That is a bit overrated. The whole covert ops was good mission gameplay wise and new assets wise, but the story was an OK at max. The first half was copy paste of the Sons of Korhal, the second half was kinda rushed and had inconsistent parts.
So you reproach me to overrate a bit, but you say nothing to the author of this topic who rates 1,5 this third pack ? My rating is more fair than his, I note the fun I had playing it mainly. If I would rate 1,5 for me it means that I don't even finish the first mission beeing bored to death. But of course the author of this topic played the whole pack and rate 1,5 because it is not worth playing it but he played it entirely... Nothing to add here I think to put in evidence the unfair part of the 1,5 rating.
Give your opinion if you want, let mine in peace, thanks. Or do you want to explain me that I had not 5/5 fun playing it maybe ?
I think you can have fun playing something while still taking note of its flaws. I personally had no fun at all past the first map of this map pack, and felt that every single map had massive flaws and that the gameplay was incredibly contrived, but it's very hard to make compelling gameplay in SC2 due to the limitations on the AI (doesn't defend itself when attacked, can't operate like a melee AI, etc.), so I can understand why they used the systems that they did.
A rating in the neighbourhood of 1.5 is fair from my perspective because I didn't enjoy myself playing this pack, whereas you appreciated it much more, so naturally you don't agree with his opinion.
I think it's interesting to talk about the role that homage/tribute plays in narrative and game design. I hope you can forgive me for exploring this idea about being a Metal Gear Solid tribute to talk about the challenges and my specific criticism of Blizzard's approach. First, I should have made more clear that I was aware of the aware of the Metal Gear Solid tributes. However, just being a tribute to another property doesn't for me automatically make it good, it just makes it a tribute. The challenge is to make it a tribute that fits in the environment that Blizzard has already created, and makes use of the mechanics in the game. There were two specific points that came up here, so I'll talk about them separately.
Fighting Stone
I see the reference to the Cyborg Ninja, insofar as there's a person who can turn invisible. But the fight isn't really that much an homage to the ninja. For reference, . That's a one-on-one fight, hand to hand, against an opponent with cool tricks. It's actually a lot closer to the or the . You've got a bonus with a telegraphing attack that you have to wear down, and then some adds that spawn from time to time.
So...why don't I like it? First, the fight itself is pretty bland. There's not a lot of variety as you fight through it, which I suspect is because Blizzard needed to accommodate the various loadouts the player has. Second, because it's very busy and fast-paced. That's the opposite of Metal Gear Solid's approach, if this were to be a tribute. It also doesn't match the feeling of the infiltrations we've been doing with Nova, which reward a measured, planned approach. I think the frantic approach works well in the boss fights in Night Terrors, which is a larger-scale macro map against the Zerg, which are much more animalistic.
In this mission, however, we've controlled only Nova, and her opponent is himself a ghost. What's the defining quality of the ghosts? Being invisible assassins. That's why I didn't like this boss fight approach, and why I said I'd prefer the fight to resemble . As I think about it more, though, I think that is a better fit—she's got the turning invisible thing going for her. If Blizzard could have captured that feeling, I would have liked this boss fight, and it still would have been a reference to Metal Gear Solid.
Metal Gear Xanthos
In-fiction, a giant battle robot is unprecedented (I'm treating the Terratron as non-canon since it seemed like a joke). That's not necessarily bad, but to me, big narrative twists like that require context to make sense—I'm looking for an "aha!" moment where I put the pieces together, or an "oh shit" moment where the fight I've been dreading finally shows up. Think about how the Metal Gear appears in each MGS game—we get at least one shot early on that contrasts the scale of Snake with the giant robot and tells us we should be scared of it (frequently with an explicit narration about its dangers)
This mission didn't do the job for me; I ended up just feeling like they threw a giant robot in for the hell of it. If we had heard about the Xanthos before, or even just about General Davis's superweapon development program, this would have paid off for me. I'm thinking about a contentious scene between Valerian and Davis in, say, the first mission pack. That would have done two things for me: given us more context for Davis's issues with Valerian and set us up to fight the Xanthos. Essentially, we would have gotten the gun on the mantelpiece.
