hello molten lava guy lich king

They're also more damage resistant I believe. Damn cheaters...

"Ha ha ha ha, fear me mortals, I am Arthas and I am back, Icrecown citadel was merely a Setback!"

"But... we saw your soul.. and Bolvar took your helm and became the new Lick King already Arthas..."

"..... MERELY A SETBACK!!"

I wouldnt even be surprised at any "cleaver plot twist" Blizzard ever bring out anymore...

Edit: While it might not ring many for many people I actually just got to know one of the main writer of SC2 single campaign is Andy Chambers who used to work for like 15-20 years for Games Workshop (the creator of the Warhammer/Warhammer 40K universe). He pretty much brought many races like the Necrons, Tyranids and Space Wolfes from stuff only mentioned in the stories to fully playable armies in the tabletop and with full "story".

But by himself he was never a great story teller or writer so in my opinion it didnt exactly help SC2 story telling, might have helped with creation of the new units though, that guy has a knack for coming out with new cool stuff.

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Aug 5 2010, 11:09 PM

“Tosh.” How Apt.



As I moaned last week, while I’m entirely digging the game design otherwise, I’m finding StarCraft II’s writing a bit of a chore. At times it seems like it was generated by a machine, or perhaps a horse with a Dictaphone. It can be tricky to demonstrate why I have this distaste for the game’s oft-insipid dialogue and characterisation, outside of quoting the flat, tired lines over and over. So I’m going to try and do it through a character study instead: a breakdown of why I’m not satisfied with the approach the game has taken to its chattiest denizens.

Let’s talk about Gabriel Tosh: spooky Rastafarian psychic soldier dude. That he’s so appropriately called “Tosh” – well, maybe someone was paying attention after all.

Some spoilers follow, and are flagged as such – they’re primarily focused on Tosh, but you’re still advised to steer clear if you’ve not finished the campaign.


Kittens mean spoilers. Bears mean spoilers end.

Tosh appears early in the game, as a shady character offering to help you out, and goes on to provide the narrative backbone of a subset of missions.

As with all of SC2′s thinly-sketched characters, Tosh is described more by his appearance and vocal mannerisms than by what he says or does. He has dreadlocks, he’s a bit mystic, he says “be” instead of “is” – three times within 15 seconds at one point. “This be the moment of truth.” “This be worth a fortune.” Apart from that, the rest of his English is spot on – but apparently he needs a single vocal tic so that we remember he’s Rastafarian.

Ah yes: he’s the only non-white member of StarCraft 2′s main cast. (Admittedly, General Warfield’s importance is stated a few times, but his appearances are very fleeting compared to the rest of the plot-relevant characters). It would be petty and strange to complain about this in itself: plenty of other games (and movies) elect to star an entirely or predominantly white cast, after all. I mean Harry Potter, for goodness’ sakes. What I want to go into instead is how trite Tosh’s characterisation is, and how that could be perceived. I do not prescribe any negative intent to Blizzard, apart from possible thoughtlessness.

Here are some Tosh-facts:

Tosh is presented as sinister, untrustworthy and self-interested – his motives questioned repeatedly by gravel-voiced hero Jim Raynor and all his allies.

He has a drug habit, though this may or may not be necessary for his mystic powers.

A bunch of his friends are in jail. (Though are all white, however.)

He apparently has only two attitudes: stoned-sounding mystic and murderously angry.

Oh yes, and he has a Voodoo doll. A voodoo doll.



He even carries it around his neck, in case he needs to do any emergency voodooing at a moment’s notice. No-one else in the game is carrying a voodoo doll. There isn’t any suggestion that anyone else in the game so much as believes in black magic, in fact.

Are we supposed to think he’s cool, or think he’s quietly villainous? Omar he ain’t. It gets worse. Unfortunately, however…

SPOILERS!

