Blarghagh

Plus no matter how many reviewers call it a "triumph of special effects" Peter Cushing in Rogue One was hideous and terrifying, smack dab in the middle of the uncanny valley, like one of those horror movie scenes where the creepy girl's face suddenly gets distorted in a jumpscare but then it's like that the entire time. Gave me the creeps.

Legacy of the Void's not much different in structure. Early on is plot, then a lot of getting more troops from different Protoss tribes, then finally some more plot. It's a little less dull about it though. Plus it's got Alarak, the evil protoss who looks like Darth Vader and is voiced by Q from Star Trek, and that helps a lot to make it more entertaining.

Bloody hell. That family is having a rough ride. ****ty year all around.

Yeah, a lot of loose ends were clearly just openings for new games. Such as Heart of the Swarm's little alien infection missions on a Protoss colony ship. Kerrigan's last order just happens to be "destroy the Protoss" before she decides to forget her new little swarm exists. Somewhere out there a highly evolved but forgotten Zerg queen is still working towards that order so in another game we've got an excuse for some more Protoss on Zerg action. (And I feel the Forsaken are a much more obvious example of that than the Blood Elves. )

I probably read the old Star Craft manual more often than I actually played the game. Wings of Liberty was really bad with messing up the story but Heart of the Swarm went wild with the reconning, what with a new home world for the Zerg, "primordial" Zerg versions of the units we have now (who were in the old manual lovingly described with their freaking place of origin and what they were before the Overmind assimilated them) and ehm... lots of other stuff I already repressed. Yeah, I was mightily annoyed with how they made the Overmind secretely a good guy, but you know, I guess some kind of Xel'Naga conflict is okay to justify a little bit of that and all we heard was how Zeratul and "Tassadar's Ghost" interpreted everything. But when we went to Zerus and it was something entirely different than what had been explained and the "primal" Zerg that our Zerg were created from had nothing to do with the parasitic worms the Zerg originally were according to established lore? But then again, the WarCraft II manual clearly states the orcs were always bloodthirsty and lo and behold our current proud warrior race who was just corrupted. Maybe it's my fault for expected too much from Blizzard.

Perhaps you can find some enjoyment of the "so bad it's good" level in it, but as someone who was a bit of a StarCraft lore nut before SC2 was even announced, I hated it. StarCraft always had a bit of Space Opera tinge to it but Heart of the Swarm onwards took out the comparative grit and realism that set it apart from the WarCraft franchise.

Actually, Dr. Feelgood never came up with the cure. They never state that. They just say she'll keep working on it. That's what makes that decision so mind-boggling to me - I promptly reloaded and sided with Selendis instead. Plus, that makes for a better character arc anyway - another woman in Jim's life becomes a monster and he has to put her down just like he vowed to put down Kerrigan. It solidifies his "there has to be a better way" theme that makes him determined to find a way to bring Kerrigan back. But yeah, betraying Tosh being a good thing all of the sudden? That choice made no sense. EDIT: Anyway, talking about Dungeon Keeper earlier in this thread gave me a nostalgia itch and I couldn't get my old discs working anymore, so I bought both games on GOG. Lovely being the bad guy. Surprised that there's a lot less depth in the first game than I remembered, but it's got the most style and atmosphere of the two by far.

