Looking back and playing WoL

Campaign Discussion
1

A miracle happened and I actually have a week or so to play SC again. Since I have no intent getting into PVP ladder, I’ll try to replay campaigns, while trying to get into all features. Clicking on everything between missions, playing into achievements, stuff like that.

Let’s see how I view it now.

I will play all missions, including the branched ones on Brutal with one notable exception (In Utter Darkness, miss me with that …)

My mission order will be based on personal preference be it lore or gameplay.

2

Initial cutscene

Pros - Mengsk’s voice actor, Tychus, Marine suit on display, a shot of banshee from a future cutscene, an iconic piece of WoL music.
Cons - It was a bad decision to let us know that Tychus is a mole. We don’t even see the story through his eyes.

Mar Sara #1 Liberation Day

Cutscene
Shooting the screen when you are alone? Dude quit the bottle.

At this moment, you can still take the UNN broadcast seriously. By the way, Mengsk is mentioned to have squandered trillions on beating Jimmy instead of expanding the fleet. sigh

And yeah, hold that photo. You were with Kerrigan for a few weeks. Meanwhile, you were married to Liddy for at more than a year and gave you a child… just saying.

Pre-game

Kinda funny seeing Raynor spout exposition when he is the protagonist. It makes sense because it’s the first mission and he’s technically alone, but it’s still ridiculous.

Mission

Let’s learn how to A-move and put Raynor in front with his annoyingly better range.

Duh, I had to change BIOS settings to enable F key shortcuts.

Mar Sara environment looks a bit like Arizona or South Cali, except those burnt cars.Let’s skip the fact, that it was glassed few years ago for a moment.

The don’t go that road chick is kinda cute. Never noticed there is a dead mountain sheep like animal.
Another reason to use subtitles - you can read Mengsk’s holoboard messages even though you wrecked the holoboards.
Playing with high graphics is so sweet… I can read signs on gas stations.
First Viking appearance in game. What a sweet unit concept.

Reinforcements confuse me yet again. Raynor calls for a special delivery that jsut has to say they are with him, upon meeting him.

Dammit, one holoboard finished its sentence. Yikes, civs used a target practise. iCruiser ad.

Yeah, man. Try to outrun a bullet. That gonna work.

Time to crack that APC. Now it’s civilians turn to tank the shots, I already lost some marines. I didn’t play in a while, I am on a laptop for the first time and it shows. Nah I am kidding. Not the right way.

Another dead sheep…

God I am so dumb :D. I let Raynor die. Loading last checkpoint. Actually focusing on the game makes a big difference. I have 4 more marines.

There is one Dominion Marine whose only task is to kill civilians coming out of their houses. What an a-hole.

I let civs destroy the HQ, so they have a good feeling.

Killed all Dominion units, Raynor has 9 kills. All achievements would be done.

55 out of 61 civs saved.

3

I’m with you on that one to an extent. I think it adds a bit of suspense for the first time you play it. Tychus is described as a killer, a force of destruction, etc. and those are well earnt. Jimmy is an idealist by all means. A good man who walks a dark a road. Two of them fight to get close to the same person, but one intends to kill her, the other to save her.

Edit: Although I guess We don’t know what Tychus wants, so ignore everything I said.

4

Honestly, the first time I played I accidentally skipped that cutscene. I am 100% certain it made the playthrough better.

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5

It kind of kills what should have been a plot twist, especially with how heavy handed the other bits of foreshadowing are with Tosh basically telling you that Tychus will betray you.

6

Well yes, it was a pretty ham-fisted attempt to give more depth to the game. I like the idea and I can see it work out under different circumstances. Still, I think WoL beats HotS and LotV by a mile when it comes to storytelling.

7

I don’t know that they wanted it to be a plot twist. I think having us watch Tychus’ internal conflict, and having us wonder what his goal is and how he will reconcile it with his seemingly legitimate loyalty and friendship to Raynor, was an intentional thing they did.

2 Likes
8

Then Tychus should have been the narrator. And they should have made it clear, Tychus chose suicide.

9

It seemed pretty clear to me that’s what he was doing. They don’t necessarily need a subtitle for it, given that he was sitting there chatting, and making sure that Jim knew exactly what was happening instead of sucker punching him and bolting.