As for the design itself, being a reference to various metal gears, I just don't think it captured the essence of what makes metal gears special. Take a look at the robots it references (my favorites are ZEKE and Sahelanthropous). What makes the metal gears effective visually is not just their giant robotness, but the way Kojima combines that with an organic shape and movement.
Now contrast that with Xanthus. It's very blocky, and while it is large, it's too inanimate to really threaten. I really, really wish it walked, or at least had a hovering effect that conveyed some menace. Some asymmetry in its design would also really help, making for an unsettling effect in its appearance. As it stands, I'm just not compelled.
What would you expect from a mini-campaign centered on Nova? A pulitzer? It didn't even change the status quo for anything beyond Nova herself. The infiltration mission looks awesome, but mission mechanics are meh. You activate lasers and only get a brief stun? How about mission failure right there or at least a massive kill team coming for you? (I recently bought Mark of the Ninja on Steam so my infiltration mission standards are high for the moment)
The use of Gorgons was nice but could have been made more interesting. The final boss thing was purely to use recent engine changes that allow it, giant boss mechs always feel unstarcrat-ish in my opinion. The best thing about this third pack is probably terrain and all those nice doodads, that it is possible to extent that opinion to the whole campaign.
To make things short: a campaign centered on a shallow, uninspired character requires a whole lot of extra writing work so as not to be a shallow, uninspired campaign. And they failed that. Mission mechanics range from SC2 average to quite good.
That is a bit overrated. The whole covert ops was good mission gameplay wise and new assets wise, but the story was an OK at max. The first half was copy paste of the Sons of Korhal, the second half was kinda rushed and had inconsistent parts.
Actually this is one of the reasons I like it. It's like playing Rebel Yell, but being on the other side. Well, the less side is less corrupt, but you get the point. It's a sort of peek into what the confederacy was facing.
This mission didn't do the job for me; I ended up just feeling like they threw a giant robot in for the hell of it. If we had heard about the Xanthos before, or even just about General Davis's superweapon development program, this would have paid off for me. I'm thinking about a contentious scene between Valerian and Davis in, say, the first mission pack. That would have done two things for me: given us more context for Davis's issues with Valerian and set us up to fight the Xanthos. Essentially, we would have gotten the gun on the mantelpiece.
I thought the Xanthos was an in-development dominion super weapon. Why would Davis be involved in R&D?
The problem with the "contentious scene" is, it just spoils the DoM boss all too early and too clearly.
I don't understand why you're calling it a metal gear. From the info you've given us, isn't a metal gear a "bipedal nuclear weapon" (from the wiki page)? Let's compare it to the Xanthos, which has... no nukes and .... floats. But it's a weapon. Soooo... 1/3?
Alarak is the Blizzard answer to Darth Vader. He cares little for mortal life and likes big explosions. He is the highlord so gets to live the life of hedonistic desire (kills shit). Also with the chain of ascension if he is viewed as weak by his underlings they too many challenge him so in a way he was just doing like valerian and trying to keep the civilians happy.
Alarak is more like a mob boss, and i agree he's got to make good on whatever speech he just did to rouse his army of hot heads.
He would have killed off the golden armada back in LoTV, if only he hadnt sworn to have Artanis call the shots, iirc.
They havent fully explored how Nova feels about Valerian's rule, which they hinted at in pack 1. I guess they could have worked from that angle to make her disobedience much more solid.
Currently her murdering Davis doesnt make sense. Davis havnt done anything to her, yes she used her, but it seems she doesnt even mean anything to Davis. Nova has nothing to gain personally here.
They coukd have made Nova hate her for using her to destroy Tarsonis, or was that in pack 2?
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Whatever you do, wholeheartedly, moment by heartfelt moment, becomes a tool for the expression of your very soul.
It was Antiga Prime dude. Still I agree we couldve used more motivation, especially on this one matter. Think Lord Brevon in Freedom Planet to get what I mean.
I thought the Xanthos was an in-development dominion super weapon. Why would Davis be involved in RD?
