StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void Reviews
Legacy of the Void is a good release for those already fans of the series. Priced too high for my liking, but the game still offers a decent length campaign marred by a bad and poorly wrote story. The changes and new features made to the online portion of the game should reinvigorate the community and potentially bring people back to it.
Blizzard promises that this isn't the end of StarCraft, and there are already plans for more balance updates and story campaigns. And I'll probably end up playing more of it, just to see how those plans play out. I still think I like the series' characters and world enough to check in with them from time to time. I might even go back and play through the whole series in the future. But at this point, StarCraft will have to find a newer, weirder place to be in if it really wants me back.
Both the campaign and multiplayer are as great as they've ever been.
As always, multiplayer remains the lifeblood of StarCraft; but with competitive multiplayer having become so insular, it's nice to know that more casual fans have options outside of the campaign. As for the campaign itself, I'm going to have some more thoughts on that next week when I wrap up this review-in-progress and offer some thoughts on StarCraft II as a whole. En Taro Tassadar.
It doesn't have the cleanness or the slow-burn escalation of your old-school C&Cs or the first Warcrafts and StarCraft, so certainly don't approach it as a return to the old ways, but if you want a giant sci-fi army bashing buildings and monsters to death while a crazy lightshow rages, Legacy of the Void is hard to argue with on that basis.
Legacy of the Void, in true Blizzard fashion, doesn't break astounding new ground but does build expertly on what's come before. With an ending so ridiculous I couldn't help but love it, including three of the finest levels ever put in a strategy game, and a plot that never lets up on twists and went brilliantly unspoiled in marketing materials thus far, I don't know how else I would have put the series to rest. No matter your experience with the RTS, StarCraft 2's campaigns are only matched for value and fun by one another.
For fans of the series, Legacy of the Void is a no brainer. For fans of strategy games, I say the again, StarCraft II is the best strategy game you can buy on PC. If you've been waiting for any reason at all to jump in, don't. The game is deep, the competition is fierce and anyone of any skill level can jump in and appreciate what the game is all about. There aren't a whole lot of games that can say that.
A good trilogy is a hard thing to pull off. Far more common than success stories like Return Of The King are third installments like The Dark Knight Rises or The Godfather Part III, where the series ends with a fizzle rather than a bang. Legacy Of The Void rises to this trilogy-concluding challenge. It closes the door on a story that started 17 years ago but opens new ones of its own with a multiplayer mode that has the promise to live on for years to come.
Legacy of the Void doesn't so much conclude StarCraft II with a bang as it helps to re-invigorate interest in a game that has been through dozens of ups and downs over the last few years.