10

Honestly, I never really had an issue with knowing about the Tychus twist long before the characters in the story. The problem is that the hints provided for the characters about something going on behind the scenes regarding Tychus were such obvious warning signs that it just makes Raynor and company look stupid for not looking into it further.

11

Post-victory cutscene.

Yeah, Jimmy that revolver is going to work against CMC suit. Also… foreshadoooooowing.

Tychus smashing the bottles to help Jimmy with his drinking problems. And you can actually notice when they drink to the deal he picks Cognac. Tychus is a man of culture after all.

Burning that fly with the cigar. So sweet.

Mission lobby

clicking on

Kerrigan

Yeah, we all think it would have been better if she died that day.

Viking

If you notice the picture shows rebels tearing Vikings arms. Yeah, how about learning to use it instead, huh?

Tychus

Tychus being rightfully snappy, after all he took it for both of them. Besides his get-out-of-prison stories are just great.

News

And your ability to take UNN seriously just dropped. Other stuff - Korhal property boom will be shortlived, activity on Char, Valerian opening a hospital, tsunami on Tyrador. Would have been fun if the tsunami happened mid invasion.

12

Mar Sara #2 The Outlaws

Seriously? Does the X’N artifact cost only 45k credits?
Yay, Medics. Best thing to come out of BW.

First in-game Hellion in the pre-mission cutscene. First incredible coincidence, we don’t have to dig it.

Has anyone ever not helped the other Rebel Base? It’s nigh impossible.

I love Medic voices.

Real Men Drill Deep ad

Damn Siege Tank. I will replay the mission to hit the 10 min limit.

Finally cleaned up my macro. 9:12 play time. Obviously got all the caches.

Adjutant is a funny hacker. And effective one.

13

Why would that be a coincidence? Of course you aren’t going to dig it yourselves. Theyre Raynor’s Raiders, not Raynor’s Excavation and Demolition.

14

Would you dig it if you had to dig it?

15

Mission lobby

Hydralisk hunting poster and the skull.

Hah, foreshadowing.

Freedom fighting poster

Now, that’s a little cringy dialogue.

The badge.

We know you are lying Jimmy. You shot. Short stories are the proof.

Tychus is a great patron of sciences and we all know it.

Seriously though…

Ads on TV when you don’t watch the news are awesome. iPistol is a classic and a L800ETC as well, but there is one showing Mengsk winning peace award. And L800ETC at New Folsom.

News themselves - Tosh and Odin foreshadowing.

“You’re a wanted man either way”

Marine armor needs some work then.

16

Isn’t that the same revolver duke used?
And so very well capable of killing someone wearing CMC armour.

17

I just see it as a waste of opportunity and pre-rendered cinematic. The same thing was essentially accomplished by us knowing that Tychus can’t get out of his suit and that he was previously in Dominion custody. Or the fact that he says that Moebius has their hands on the trigger. That alone tells you he’s counterbalancing his situation with his friendship with Raynor. We don’t really have to wonder what his goals are when the game tells us he’s working for Mengsk so blatantly.

Kelthar was telling me earlier that he wasn’t getting paid at all for them, only when he handed them all in. And that all his money came from Tosh.

18

Sure we do. We know Tychus isn’t out to just straight up murder or sabotage Raynor directly, because that would A: be easy, so the fact that he waits so long says that’s not the plan, and B: not need Tychus, specifically, as Tosh calls out at one point.

Not just from Tosh, but from similar situations on a smaller scale.

In fact, we explicitly know that Raynor isn’t paid on retrieval, because he promises Swann that the artifact missions will fix everything, and Swann, rather than going “wow, we actually have some cash!” sounds immensely skeptical that they will see anything at all.

19

Yeah, his job was to get close to Kerrigan any way possible and kill her. He chose to do it through good ole Jimbo.

20

Mar Sara #3 Zero Hour

Time for some holdout against Dominion force… who am I kidding. We all knew it would be Zerg even back then.

I am not doing the achievements for this one on Brutal, I will replay them on Hard. Brutal will be used to focus on clean defense in defiance of Hyperion acting like we need it.

Time to use the staple of Terran holing up.

Pre-mission cutscene.

Southern use of negatives is killing me.

First sighting of Roaches.

Brutal secured. Not the cleanest, but pretty damn safe. I ain’t got the mood to micro that last minute.