Please forgive me if this sounds patronizing, but it's important to remember that everything that occurs in a story is the result of an active choice on the part of the author. Why would Davis, a high-ranking member of the military, be involved with the development of a super weapon? It's not exactly a stretch, is it? The writers chose to give her an ambiguous reason for wreaking so much havoc, but they could have chosen to make her involved with the project, and put both her and the Xanthos in play earlier. As it is, I think that they didn't actually have the plot outlined when they started, which led to the situation we ended up in.
The problem with the "contentious scene" is, it just spoils the DoM boss all too early and too clearly.
It doesn't have to. If I had been writing it, I would have introduced Davis like I mentioned, had her be helpful (though maybe a bit reproachful about how Arcturus would have handled it), presented a false lead for the traitor (Reigel?), and only then have Davis betray Valerian. Given the brevity of the mission packs, they didn't have time to waste before they introduced the villain. Because they put it off so long, she didn't have nearly the impact they wanted.
I don't understand why you're calling it a metal gear. From the info you've given us, isn't a metal gear a "bipedal nuclear weapon" (from the wiki page)? Let's compare it to the Xanthos, which has... no nukes and .... floats. But it's a weapon. Soooo... 1/3?
It's a giant robot at the end of a stealth game that's contained numerous homages to Metal Gear Solid games, as referenced above. The actual nuke-launching nature of the metal gears is rarely relevant. What's more relevant is the collection of various weapons they point at the protagonist. If you don't see the reference, then I'm not sure what to say. It doesn't really matter, I suppose, since my complains about the design stand independent of whether or not it's a reference—I still think it's boring and nonthreatening.
I just feel like a lot of people are very used to the mediocrity that triple-A developers (especially blizzard) exude with their storytelling. There are so many points in their stories that could be improved upon by changing the timing of their existing story assets or removing complex/adding simpler assets. Less really is more in a lot of these cases. We don't need 12 intersecting storylines in legacy of the void to care about the twist where Tassadar was never real, we need Tassadar to not be a Mass Effect Leviathan mixed with some stupid squid. When it comes to Nova, their story was admittedly pretty simple, but even the concepts they used made no sense in the context they were included in. For example, what has Nova done to earn the unlimited trust of every crew member aboard the Griffin? What has she done to make them decide to follow her and become wanted criminals and ruin their futures in the Dominion? This is just hamfisted in as a cliche (newspaper headline: Secret Agent GONE ROGUE [GONE WRONG] [GONE SEXUAL]) with no real basis in the story that we've been introduced to at this point.
Please forgive me if this sounds patronizing, but it's important to remember that everything that occurs in a story is the result of an active choice on the part of the author. Why would Davis, a high-ranking member of the military, be involved with the development of a super weapon? It's not exactly a stretch, is it? The writers chose to give her an ambiguous reason for wreaking so much havoc, but they could have chosen to make her involved with the project, and put both her and the Xanthos in play earlier. As it is, I think that they didn't actually have the plot outlined when they started, which led to the situation we ended up in.
Don't worry it's not patronizing. I'd say that involvement is a little bit of a stretch, given that the platform would be likely under Horner's control as it is utterly critical to the dominion. Other unnecessary brass presence (such as Davis) may be limited to keep attention off the platform.
I disagree with Davis wanting to take out the Gorgon's early. Davis doesn't want to take out the Gorgons, she wants them for herself, once she takes control of the Dominion from Valerian. Or at the very least, she wants to harm the Dominion as little militarily as possible for whoever's in charge after Valerian. It's now, when she's on the run, revealed, and (this is key) the only way to save herself is to have the Dominion collapse, and fast.
It doesn't have to. If I had been writing it, I would have introduced Davis like I mentioned, had her be helpful (though maybe a bit reproachful about how Arcturus would have handled it), presented a false lead for the traitor (Reigel?), and only then have Davis betray Valerian. Given the brevity of the mission packs, they didn't have time to waste before they introduced the villain. Because they put it off so long, she didn't have nearly the impact they wanted.
