Quick Look: StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

also this, pretty much. the live stream was a hoot.

Normally I don't give a damn about CG cinematics but maaaaaaaaaaan that intro scene is BADASS.

And BADASS again for good measure.

Izsha is voiced by Karen Strassman who did the voice for Aigis in Persona 3

Izsha is voiced by Karen Strassman who did the voice for Aigis in Persona 3

Man, you dudes bad at SC.

Oh my GOD Brad was maddening to watch... at least my interest in SC2 has been restored.

Yeah, I've tried them all, even HTML 5. I think it even hiccuped when I tried to go off of HD (though that was a while ago). Thanks anyway...

Player worked well for a few days last week though. Hopefully they're close to fixing it?

I find it funny that Vinny insists on the grossness of Zerg when he just watched a human birth in person a couple months ago. Whole biological universe is gross, Vinny. It's all fluids and tendons and waste products and slimy stuff that smells bad. :)

edit---- pfffffff hahahahaha Brad. I have won the match. GEEGEE. Concede. I am so much better than this guy.His economy is destroyed. *plows directly into meat grinder of enemy units* Hey stop killing my stuff! Asshole! :D

I didn't beat StarCraft 2, or the original, but I have them both, for what I had experienced, I really liked them. I'm not entirely into RTS', but with everything that surrounds those games it's just highly intriguing to me. I mean, from a campaign perspective. I like the characters; the visuals; the sounds, and overall, it's sci-fi; I love sci-fi.

I watched the main cutscenes to two so I know what happens. Oh, and yes, I say I'm not entirely into RTS', but I do still enjoy them. And goodness, this look superb. Gah! I wish I still had a fine PC to play these games on. When it comes to the story, I'm very interested, but I haven't played them enough to consider myself knowledgeable, and it'd be nice to change that.

You're fighting World Of Warcraft, Vinny, you're always fighting World Of Warcraft.

Brad trying to figure out where to go....the big green way point on the mini map is probably a safe bet.

Has this game always had cool blue shadows for transparent Protoss bits? That's a really cool touch.

Those mines do seem pretty annoying. That said, I don't even play StarCraft, but I know that if Brad hadn't waited for that first guy to GG, and pressed his advantage, and kept up his harass, he would have finished after he wiped out the other guy's economy, because Brad could have kept pumping shit out and wear down whatever that other guy had left as well as prevent any further expansions.

That guy shouldn't have GG'd just because that's "they way." He wasn't finished, by a long shot. He could have been, but he wasn't any of the times Brad bitched. The only reason him not GGing was bad was that he was relying on people not knowing how to counter tactics with new units, and using some kind of dumb tactics, but he also could have come back from that if he'd stopped doing that and pushed against Brad's arrogance.

And to be clear, I'm not saying I'm better than Brad, or anything like that. He'd kill me in Starcraft, and that will ALWAYS be the case. But he was too arrogant. The GG thing is a weird thing and I think Brad has always been a bit weird about it. I've never really agreed with early GGs. If I surrendered every time a random guy wanted to in League, I'd have a lot fewer wins.

Oh! It's EDI from Mass Effect. Cool

This by far is one of the weirder Quick Looks. It has everyone!

man it's fun to yell at brad from my computer chair lol :D

Regarding as to if Kerrigan and Raynor were a couple. It is really implied and shown that they really were a long time ago when they were working together for Mengsk in their mission against the Confederacy. A part of their relationship's past is shown in the "Flashpoint" book that tells the 3 week gap in between Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm.

Watching Brad run over those mines over and over was pretty hilarious. The rest of the time I found it hard to remove my palm from my face. Brad was lucky those players were really bad.

Holy shit! I don't think I've ever heard Brad more excited about anything than the intro to this.

He's a dude playing a game. Why would anyone need to defend someone else? Just watch it, and if you don't like it, turn it off. Some people...

You know, not be a member of the "Brad Defense Force", but it's amazing how hard it is to play multiplayer starcraft well and hold an almost unrelated discussion at the same time. Yeah he was making some pretty bad mistakes an some very sloppy play in the 1 v 1 , but his attention was clearly very divided between the game and doing his Quick Look responsibilties. Throw in some obvious anxiety( that I believe he does his best to deal with) from playing on camera and I think he did reasonably ok given the circumstances. And frankly the mood swings he has in the game is pretty reflective of mood swings a lot of players have, they just aren't verbalized in public he has to as part of the job.