Wings of Liberty is definitely the better part of the SC2 trilogy. The love story is often cited as a bad thing but until Heart of the Swarm I thought it was the one-sided obsession of a lonely, has-been drunkard. Only a couple of things that bother me about it and one of them's not it's fault but comes from plotholes introduced by later parts. - One is the part where the Overmind is a corrupted good guy, because good lord Blizzard, can you write nothing else? - Then there's the twist about Tychus working for Mengsk the entire time and being able to see everything we do - meaning he saw our every move to destabilize him, from stealing the Odin to using it to broadcast our propoganda messages, and did nothing about it just on the off chance we could get close to Kerrigan some day. - And finally there's the plot twist from Heart of the Swarm revealing the Tal'Darim work for Dr. Narud, making the missions where you fight the Tal'Darim to collect alien artifact pieces for Dr. Narud a giant headscratcher. Heart of the Swarm had potential but too many of the talking Zerg were cartoonish (honestly the only one I liked was Abathur), it introduced a lot of plot holes and unneccesarily retconned established lore, and Kerrigan reinfesting herself made some of our biggest achievements from Wings of Liberty feel kind of pointless. And again Mengsk had a secret weapon that he could have used to solve everything from the get-go but saved until the very end like an idiot. What happened to Mengsk the master manipulator from the original? It wasn't just bad, but it made the other parts worse. Legacy of the Void was decent enough as long as you stick to the Protoss campaign and completely ignore the final three "bonus" missions in which good space whale cthulhu turns Kerrigan into a space angel to kill bad space whale cthulhu. A lot of insanity in those last bits.

You must have recently read that thing about Blizzard using the SC2 engine for AI research. Not sure why Bryce Dallas Howard was in it though, but there's worse people to have show up in your dreams.

Hope her role in the upcoming Star Wars movies wasn't too big.

I guess it was his... last christmas. Oh god I'm sorry 2016 must have left me a little desensitized to celebrity deaths.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Pagan Winter Solstice Ritual, Festivus, Merry Winter-Veil, Hearth's Warming Eve, Wintertop, Life Day, Decemberween, Snoggletog and Hogswatchnight. Whichever fiction you believe in or whatever commercial tradition you read meaning into, I hope you enjoy it and your nice deep-winter family and happiness celebrations.

Ehh. There were a couple of games I played a lot and had fun with that still had enough issues that I wouldn't award them that GOTY title especially considering how many I didn't play or haven't been able to devote the time to to play proper. I'd say Overwatch is by far what I enjoyed the longest, but with the caveat that I no longer enjoy it now.

I'm going to assume you're the homeless man?

One of the few times something on the internet made me laugh out loud. Usually I just do the amused sniff thing if I read something funny.

That does have a lot to do with it. Maybe my frustration with not enough Vader has to do with the fact he's more interesting to watch than anyone else we got - either way, if you make a point to show how badass someone is and then relegate him to only look cool and make no real impact on our heroes, that seems wasting it to me. If he hadn't appeared and some imperial said "they escaped, send word to lord vader" he would have made the same impact on the plot. Maybe if anyone I liked was ever tested I wouldn't have been waiting for him to show up. But I do feel like the Force and the Jedi and lightsabers are pretty iconic to Star Wars. It's all about space knights and the power of good after all. Lots of other franchises with space battles and robots, but none if them have the dark knight cutting down the old wizard with his laser sword.

Bah, board is not agreeing with my phone.

Why was that very important? Putting aside that I felt this film was dull and I think they failed at it in the first place, even if they proved they could why was that something that needed proving? I feel like it was more important that they show the odds and danger the rebels face and they didn't. Every character was invincible until they pressed their respective plot button and they weren't needed anymore. None of them failed. Imperials and Stormtroopers were as ineffective as ever until the plot said so. Having Vader in there could have changed that - and if you can use Vader and he does nothing but fail and doesn't hit anyone where it matters while doing it, what's the point of having him? To devalue him like that?

I agree.

People offended on my behalf when I didn't know what Liara the asari means anyway.

Not my government. The only thing German authorities are good for is SWAT raiding video game devs.

I'm also going to assume the spanish guy and k2 will make appearances at some point. Possibly blind monk and gun guy too, since Saw's planned appearance suggests going to Jedha.

I feel like those references were pretty minor compared to the fact that Saw Gerrara from the Clone Wars cartoon was a major character.

You're obviously an outsider if you think the EU is any kind if unified reich. The fourth 'reich' hates each other more than the third hated the jews.

Reading everything since my last time checking, I'm inclined to agree. It was hanging by a thread to begin with.