[Desert Tyrant]

IIRC it is implied in the first game, or outright said, I havent played it in a long time, but The Zerg did beat the Xel'naga, IIRC it was several thousand years before the main Campaigns.

[Ghostavo]

The Xel'Naga were overrun by the Zerg before they could figure out what was happening. At least that was the interpretation I got.

[Mefustae]

1. There's nothing realistic about the Zerg.

StarCraft has prided itself on a cartoonish representation of otherwise realistic (in the frame of sci-fi) units.

Realistic in terms of the fictional universe, tool.

The fall of the Xel'Naga:

The pride in their achievements proved to be the fatal downfall of the Xel’Naga. The Overmind, while slowly expanding itself into the void of space, became aware of the mighty Xel’Naga world-ships hovering ominously above the skies of Zerus. The Xel’Naga, having kept a constant watch on the Overmind, were horrified to find that it had actually severed their psychic link, effectively hiding itself from their view. With its need to consume driving its minions into a lustful frenzy, the Overmind launched the now space-faring Zerg swarms at the unsuspecting Xel’Naga. The ancient race did what they could to stem the tide of the ever-advancing Zerg onslaught, but in the end their efforts were in vain. Wave after wave of Zerg swarms hammered the reinforced hulls of the Xel’Naga’s ships with no signs of abatement. Within only a few hours the Zerg overran the defenses of their creators and laid waste to the Xel’Naga fleet.

As the greater whole of the Xel’Naga race was consumed by the raging, genetic whirlwind of the Zerg, the Overmind gained the knowledge and insights of its masters. The Overmind processed thousands of sentient beings into itself, causing it to grow far more powerful than it had ever imagined. It learned the secrets of the sacred Khaydarin Crystals,and began to incorporate the energies of these Crystals into its own. Through the intimate knowledge of evolution and proto-genetic physiology gained from the Xel’Naga, the Overmind was able to increase the level of sentience in many of the higher Zerg strains, while still keeping them fully under its control.

Through dissecting the memories of the Xel’Naga, the Overmind was made aware of the myriad races that had at one time or another been influenced by the ancient race. The Xel’Naga had kept a detailed genetic history of each race, giving the Overmind a clear understanding of their respective strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, the Overmind learned of an exceedingly powerful race that lived near the galaxy’s fringe known only as the Protoss. The Overmind knew then that the Protoss and the Zerg would eventually be caught in an inevitable, apocalyptic conflict.

[Nico]

Their is a video from the PCGamer that shows some "new" Protos units. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30MBljXxg3M#
Seams like the carrier and some other old friends are back with just a new name.

I don't like the new carrier. Lacks character. And the soul hunters or whaever at the begining are lame, wtf, alien surfers?

[TrashMan]

1. There's nothing realistic about the Zerg.

StarCraft has prided itself on a cartoonish representation of otherwise realistic (in the frame of sci-fi) units.

Realistic in terms of the fictional universe, tool.

I don't follow.

Way I see it, when it comes to Fantasy and (even moreso) Sci-fi you got two possible types of things (when we're talking about made up things like speciaes, technologies and so forth) - things that are "real" within the said universe, but realisticly wouldn't work (energy life forms, organic space ships, teleportation, etc...) and things that fit the universe and might even be possible (singular shields, laser rifles, etc..)


If you refer to 1 that it's OK, Zerg make "sense" within Starcraft universe....(just as Barney or Telletubbies make sense within their own.)

[Mefustae]

I don't follow.

Way I see it, when it comes to Fantasy and (even moreso) Sci-fi you got two possible types of things (when we're talking about made up things like speciaes, technologies and so forth) - things that are "real" within the said universe, but realisticly wouldn't work (energy life forms, organic space ships, teleportation, etc...) and things that fit the universe and might even be possible (singular shields, laser rifles, etc..)

If you refer to 1 that it's OK, Zerg make "sense" within Starcraft universe....(just as Barney or Telletubbies make sense within their own.)

There are intervals in StarCraft where you see an image of a ship, a building, or whatever and it is depicted in a realistic sense as opposed to a cartoonish sense.

For an example of this, think of the cutscene where several marines drop off a nuke aboard a science vessel shortly before getting carved up by Zerg and subsequently exploded to death. The station they're on is massive, much larger than they are, but the science vessel ingame is merely a fraction of the size and far less detailed. Indeed, the version seen ingame is merely a representation of an otherwise realistically imagined object. See where i'm coming from?

It's not realistic in terms of being real, but it is drawn and animated realistically as it would exist in our world if it did indeed exist. That is what i'm talking about when I say the game merely portrays realistic units in a cartoonish fashion, hence complaining about the units ingame not looking realistic is utterly asinine.

[Ransom]

I think the problem is less that the units don't look realistic and more that the visual style is markedly different from the first game. Starcraft looked quite stark and tended to use a somewhat drab colour palette, which gave it a relatively realistic feel even though the units were technically not realistic at all.

Starcraft 2 on the other hand, with its bright colours and even more misbalanced scale, just looks flat out cartoony.

[Mefustae]

On that, sir, you have a point.

[IceFire]

They still aren't done yet...so maybe there will be some work with the pallet.  They do seem to favour the bright colors these days.

[AlphaOne]

what i find amazing is the fact that the terrans found the strenght to not only wage brutal ana huge wars against themselfs but also had the strenght to fight both the protos and the zerg at the same time. Also the Kerrigan unit was something else. I mean if they somehow got a way to fuse zerg and protos abilaties into terrans then .....well.....since of the 3 races the terrans seems to be the most imaginative at waging war there would be nothing that could stop the terrans.

Or if the protos got an active imagination they could do the same.

[Desert Tyrant]

I do agree with Ransom.  I wish SC2 didn't look as cartoony... Damn, I'm Spolied by C&C3

[TrashMan]

C&C3 rocks! Gotta love those great unit animations...

[Ghostavo]

To be honest, SC2 looks as cartoony in comparison to the original as WC3 looks cartoony in comparison to WC2.

But yes, a darker atmosphere would be better.

[Gamma_Draconis]

I just hope they include an awesome editor. I actually bought WC3 just so I could play the custom maps. The campaign I never bothered with, and the online skirmishes were boring after the 5th game. 90% of the games I played on Starcraft were the its custom maps. If Blizzard is keeping its tradition of innovative editors, I'll buy Starcraft 2 just to enjoy the custom maps people will make.

[Desert Tyrant]

C&C3 rocks! Gotta love those great unit animations...

... Indeed.  Mammoth Tanks+Railguns =Win.  Hey, that'd be cool, GDI vs Terran Dominion...

[Ulala]

GDI FTW

[IceFire]

Lots of news coming out in the last few days on the StarCraft front.

New Terran units on the official site, Protoss Carrier is back (Protoss Tempest is out, so is the Soul Hunter), Terran Command Centers have some nifty new upgrades that include mounted cannons and sensors, Terran Thor is a very large powerful unit for the Terrans, tweaks and changes galore and lots of other stuff.  Seems like Blizzard is not afraid to keep making changes until they are happy with the units.  I rather like the new Banshee (sort of like an attack helicopter) and the Viking is really nifty too.

http://www.starcraft2.com/
http://www.starcraft.org/

[Sarafan]

Nice! Thanks, Icefire.

[Nuke]

pretty cool stuff.

[starbug]

Yeah its looking cool, i like the quote the viking gives, "Transform and Roll out!" everything seems to be going transformers. I also like the idea that breifings are like scenes form KOTOR, you can go around you ship, interact with members of the crew and take on subplots if you want, They also seem to have darkened it and it dosen't look as cartoony which is all good, i am very much looking forward to this and bioshock