What does experience do in heart of the swarm

I didn't mind the evolution missions, but it would have made sense to have more missions to utilize those changes. More than half my time with advanced units, it was during the mission to unlock them. HotS really is just an MP update, but I'll give them credit User Info: Shuriko. User Info: FakeTJ. KejeLL posted You felt like you were building the swarm? The zerg are evil and were designed to be evil. They're not misunderstood. The primal zerg aren't designed to be evil, but they are still pretty much jerks who are just out to kill other stuff to make themselves stronger.

Where did you get this "misunderstood" junk from? More topics from this board Did anybody else notice the interesting thing about Narud's name? General 3 Answers Does this game require "always online"? General 2 Answers Is there a new secret lvl?

General 1 Answer. Ask A Question. Browse More Questions. Keep me logged in on this device. This time around, the stars are hiveminded alien nasties the Zerg and their sometime ruler Sarah Kerrigan, seeking a comeback and revenge after the events of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

Scuttle this way and I'll tell you more. The phrase 'power fantasy' gets bandied around this place often, but really it's shorthand for 'being a faceless man who's allowed to shoot any and everyone with a large selection of automatic weaponry.

Here, power fantasy means commanding an immense, innumerable army of uncommonly destructive aliens as it tears apart anything that isn't nailed down. It means what StarCraft lore tells us the Zerg are like, that indefatigable tidal wave of chitinous, chittering horror, and not the infinitely more tactical, vulnerable experience of fielding them as a multiplayer force.

With a shrug, Heart of the Swarm's campaign repeatedly says "sure, have it your way" and bestows ultimate power upon you, offered under a thin veneer of actual strategy. This is less real-time strategy game, and more a game about roleplaying as the Zerg, as the Aliens, as the Tyranids, as the Flood, as every implacable hivemind menace there ever was, unbound. It is, in the here and now at least, very much what I wanted from a formula which can so often seem exhausted.

The adrenaline, the ego-boost of apparent mastery of that finely-tuned machine: I want that. I just don't know if I want to or can put the hours in. HOTS' singleplayer gives me a welcome, indulgent pretence of it, a chance to roleplay as a lord of StarCraft.

It is to competitive play what casual Guitar Hero play is to being in a band - all the thrill, none of the skill. All artifice. And I am fine with that. After long, now-ended years of real-time strategy games taking me through the same slow ropes again and again, I'm so happy to find something that gives me the keys to the Lamborghini almost straight from the off. That said, HOTS rarely repeats itself, but I'll get to its impressive variety shortly as will I to its lousy writing and characterisation.

On Normal at least, it's a friend to the All Units button, F2 in this case, to setting your entire horde loose on some poor schmoes with a single click and a single plan. So many of its 27 levels freely allow the creation of a vast, unchallenged army which subsumes enemies and their buildings to the extent that you can only really see what happened after it's moved on.

The animation department have done great things, making a swarm of several dozen Zerglings move as one undulating entity, a flock of murderous starlings throwing sinister shapes across the landscape.

It's so different from the usual RTS loose collective of stumblers, trundlers and stragglers: to see it is to fear it, even if you know full well that none of its denizens are individually much of a threat.

It brings out the worst strategies in me, has me waiting and pooling and doing nothing until I've amassed a vast army of nothing but offence which I then order to the other side of the map.

And it allows it. I will be penalised for it, of course - losses will be enormous, I might well lose a base or two while I'm doing it, because I've left no-one to defend my holdings, and I certainly won't bag all of that level's Achievements - but I will win.

Fantasy fulfilled. Brief experimentation with harder difficulty settings revealed this was not a fixed state of affairs if one didn't wish it do be so. I suspect I will revisit some maps in order to experiment with some of the strategies I picked up.

The only tragedy in this was StarCraft II's ongoing refusal to allow its camera elevation above ceiling level. While I appreciate this is a limitation built for the sake of multiplayer balance, I can't see why the singleplayer game couldn't let the scroll wheel go a little higher.

How I yearned to watch the beautiful carnage at a map-wide scale. The campaign's also very smart at conveying understanding of the RTS-unusual methods of the Zerg, without anything so prescriptive as a tutorial.

I gradually grasped what role each of the initially confusing, visually homogeneous units played without having the game grab my chin and look in a certain direction. Instead, it made each unit the star of a setpiece level, their effects and abilities overclocked for maximum effect.

For instance, the level starring the new Swarm Host unit, a sort of mobile organic turret which can root into the ground and regularly spray out tiny, nagging Locusts, eventually offers a magic button. However, all players can appreciate the under-the-hood changes in the overall structure and organization of multiplayer — a valiant effort by the developers to draw more players from the campaign into the world-class competitive scene.

The centerpiece of that initiative is a rewarding leveling mechanic. XP is accrued for all sorts of in-game actions, and new levels reward portraits and decals to customize your multiplayer persona.

A new training mode helps acquaint novice players to the fundamentals of base and unit prep, though it sadly fails to communicate clearly about how to succeed after those initial steps. Versus AI matches are a fun way to get your feet wet, especially when playing cooperatively with a few buddies. After a few matches, the computer detects your skill level and plays accordingly.

Ultimately, all the time in other modes is meant to transition players into true competitive multiplayer, but nothing can prepare you for the cleverness of an actual opponent. Heart of the Swarm is billed as an expansion pack, but make no mistake: This entry is as full-featured and rewarding as the base game.

While the harder sci-fi edge of the campaign may not be as accessible as the earlier terran storyline, I found myself gradually embracing the darker tones, even when some of the character moments fell flat. Accompanied by the incomparable multiplayer, Heart of the Swarm is a worthy middle act to tide us over until the protoss warp in for the impending conclusion.

This second act centers on the enigmatic alien Zerg, and multiplayer improvements refine an already phenomenal experience. Join Sign In. Post Tweet Email. Follow Us. Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment. Release: March 12, Share Facebook Post. Twitter Tweet.