I've never played a game which requires more mental simultaneous multi-tasking. Some people that affects more than others. Brad seems to be one of those guys it affects a lot. I've noticed in watching streams where he isn't talking much, that his play in really any game is dramatically better.

My best guess is Brad is a fairly strong player, when he's fully concentrating.

anyway I enjoyed the heck out of the quicklook.

WHOOOOOOO!!!!

HELL YEAH. Love it Brad! Love your SCII stuff :D

I totally agree. All the missed prompts, text and audio is kinda nuts. But I try to give the benefit of the doubt that he's being distracted by other people and talking. He also always seem super-selfconscious when playing on a stream. Otherwise I don't see how he ever finishes a game.

I also don't get why he seems like he never wants to play:

"I should just quit, it's an unranked game,"

"I kinda just want to quit out of this,"

"I wasn't really playing,"

"I could just quit,"

"I was hoping this guy would quit"

Anyone know who Brad was referring to at about 1:24 with the PR guy who interrupted a stream? Sounds hilarious.

@vinny Interview me? I'll send you my Pic and CV.

Kerrigan is probably the most important character in the SC universe and it's hard not to see why someone wouldn't want revenge on Mengsk for what he did. He basically is the one who turned her into what she was and what she became. Also Kerrigan does not fully recollect what she did as the Queen of Blades during the Brood War and in the events of Wings of Liberty.

The multiplayer is fine, a lot of people being cold on the MP was during the early beta for HotS and was aimed at Blizzard for their handling of Battle.net. Most people I've seen have been pretty stoked for MP.

@warmonked: I get where Brad was coming from, most players at higher levels of play know when they've lost and promptly end the game. Oddly enough I think he'd have gotten in 5-6 games if he'd played on ranked ladder rather than getting one hour long unranked 1v1.

that was worth watching every single minute

It was hilarious the first time he got dominated by a widow mine. Slightly less less so after the second. By the time we hit the 40-minute mark of that game I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Despite all of the changes to the game, I don't think Brad's changed anything about his play style for this.

Extremely entertaining, one of the best QLs I've ever seen. I've got no problem with Brad screwing around when Vinny and Ryan are in the room cracking wise.

It's a bummer so many folks get so upset about a stream like this. It's exactly what I come to this site for. A bunch of funny dudes dicking around with a video game.

I think Kerrigan is a lot like Darth Vader; they've both gone from being a cool secondary antagonist to 'center of the whole plot Space Jesus' types.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching Brad suicide his observers into widow mines

Nice "Quick Look."

I think Brad would have done a lot better if he had known that Widow mines didn't destroy themselves when they fired.

I love Ryan's raucous announcer voice.

I like how I've never played Starcraft before, yet even I'm over here wondering why the hell Brad doesn't just get a damn observer in his war party.

No I wouldn't.. why would I care if Brad wins or loses an unraked multiplayer match...? Actually he could have GGed out, even if he was winning, after showing the new units and shown us another campaign mission instead and that woulda been great. There's literally nothing new to see from watching him turtle in his base for 30minutes, making probes and cannons, that you haven't seen in Wings of Liberty. I think you missed the point entirely.

Man, Brad is acting like one of those jerks that make me not want to play multiplayer in games like these in the first place. Command me to GG? Eff you, buddy. Hope that guy at least wasn't watching the stream with all the insults flying his way.

I fucking love watching SC2 streams.

lol

Brad says:"im sensing you have seen enough" with one hour left in the video. lol

Man.... watching Brad make excises about how good he is while he is getting destroyed by mines is painful to watch. Was really hoping that other guy would win so he could eat his words. I was confused why Brad kept GGing and not quitting and then I realized what was happening. I have no problem with Brad being noobish, he hasn't played in a while and he is talking and playing. But don't be a scrub man... Mines are part of the game. If he keeps killing your army, then he's the one winning and he shouldn't quit.

Rorie made me smile.

"Brad, get detection. Brad, get detection. You should get detection, Brad. You really should get detection before running in. Brad, widow mines. Brad, there are still widow mines waiting for you. Brad, use your observer. Brad, you can use an observer and your colossus to take out those widow mines. You probably shouldn't run all your zealots into the widow mines. Don't run your zealots into the mines, Brad. Those widow mines are killing your army. Don't go in there without detection or you're gonna die, Brad."

There is not paying attention to the tutorials (which I'm fine with), there's being distracted, there is not being able to multi-task, but this so frustrating to watch. And then they crossed the streams. And things got amazing !

Anyway, looking forward to hear what the crew has to say about the game. Personally it's on my GOTY 2013 list already :'D