StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Expansion Pack

Like many reviewers, I have been playing SC since the original. I played SC2 multiplayer for a good 6-8 months after its release (and the campaign of course) before feeling like I just couldn't get over my obstacle of getting out of Gold League. I stopped and didn't really get back into it. When HOTS came out, I shrugged it off now that I'm married, working full-time, and dedicate what gaming time I have now to stuff on my 360. Some of my best friends got back into SC2 and told me to pick up the expansion so we could all play. They said the new units were fun, lots of new maps, etc. I had some Amazon credit to get this for $10 and I figured why not. It's not like I have to be super competitive again. So towards the end of March I picked this up. Fast forward to now, four months later with 30+ hours into MP (still getting over my Gold hump) and just now scratching into the HOTS campaign. I am addicted all over again, and I love it. If you are an SC fan for the lore, this $40 investment (now $30 on Amazon for the time being) is a no-brainer. If you are still playing WoL multiplayer, you're missing out on the new units and an ever-growing e-sports scene. There's not too much to really persuade you on if you enjoyed WoL since there's a high chance you'd fit right in with HOTS. Some of the biggest changes including the new units have to do with Battle.net. Adding Spawning back in (meaning if someone does the free trial of SC2, which has limited options, or just WoL and they party with a friend who has HOTS, while in the party they will have access to everything HOTS MP as well. It's awesome!), improving the League algorithm for both Ranked and Unranked, and adding in more portraits and awards, like unit skins, make it all greater experience. Also I've heard in the rumor mill that Tourney modes and Clan support are a matter of time away. Of course a major component in the expansion is the campaign. If you hadn't guessed by the cover it is focused on Zerg. Like WoL and SC1 the story is no Titanic, but if you enjoy the lore you won't feel like you're wasting your time. I'm still going through the campaign, so I'll display how long it took me to complete once I do so. Stay tuned for updates as time goes, but seriously if you enjoyed WoL I'm not sure why you haven't bought HOTS yet, and if you are a newcomer who enjoys RTS's at least give WoL a shot.

In the interest of disclosure let me say that I love playing strategy games. As for the delivery of the item it came via UPS with some difficulty. I however will focus on the game itself. In terms of strategy itself you have your traditional resource gathering of crystal and gas with workers, that you build. You have an army with a cap size that you can expand by expending resources to a set level, usually 200 troop points per level/match. In this iteration you play as the Zerg Queen Sarah Kerrigan and you get to use the various zerg troops to battle Protoss, zerg - both swarm and wild zerg as well as terrans. The zerg give you the option to research ( three ) different upgrades for each zerg unit with only minimal differences between them so each one gives you a small edge in one particular area such as increased attack speed. This is a nice touch even if it does not generally make a huge difference to game play. However a wrinkle that DOES affect your gameplay is the 'evolution' of each unit with the chosen choice being final for the duration of your campaign. This adds a level or replayability to the game which is nice. Thus far I have found the overall level of game play to be easier than the Wings of Liberty game as well as a generally shorter campaign so far. This game is definately a worthy addition to the Star Craft franchise, but like many fans I feel as though this game should have been included with the Wings of Liberty campaign combining all playable factions into a single game rather than making the 2nd faction become an expansion game. This is a money grab by Blizzard - fine $20 - $30 tops which is the range I paid for this game. Any more than that and you really start to lose value for money on this game. Overall a good game with decent graphics and some replayability, which IF you can pick up at bargain price is well worth playing.

Let me start off by saying that I have not gotten a chance to actually play this game. This review is also not a reflection on Amazon's customer service, which has always been great. The one star review is for Blizzard's customer service and inflexible game delivery options. As an employee of the US Embassy in Lusaka, Zambia, I do not have the luxury of good Broadband Internet service. At no time during the purchasing process, did I recall seeing that the game disc contains an executable to begin the download process for the full game which is roughly a 15 - 20 GB download. I repeat, the actual full game file is not on the disc that comes in the box. When I contacted Blizzard about the fact that there is no way on God's green Earth I would be able to download a 15 GB game with my Internet (which is good for this country), they stated something along the lines of their games are designed for people with Broadband connections. I can maintain a connection to Battle.net with my connection, but I cannot download something that size over it. I asked if someone there could just burn the game to a disc and send it to me. Nope, that is not an option either. Quite literally there is nothing they could or would do for me. My problem probably only affects a small portion of the American population, but Blizzard should have some sort of contingency plan in place for this situation. At least a company that gave a crap about it's customers would!

I'll keep this review short, but: WoL had a much better campaign in general, the evolution missions got repetitive after a while and they didn't have the same sense of satisfaction that WoL upgrades and mercs had. The earning of credits and spending them was much more fun than the non-existent RPG aspects of HotS. Also, Kerrigan should have been able to level up through kills as well, not just through mission objectives. I felt like that went against what an RPG was. Another thing was that the campaign was way too easy and while it offered a lot of variety, it still did not compare to WoL. The best thing I like about HoS is that the battles seem to have improved over WoL. The battles start earlier, and the game is more fast-paced and exciting. However, I still feel that BW was the best game out of all of them. Perhaps it is nostalgic bias on my part. The only thing I wish they would do is fix the broken Arcade and custom games. BW's and WCIII's multiplayer had a much more homegrown feel to it, and as soon as you logged on there would be the chat and people ready to talk to you. SCII multiplayer seems too isolated from everyone else.

Very good

前作のWING OF LIBERTYを購入してから、すぐに購入しました。スタークラフトシリーズをやっている人だったら、ファーストからの登場人物やストーリー が分かっているので、英語が理解できなくてもなんとなくわかります。ジムライナー、ケリガン、アルクトゥルスの因縁、グラフィックがリアルになったぶん、 ザーグが気持ち悪いですね。 オンライン対戦できるほどまだ強くないので、キャンペーンを楽しんでいます。 世界的に有名なオンライン対戦ゲームなのに、なんで日本語版がでないのか疑問ですね。

Excellent is all I can say about it!! :|, but Again dont buy it if you have a dedicated internet connection and already installed WOL, because the automatic update will download all the Expansions and Patches including HOTS and LOV. I think I got screwed in this deal because around 15GB of data was already downloaded and I thought it was only for WOL but apparently it has both the expansions and now I have throw the CD into the bin HUH D

日本では知名度が低いけどとてもおもしろいし、量も十分！！ 多少英語が難しいけど日本語のサイトを見ればほとんど問題ありません！ ゲームとしては世界最高レベルです！