This time I’ll review and share my experience playing the campaign “Enslavers: Special Edition”, created by Andrea Rosa in 2020. But before that, I want to comment first about the Designer’s Note: I understand that the original Enslavers seemed to have been rushed by Blizzard. However, it has a special place in my memories, as well. Nostalgia is just around the corner. Anyway, here’s my review.
Mission 1 - “Schezar’s Scavengers”: I liked the inclusion of Infested Terrans attacking the player because, in most cases, Infested Command Centers are nothing but a decoration in the map. Now the map feels much more immersive.
From my previous experience with the original Enslavers, I was expecting a low amount of resources. And there was a low amount… So I played using Bunkers as an attack plugin, in order to make infantry more durable, in the enemy bases. The low amount of resources made more noticeable the infinite amount of resources for the AI, a feature I never liked in custom maps. Still as a challenge, both the original and this campaign, were really fun to play.
I played the map again, after I completed “side A”. This time I didn’t use Bunkers against the orange and red players. I just trained a lot of fully upgraded mech units, and a few Marines for support, without their attack and defense upgrades. This time it went better.
Mission 2 - “Playing With Fire”: I welcome the inclusion of the purple player. I completed this mission twice, the first time I killed the Cerebrate and ignored the red Terrans. I could be wrong, but I felt there were a lot more resources than in the original map. Maybe I played better. The second time, I destroyed the orange base but left the Cerebrate alive, and then I rescued the Protoss. I didn’t have issues with the spawning Hydralisks, thanks to a group of Siege Tanks guarding position in the south coast of their island. When I cleared the orange base, I moved everything away, including the Tanks.
Mission 3a - “One Minute To Midnight”: Cool name. Honestly, I was expecting a brand new map. But then I realized that, maybe, the intention was to make both branches symmetrical in terms of map design. The issue with this approach, though, is that two different stories take place in the same scenarios. This was already an issue before, in the original version, when the outcome of killing the Cerebrate was to have the Protoss as enemies instead of the Zerg. Nevertheless, this extra mission has a very interesting key element, which is the the AI using lots of nukes. The mission was tough because of that. I had to kill orange very quickly, harassing from the high ground with Siege Tanks, then clearing the base, to immediately attack and eliminate the brown base. This was very important because the nukes really caused me troubles.
Mission 4a - “Assault On Aiur”: I explored the entire map, obviously, and noticed the extra expansions northwest and southeast Schezar’s perimeter. The Juggernauts (curious name) were a bit annoying, but I simply decided to make lots of Goliaths to counter them. Since I had the Factories, and there weren’t any Zerg in the map, I just went full on with mech units. Again, I liked the scripted attacks, which were immersive to the narrative. And the Protoss Temple has a certain role in the gameplay, rather than just being an idle target to destroy. There’s a simple, but very well written epilogue at the end.
Mission 3b - “The Rescue”: This time I only worried about killing orange first, and then attacking brown after my base has been well established. The invincible orange turrets were annoying, but I used my Zealots to clear the orange Siege Tanks, and then I destroyed the Stasis Cell there in order to free the Warbringer. I made the mistake of building Scarabs from the start, then losing a starting Probe, all that while having 39 or 36 overcapped psi, and almost no Minerals. I started warping Probes around minute 10:00… I repaired Kazansky in the Beacon, and got all the Terran air upgrades. I eventually lost my Terran buildings because of a massive air attack performed by the red Terrans, but there were no more use for the buildings already.
Mission 4b - “The Final Blow”: I always played the original version mostly with Terrans, and some Protoss units as support. This time I played mostly Protoss, because I learned to play better as Protoss, so it becomes easier for me this way. It felt more appropriate as well, since “side B” is played as Protoss. I expanded everywhere before beating the red main base. I had enough resources to upgrade everything for both races. The conclusion of the map is well linked to the main StarCraft story.
Overall, a good job has been done with the campaign. There were reasonable choices with the design, and some well thought out game mechanics implemented throughout the campaign.
Next campaign I’m going to review is Timeline. Although, I must say that I’ve been delayed a lot in map making, so I might focus myself on mapping for the time being.