In Tosh’s last mission, you’re given the choice to help him or bring him down. Do the former and he lives and remains your buddy, albeit with a little bit of threatened knife-crime first. Do the latter and he threatens Raynor with his voodoo doll – but gets it wrong and hurts the wrong guy. What a silly!

Take this path and his narcotics involvement extends to him being a drug-producer and possible dealer.

Take this path and Tosh gets killed. And insulted. Repeatedly. It’s not a noble death – it’s a humiliating death, in which he’s first made to look like both an idiot and a hissing pantomime villain, and then sent out with a cruel, cheap stab to the back of the head, before we’re treated to a lingering close-up of his slack-jawed corpse as Raynor celebrates the kill. This savage treatment completely undermines any sense that he’s a heroic character, a misunderstood freedom fighter – as picking the other path for this mission tries to claim he is. The game decides you shouldn’t feel like you’ve made the wrong decision, so removes almost all moral ambiguity about Tosh if you choose to turn on him.

He is, as per Hollywood cliche, the first major character in the game to die [Edit - this does depend somewhat on the order in which you play some of the climactic missions.]. And suffice it to say this is not game with a great many speaking-role casualties.

So, let’s recap: the game’s only major black character is a witch doctor, is too inept to witch-doctorise properly, is a drug dealer whose friends are in prison, and who (optionally) gets killed. It is hugely important to note that there is a choice as to whether the player treats him as a hero or a villain, but picking the latter means he is then depicted almost unilaterally as thuggish scum who deserves to die.

SPOILERS END!

Again, I’m not prescribing any motive behind Tosh’s or anyone else’s depiction- the problem is that the sheer weight of cliche laden onto this one character alone is crazy. Perhaps more to the point, he’s just one more growly, semi-magic, exposition-spouting cipher in gaming’s great litany of such supporting characters. Maybe he’s a a light-hearted parody of that, but if so I wouldn’t say that comes across. He doesn’t add up to a fun, surprising or even particularly likeable NPC: he adds up to an exceptionally tired dramatic stereotype. Which is my only argument here – that SC2′s characters are nowhere near well-developed enough to escape cliche.

There are (at least) two huge counter-arguments against Tosh being an especially poorly-realised character, and I’m very much aware of both. [Edit - and, as some have correctly observed, a third. Another, hitherto minor black character is promoted from apparent villainhood to much greater importance very, very late in the game.]

1) StarCraft II is far, far, far, far from being the only recent videogame that treats its non-white characters cursorily. I’m not singling it out for that. My point is that big, gloopy spoonfuls of lore and prophecy do not excuse the game’s storytelling weaknesses – of which Tosh is just one example. Given how much time we spend listening to them, I wanted more convincing, more interesting characters.

2) The game willfully embraces stereotype throughout. Its white characters are variously: drunks, criminals, jobsworths, grumpy, nerds or despots…

…while the only two female characters with significant speaking-roles are a helpless scientist who immediately falls for Raynor, and his ex-lover Kerrigan, who’s been turned into the queen of all chitinous evil, but still manages to show off her shapely bottom at all times. Oh, you can also factor in that the medics are all (helpless) women if you want. The age-old nurse stereotype, clad in power armour.

As is so often the case, this videogame doesn’t seem to treat its female characters with a great deal of respect.

So no-one does well out of this, in other words. That may be because the game is shooting for Simpsons-style “if we insult everyone we’re treating them equally” blanket-prejudice, or it may be because aspects of the writing may have not enjoyed as much consideration as they perhaps should have done.

If there was more depth and subtlety to StarCraft II’s characterisation, I wouldn’t have spotted Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Tosh and thought “uh-oh.” It’s as simple as that. I’m aware that the game’s deliberately going for Lucasian breadth in its tale of war amongst the stars, but that isn’t excuse enough for characters this shallow and patronising.

Yes, it’s an overblown tale about lasers, love and larvae: it’s not The Wire. A little thought can make all the difference, however. Surely the world’s richest game developer can do better than this.

