Structures in the base allow you to upgrade your current units. Keep in mind that you'll have to upgrade them in every mission and you can upgrade them up to level 3.
You can left click to select your units or select different menus/abilities and right click to move units around. Some units are strong against one type of unit but weak against other. Using these units wisely is the key to success. The game offers you to take control of different unit types, some are able to attack ground units, some attack air units while others can handle both. As mentioned before unit abilities must be upgraded during each mission from level 0 but there are some upgrades that remain permanent.
There are 7 special units in the game, each have 3 types of different upgrades. You can select these upgrades and change them anytime by visiting evolution Chamber inside Leviathan (you command center). By playing main missions in the game, you also unlock evolution mission for each of these units. In these evolution missions, you test two different types of each unit. Both of these types have their own abilities, you can test these abilities during the evolution mission and at the end of the mission, you are given two choices to evolve that unit permanently. Keep in mind that these evolutions are permanent and can't be changed later on. For Example; There are two Mutalisks. One of them allows you to lift enemy units from lower or higher grounds and bring them closer to your units (just like a rope), which is great against weapons like Siege Tanks. The other type allows you to release broodlings that cause a lot of damage to enemies that are far away. This type is good against defensive structures like Missile Turrets. Evolution missions really make you feel like commander of dangerous animals, who evolve themselves according to their surroundings and needs.
Wings of Liberty featured some missions where main character Jim Raynor himself takes part in the fight, while in most missions he just orders and controls his troops. In Heart of the Swarm, it is the other way around. In most missions, Kerrigan herself is there among her troops to fight enemies and she makes a lot of difference to be honest, due to her abilities. Players can unlock new set of Kerrigan's abilities by leveling up. You level up by completing side quests in the game. Kerrigan's abilities aren't permanent and can be changed anytime. You can select her abilities while visiting the upgrade (Kerrigan) chamber inside Leviathan. Inside Leviathan, you can also select different missions and select any mission you want to complete first. Gameplay wise, Heart of the Swarm is a lot more fast paced than Wings of Liberty. It takes less time to create massive army and launch a devastating attack on your enemies. Gameplay in Heart of the Swarm is excellent.
Presentation:
Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm looks stunning. The game's visuals are upgraded over Wings of Liberty and it also features new graphics option called "Extreme". So, you'll be able to select between Low, Medium, High, Ultra and Extreme settings. Blizzard is also known for their talented artists and they've proven once again that why their artists are praised in the first place. The art of the game is helluva lot better than Wings of Liberty. Every area in the game looks stunning. It doesn't matter if you are looking at gameplay or at highly detailed assets during cutscenes and conversations, the game looks beautiful. Physics, Particle effects, Animations, Weather effects, Foliage and so on, everything looks stunning and a lot better than Wings of Liberty, which also looked great. As usual, production values are through the roof.
Beautifully spoken words by Voice Actors grow on you and you start to like main characters in the game pretty quickly. Soundtracks in the game are beautiful and sound effects great as well. The game runs at pretty good frame rates and user interface looks excellent. All the cutscenes in the game are pre rendered. Intro and Outro of the game are really jaw dropping. Other pre rendered cutscenes are slightly above the real time cutscenes in the base game. Even though I would've prefered more real time cutscenes because I think it's a bit lazy to get rid of them completely, but I can't deny that these pre rendered cutscenes look beautiful. So yes, the presentation in Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is excellent.
Verdict:
Heart of the Swarm's overall story may not be as good as the one in Wings of Liberty but almost every other feature is better here than the base game. So, is it safe to call Heart of the Swarm, another masterpiece from Blizzard? Absolutely... It is easily one of the best games out there and should not be missed.
Pros:
- Plot about origin and evolution of the Zerg is epic
- Redesigned UI helps new comers to learn faster and use shortcuts
- There is more variety in missions than Wings of Liberty
- Upgraded visuals and Stunning art
- Sound design, voice acting and Soundtracks are epic
- Balance tweaks made the game a lot more fast paced
- Battle.net restrictions are removed
- Evolution and Zerus Missions
- Strong presentation and interesting characters
Cons:
- Plot about Mengsk is not that good and contain some silly moments
- All cutscenes are pre rendered