I will grant that there should have been more missions, I would have been much happier with 15 missions than 9, to flesh out the story. However, I'm still not seeing it point away from Davis, especially since the amount of tech that has to move would have made it hard to point to another traitor (revealing a character for the sake of this cutscene probably wouldn't work for the suspicious). IMO, perhaps a power behind the throne sort of thing where it's a person under Davis that we're pointed to and the end of act II or III Davis is revealed would have been much more interesting.
If people actually think blizzard stories are worth a 5 out of 5 rating, I look forward to releasing campaigns with actual storylines.
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This should be good :D
The condensed Custom Campaign Initiative is on this Google Sheet!
List of my Custom campaign text reviews (warning: only the first half of each is serious)
You can think what you want, but if you want to take in account my rating, I have rated the third Nova pack 5/5, not only his story.
@Kloupz: Go
That is a bit overrated. The whole covert ops was good mission gameplay wise and new assets wise, but the story was an OK at max. The first half was copy paste of the Sons of Korhal, the second half was kinda rushed and had inconsistent parts.
So you reproach me to overrate a bit, but you say nothing to the author of this topic who rates 1,5 this third pack ? My rating is more fair than his, I note the fun I had playing it mainly. If I would rate 1,5 for me it means that I don't even finish the first mission beeing bored to death. But of course the author of this topic played the whole pack and rate 1,5 because it is not worth playing it but he played it entirely... Nothing to add here I think to put in evidence the unfair part of the 1,5 rating.
Give your opinion if you want, let mine in peace, thanks. Or do you want to explain me that I had not 5/5 fun playing it maybe ?
I think you can have fun playing something while still taking note of its flaws. I personally had no fun at all past the first map of this map pack, and felt that every single map had massive flaws and that the gameplay was incredibly contrived, but it's very hard to make compelling gameplay in SC2 due to the limitations on the AI (doesn't defend itself when attacked, can't operate like a melee AI, etc.), so I can understand why they used the systems that they did.
A rating in the neighbourhood of 1.5 is fair from my perspective because I didn't enjoy myself playing this pack, whereas you appreciated it much more, so naturally you don't agree with his opinion.
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I'm looking to make a beat sheet for nova c.o., and maybe a narrative breakdown, and maybe a character arc sheet. For reference, and study.
I'm thinking the trilogy was at a level with SW REBELS, a story for kids, even children from ages 8 to 12.
Whatever you do, wholeheartedly, moment by heartfelt moment, becomes a tool for the expression of your very soul.
a perfect rating is not more "fair" than a low rating .
@DrSuperEvil: Go
I think it's interesting to talk about the role that homage/tribute plays in narrative and game design. I hope you can forgive me for exploring this idea about being a Metal Gear Solid tribute to talk about the challenges and my specific criticism of Blizzard's approach. First, I should have made more clear that I was aware of the aware of the Metal Gear Solid tributes. However, just being a tribute to another property doesn't for me automatically make it good, it just makes it a tribute. The challenge is to make it a tribute that fits in the environment that Blizzard has already created, and makes use of the mechanics in the game. There were two specific points that came up here, so I'll talk about them separately.
Fighting Stone
I see the reference to the Cyborg Ninja, insofar as there's a person who can turn invisible. But the fight isn't really that much an homage to the ninja. For reference, . That's a one-on-one fight, hand to hand, against an opponent with cool tricks. It's actually a lot closer to the or the . You've got a bonus with a telegraphing attack that you have to wear down, and then some adds that spawn from time to time.
So...why don't I like it? First, the fight itself is pretty bland. There's not a lot of variety as you fight through it, which I suspect is because Blizzard needed to accommodate the various loadouts the player has. Second, because it's very busy and fast-paced. That's the opposite of Metal Gear Solid's approach, if this were to be a tribute. It also doesn't match the feeling of the infiltrations we've been doing with Nova, which reward a measured, planned approach. I think the frantic approach works well in the boss fights in Night Terrors, which is a larger-scale macro map against the Zerg, which are much more animalistic.
