StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm picks up right where Wings of Liberty left off. It focuses on Kerrigan’s continued quest for vengeance against Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. Much of what I had to say about Wings of Liberty’s gameplay and mechanics applies also to Heart of the Swarm. However, what stood out most about Heart of the Swarm is how streamlined much of the gameplay becomes as you upgrade your units.
Just like in the Terran campaign, you’re constantly upgrading (evolving) your Zerg units. However, it gets to the point that it almost seems unbalanced, especially how easy it becomes to train Zerglings and unleash a massive Zergling rush at the enemy. I’m not a StarCraft multiplayer expert by any means, but the Zerg feel almost too powerful compared to the Terrans. That doesn’t mean they’re not fun to use since, compared to the grueling difficulty of the Zerg campaign at the end of StarCraft: Brood War, Heart of the Swarm’s campaign was a breeze, and a lot of fun.
That being said, you can see why the StarCraft II pro scene didn’t have the staying power of the original StarCraft. It feels very streamlined. For a casual player, it’s a lot of fun, but it’s understandable why it might not have resonated with pro players as much.
Heart of the Swarm really holds your hand, even going so far as to tell you when the enemy is about to attack sometimes. It’s not necessarily bad, just much more verbose and attentive than the original StarCraft.
Also, Heart of the Swarm has too much talking during missions at times. It gets to the point that sometimes the game is talking over itself, giving you warnings while also trying to give you directions. When you’re playing levels that are dependent on speed, sometimes you have to sit there and wait for the game to tell you everything you need to know and stop talking so you can focus on the mission.
Heart of the Swarm has some fantastic mission variety. The gameplay is much more varied than the original StarCraft. Using Kerrigan’s abilities and following her on every mission is something fans didn’t get to do in Brood War.
Many of the missions’ strategy focuses less on base-building and more on unit-to-unit combat. There’s a heavy emphasis placed on Kerrigan and her ever-increasing power. She levels-up and attains more abilities the more missions you complete. Completing side objectives also makes her more powerful. Overall, the campaign always keeps you on your toes and never gets tedious or repetitive. It has excellent pacing, and the scalable difficulty makes the game much more approachable.
While most of the voice acting is what we expect from Blizzard, some of it could’ve been improved. Also, without going into spoilers, some of the story beats seem like they could’ve been better. However, Heart of the Swarm has a fantastic story ending.
VERDICT
Overall, Heart of the Swarm is a lot of fun. The gameplay feels intentionally constructed to focus on the best parts of playing StarCraft, which is a lot of action, and a lot of destruction and blowing up your enemy’s buildings. The gameplay and mission structures are so much different than the original StarCraft, it’s almost not fair to compare them. Old StarCraft was all about building your base, building your army, and destroying the enemy base, rinse and repeat. Heart of the Swarm never falls into that repetitive rut. It’s always throwing new things at you, and they’re always fun.
The Gamer's Standard 