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

any tips on the redstone part? mission 6 i think...i playing hard mode...need to mine those gold mineral for 8k...found out not tat easy lol

that 1 quite ez even with higher difficulty, most of the mineral is outside, guard both entrance, secure the new command center, build an army, send them out destroying all enemy base and collect resource(not mine), you should be getting almost 8k just collecting and destroying every single enemy base. just remember to use reapers to jump onto any higher ground and check.

Updated first post with videos to explain the story for Starcraft 1.

if hard mode was 10, I'd rate normal mode as 1. sooooooo different.

last mission, hard mode i reach 98.9% to end up fail. normal mode 1 time finish, no reload. no base breach.

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Added on August 6, 2010, 2:39 pmlava mission? yeah that one easy actually.

what i did was mass up some infantry and go taking down enemy bases 1 by 1. each base clear, then only i continue harvesting. clear the bases on the right side first.

you also get a research point if you destroy that donno what thing at bottom right. do that just before you finish harvesting resource.

yupe...i find that quite true goldfries......wonder how hard is brutal lol....i think it was mission 7 or 8 tat ur suppose to defend the base while Dr. Ariel move the refugees out to somewhere near protoss planet. defend against infected marines....tat mission if play brutal means gone case liao....hard is hard....normal is easy

ehh, that mission rescue people? that one hard mode also quite easy.

i think the extrating the 7 pieces from protoss that one can be tricky............ also, i didn't realize V is for advanced structures. until much later on during multiplayer. damn blur.

which one is better choice?? listen to tychus or general warfield?? btw i choose general warfield..

yeah i choose warfield la, that's why got problem in final mission.

btw is it possible to reverse the decision without replaying the whole campaign?

warfield = take out air? if take out air = problem, then you'll be disappointed.
broodlords from ALL direction and corruptors + overseer corruption is a PAIN IN THE ASS.

when i finished the mission my nova thingy got like 600 hp and its under heavy fire. loaded game quite a number of times. 30min mission took me around an hour to finish >.>

yup. i thought take out air mean ok la i have peace of BC going around.

no need worry about those other things. when they say that tunnel around, i didn't expect it to be THAT crazy in swarm. (and my oversight that zerg ground forces are stronger than air).

aihh.

no dude, thats what im telling you, zerg air would be much deadlier than you think rofl

dont believe, just play it and you'll see rofl.

ehh. having air tougher? looks like either way also tough.

hard mode is a killer. i having problem recreating my 98.9% progress. quite lz to try already.

brood lords are a pain. makes any zerg ground forces look like a walk in the park. nydus in ur svc or not. then that overlord drop oTL

covered my entire base in creep, corrupting my key buildings (lol bunkers that cant fire) and having mutas/overseer/brood lord/corruptors coming from all directions

matt horner was goin ape shit on my commlink telling me to go nova >.>

I don't really find a problem with the Nydus worms at hard. I just build lotsa siege tank + Perditions with Banshee support. Build a group of Battlecruisers to take out Nydus + Yamato Kerrigan. 3 bunkers at each entrance filled with Marines. And each side enforced with 4 SCVs. I only use Energy Nova when they start killing my tanks.

ehh. the nydus all so far away la. BC travel there take so long. i prefer to use banshee.

perdition? ehh. don't think i have that unit.

yamato kerrigan ah? heh, no time to build BC also. 3 bunkers always kena overrun. spam siege tank there. my longest duration was with a bunch of supply depot blocking kerrigan and have a bunch of STanks bombarding.

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Added on August 6, 2010, 4:30 pmoh and another thing - i forgot to upgrade weapon / armor, which could've helped me.

I was just reading the US battle net forums and just realised something. The doctor in charge of the Moebius Foundation, his name is Dr. Narud. You spell that backwards and you get... Coincidence? Wouldn't be surprised if his 1st name was Rimas