In this mission, however, we've controlled only Nova, and her opponent is himself a ghost. What's the defining quality of the ghosts? Being invisible assassins. That's why I didn't like this boss fight approach, and why I said I'd prefer the fight to resemble . As I think about it more, though, I think that is a better fit—she's got the turning invisible thing going for her. If Blizzard could have captured that feeling, I would have liked this boss fight, and it still would have been a reference to Metal Gear Solid.
Metal Gear Xanthos
In-fiction, a giant battle robot is unprecedented (I'm treating the Terratron as non-canon since it seemed like a joke). That's not necessarily bad, but to me, big narrative twists like that require context to make sense—I'm looking for an "aha!" moment where I put the pieces together, or an "oh shit" moment where the fight I've been dreading finally shows up. Think about how the Metal Gear appears in each MGS game—we get at least one shot early on that contrasts the scale of Snake with the giant robot and tells us we should be scared of it (frequently with an explicit narration about its dangers)
This mission didn't do the job for me; I ended up just feeling like they threw a giant robot in for the hell of it. If we had heard about the Xanthos before, or even just about General Davis's superweapon development program, this would have paid off for me. I'm thinking about a contentious scene between Valerian and Davis in, say, the first mission pack. That would have done two things for me: given us more context for Davis's issues with Valerian and set us up to fight the Xanthos. Essentially, we would have gotten the gun on the mantelpiece.
As for the design itself, being a reference to various metal gears, I just don't think it captured the essence of what makes metal gears special. Take a look at the robots it references (my favorites are ZEKE and Sahelanthropous). What makes the metal gears effective visually is not just their giant robotness, but the way Kojima combines that with an organic shape and movement.
Now contrast that with Xanthus. It's very blocky, and while it is large, it's too inanimate to really threaten. I really, really wish it walked, or at least had a hovering effect that conveyed some menace. Some asymmetry in its design would also really help, making for an unsettling effect in its appearance. As it stands, I'm just not compelled.
What would you expect from a mini-campaign centered on Nova? A pulitzer? It didn't even change the status quo for anything beyond Nova herself. The infiltration mission looks awesome, but mission mechanics are meh. You activate lasers and only get a brief stun? How about mission failure right there or at least a massive kill team coming for you? (I recently bought Mark of the Ninja on Steam so my infiltration mission standards are high for the moment)
The use of Gorgons was nice but could have been made more interesting. The final boss thing was purely to use recent engine changes that allow it, giant boss mechs always feel unstarcrat-ish in my opinion. The best thing about this third pack is probably terrain and all those nice doodads, that it is possible to extent that opinion to the whole campaign.
To make things short: a campaign centered on a shallow, uninspired character requires a whole lot of extra writing work so as not to be a shallow, uninspired campaign. And they failed that. Mission mechanics range from SC2 average to quite good.
If I want a metal gear inspired story and motifs on SC2, Perfect Soldiers are def a muuuuch better option than this thing.
This last mission pack had two very weak maps. The first mission should have set the template for the other two.
Go play Antioch Chronicles Remastered!
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Actually this is one of the reasons I like it. It's like playing Rebel Yell, but being on the other side. Well, the less side is less corrupt, but you get the point. It's a sort of peek into what the confederacy was facing.
I thought the Xanthos was an in-development dominion super weapon. Why would Davis be involved in R&D?
The problem with the "contentious scene" is, it just spoils the DoM boss all too early and too clearly.
I don't understand why you're calling it a metal gear. From the info you've given us, isn't a metal gear a "bipedal nuclear weapon" (from the wiki page)? Let's compare it to the Xanthos, which has... no nukes and .... floats. But it's a weapon. Soooo... 1/3?
The condensed Custom Campaign Initiative is on this Google Sheet!
List of my Custom campaign text reviews (warning: only the first half of each is serious)
Alarak is more like a mob boss, and i agree he's got to make good on whatever speech he just did to rouse his army of hot heads.
He would have killed off the golden armada back in LoTV, if only he hadnt sworn to have Artanis call the shots, iirc.
