[StarSlayer]

I'm not particularly enamored by Blizzard games but Lordy they make lovely Cinematics:

Rush Rush Rush Nom Nom Nom

[General Battuta]

I will maintain my stand that this is an awful cinematic and emblematic of everything Blizzard has lost. Sheeeeeit, just compare it to the masterful Brood War intro.

Post us into orbit, Mr. Malmstein

[Suongadon]

It was better than the trailer that preceded it. But not by much. (I got a Hansel and Gretel preview)

[starbug]

While it lacks in story and narrative, Battuta, you cant argue at the level of quality of the CGI. Blizzard do make some of the highest quality cinematics, even if they lack in narrative.

[General Battuta]

While it lacks in story and narrative, Battuta, you cant argue at the level of quality of the CGI. Blizzard do make some of the highest quality cinematics, even if they lack in narrative.

Yeah I can, I think it's really visually lazy and uninteresting. I suppose the technical pixel per pinhead ratio is probably pretty good, but that doesn't make it look good.

I've noticed this with every Blizzard cinematic from SC2, D3 and now HoS - they seem to have all their dials locked on this really dull semi-painterly semi-photorealistic high fantasy style.

[bigchunk1]

Damn battuta, I don't know if you're being high brow or just have something against blizzard.

The siege tanks just look cool, the ultralisks look menacing, that battle cruiser crashing in the background looks dramatic. It's a cool looking battle.

The writing intriegue really stems from Kerrigan dreaming. It sets the stage for an internal battle which I think could be an interesting dimension to the story. (I say could, i'm not too hopeful)

I could try to go toe to toe with you on specifics, but I'd probably lose. I dunno it's entertainment, and while it didn't tingle my spine it did intriegue me. You're telling me it was as uninteresting as watching the sun rise on a cloudy day? You gotta strengthin your digestive system and eat some grits every once in awahile, especially with AAA budget games.

It's going to be fun and i'm getting it damnit. When i'll be able to play it is another story.

[NGTM-1R]

While arguably somewhat bitter about the bomb that Wings of Liberty's campaign was, I think I see where Batts is coming from in this. It's an artistic repeat, and not a particularly great one. This is the same thing that brought us the bizarre Kerrigan/Zeratul face-off in the last game, which bombed so horribly.

[An4ximandros]

 Could anyone please tell me, constructively, why SC2 was bad/SC1 was good? I played 2. The campaign missions were fun and the story was meh. Anything I'm missing?

 I do give Blizzard praise for making each mission have it's own gimmick so they aren't mind bogglingly repetitive.

[newman]

While technically impressive, it reminds of your typical generic latest Hollywood blockbuster movie, with 10% more explosions and crap than the last one. The comparison with the Brood War intro is a good one - that cinematic had so much atmosphere and really evoked an emotional response. The difference between that and these new cinematics is similar to the difference between original Star Wars and the prequels - while the prequels had an impressive budget and their battles are all bigger and technically impressive, shoving as much exploding crap into each shot doesn't make for a better scene - just as having access to a bigger render farm doesn't make you a better director.

Could anyone please tell me, constructively, why SC2 was bad/SC1 was good? I played 2. The campaign missions were fun and the story was meh. Anything I'm missing?

 I do give Blizzard praise for making each mission have it's own gimmick so they aren't mind bogglingly repetitive.

Agreed. Note that I only played the single player campaign when it comes to Wings of Liberty. While certainly not the best game I ever played, it was entertaining and I wouldn't call it bad, either. I guess I'd put it in the upper part of the mediocre category.

[NGTM-1R]

I do give Blizzard praise for making each mission have it's own gimmick so they aren't mind bogglingly repetitive.

Gimmicks don't usually work the way they're meant to, save for the battlecruiser mission and the Viking mission if you cared. I mean they gave me Wraiths and I never even used Wraiths. 3M all the way.

The only units that I found big uses for outside of their intro missions were Banshees and Battlecruisers. Goliaths were occasionally of use as first-wave shocktroopers for the infantry swarm, but it was rare to hit defenses heavy enough to justify that. The Vikings weren't even good during their intro mission unless I gave a damn about saving the colonies, which I admittedly did, but the heavy lifting base assaults for that mission were still handled by the Marine/Marauder/Medic swarm. The mission that introduced Wraiths, the Odin mission? Yeah. Didn't even use the Wraiths. Don't think I ever built one in the entire campaign. Thors likewise. Goliaths were more cost-effective and less prone to lolfail as they were naturally redundant; kill one Thor and that's it, kill one Goliath and there are still three others shooting you up. But again, infantry swarm was more cost-effective and redundant yet.

See also Batt's hating on the story and my hatred for the writing quality (which is a different though related thing). We both thought the mission quality was fairly good, however, though my opinion on that has changed based on the lack of even managing to gimmick effectively.

[SypheDMar]

The trailer looked better when I was watching it at school muted. The directing also looked great with it muted, too. I guess it was also because of the explosions and stuff. I just watched it with sound, and it sounded pretty dumb. I can't tell if battuta had any effect on me since I wasn't as impressed with the trailer, but we're probably not complaining about the same thing.

Particularly, the marines looked relax (and acted dumb), the transforming mech seemed stupid for transforming only to be brushed aside, and the marine getting stepped on felt unrealistic, whatever that means. The scream felt very out-of-place.

[deathfun]

I'm just going to stay out of this discussion
I enjoyed watching the trailer and playing the games, I look forward to HoS

[An4ximandros]

...Also, I failed to describe how all the writing was terrible because IT'S TIME TO KICK THIS REVOLUTION

INTO OVERDRIVE

 
 Oh god,  Battuta's maximal rants about the writing made me laugh so hard... because it's true! ALL OF IT.

[yuezhi]

i guess now that we've seen the fighter interfaces, someone is going to request a starcraft mod for freespace

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Kerrigan's voice...is that Tricia Helfer? /swoon

[starbug]

Yes it is! She took over the original voice artist, which did cause a huge uproar from the fans, as the original VA did an amazing job with kerrigan.

[Fury]

SC2 was so much full of crap and I'm not going to touch this one. I agree with Battuta on all of his points. Though as far as cinematic quality of the trailer goes, it's pretty "cool" but other than that, meh.

[crizza]

I'll buy the collectors edition, thats it.

[Spoon]

Seeing the siege tanks deploy and having vikings transform looks incredibly badass.
But yeah, what the **** was that viking pilot thinking? "Lemme just land infront of this ultralisk and stop his rampage single han-HURK", especially wierd when you see this defensive line not more then 1 kilometer away from that place. Couldn't he just... ya know, landed over there? And shoot his massive miniguns from the relative safety of that defensive line?

Eh well, its 2 minutes of pretty explosions and stuff. Let's not try to think too much about it.

[General Battuta]

Seeing the siege tanks deploy and having vikings transform looks incredibly badass.
But yeah, what the **** was that viking pilot thinking? "Lemme just land infront of this ultralisk and stop his rampage single han-HURK", especially wierd when you see this defensive line not more then 1 kilometer away from that place. Couldn't he just... ya know, landed over there? And shoot his massive miniguns from the relative safety of that defensive line?

Eh well, its 2 minutes of pretty explosions and stuff. Let's not try to think too much about it.

Terran player was trying to free up supply