They havent fully explored how Nova feels about Valerian's rule, which they hinted at in pack 1. I guess they could have worked from that angle to make her disobedience much more solid.
Currently her murdering Davis doesnt make sense. Davis havnt done anything to her, yes she used her, but it seems she doesnt even mean anything to Davis. Nova has nothing to gain personally here.
They coukd have made Nova hate her for using her to destroy Tarsonis, or was that in pack 2?
Whatever you do, wholeheartedly, moment by heartfelt moment, becomes a tool for the expression of your very soul.
@GnaReffotsirk: Go
It was Antiga Prime dude. Still I agree we couldve used more motivation, especially on this one matter. Think Lord Brevon in Freedom Planet to get what I mean.
Please forgive me if this sounds patronizing, but it's important to remember that everything that occurs in a story is the result of an active choice on the part of the author. Why would Davis, a high-ranking member of the military, be involved with the development of a super weapon? It's not exactly a stretch, is it? The writers chose to give her an ambiguous reason for wreaking so much havoc, but they could have chosen to make her involved with the project, and put both her and the Xanthos in play earlier. As it is, I think that they didn't actually have the plot outlined when they started, which led to the situation we ended up in.
It doesn't have to. If I had been writing it, I would have introduced Davis like I mentioned, had her be helpful (though maybe a bit reproachful about how Arcturus would have handled it), presented a false lead for the traitor (Reigel?), and only then have Davis betray Valerian. Given the brevity of the mission packs, they didn't have time to waste before they introduced the villain. Because they put it off so long, she didn't have nearly the impact they wanted.
It's a giant robot at the end of a stealth game that's contained numerous homages to Metal Gear Solid games, as referenced above. The actual nuke-launching nature of the metal gears is rarely relevant. What's more relevant is the collection of various weapons they point at the protagonist. If you don't see the reference, then I'm not sure what to say. It doesn't really matter, I suppose, since my complains about the design stand independent of whether or not it's a reference—I still think it's boring and nonthreatening.
I just feel like a lot of people are very used to the mediocrity that triple-A developers (especially blizzard) exude with their storytelling. There are so many points in their stories that could be improved upon by changing the timing of their existing story assets or removing complex/adding simpler assets. Less really is more in a lot of these cases. We don't need 12 intersecting storylines in legacy of the void to care about the twist where Tassadar was never real, we need Tassadar to not be a Mass Effect Leviathan mixed with some stupid squid. When it comes to Nova, their story was admittedly pretty simple, but even the concepts they used made no sense in the context they were included in. For example, what has Nova done to earn the unlimited trust of every crew member aboard the Griffin? What has she done to make them decide to follow her and become wanted criminals and ruin their futures in the Dominion? This is just hamfisted in as a cliche (newspaper headline: Secret Agent GONE ROGUE [GONE WRONG] [GONE SEXUAL]) with no real basis in the story that we've been introduced to at this point.
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Don't worry it's not patronizing. I'd say that involvement is a little bit of a stretch, given that the platform would be likely under Horner's control as it is utterly critical to the dominion. Other unnecessary brass presence (such as Davis) may be limited to keep attention off the platform.
I disagree with Davis wanting to take out the Gorgon's early. Davis doesn't want to take out the Gorgons, she wants them for herself, once she takes control of the Dominion from Valerian. Or at the very least, she wants to harm the Dominion as little militarily as possible for whoever's in charge after Valerian. It's now, when she's on the run, revealed, and (this is key) the only way to save herself is to have the Dominion collapse, and fast.
I will grant that there should have been more missions, I would have been much happier with 15 missions than 9, to flesh out the story. However, I'm still not seeing it point away from Davis, especially since the amount of tech that has to move would have made it hard to point to another traitor (revealing a character for the sake of this cutscene probably wouldn't work for the suspicious). IMO, perhaps a power behind the throne sort of thing where it's a person under Davis that we're pointed to and the end of act II or III Davis is revealed would have been much more interesting.
The condensed Custom Campaign Initiative is on this Google Sheet!
List of my Custom campaign text reviews (warning: only the first half of each is serious)