So…some rogue brood mothers think to claim the Swarm for their own?!

I’m incredulous! How dare they seek to destroy all that we’ve accomplished in these long years.

Well! We’ll have to march over there and give them what for!

Though the Zerg don’t really do marching I guess, it’s more of a disorderly, disgusting headlong roaring charge…

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm picks up right where Wings of Liberty left off. To avoid spoilers for those who haven’t finished the previous instalment (seriously guys, go and do that, I implore you!) Kerrigan is struggling a little with the Zerg swarm after the events of Wings of Liberty and several brood mothers have decided they want to create their own swarms and no longer recognise her authority. This doesn’t please Kerrigan, as you might imagine and so she’s off out to reclaim the lost broods and reinstall her authority.

The playthrough that was available at gamescom was a choice between the two missions Blizzard have previewed already. One taking place on the ice planet of Kaldir and the other on the zerg lava world of Char. I had the opportunity to play both missions, cackling with glee at the opportunity to finally play my favoured race in the single player campaign. First though…I had to evolve my swarm first. Priorities…



Wings of Liberty’s campaign featured Raynor’s ship, The Hyperion, as a between mission hub. A place where you could talk with other characters, upgrade your units, research new technologies, buy mercenaries and of course, stare at the night elf dancer upstairs in the bar. Heart of the Swarm has a different approach. The Zerg operate very differently, and loading into a mission took me to a screen “on board” a Zerg Leviathan (though I think “inside” is a more accurate description of the giant Zerg space-faring beasts…) featuring Kerrigan – who is, of course, the prinicpal protagonist of the expansion and two advisors, Abathur – the evolution master – who controls how you evolve/upgrade your swarm and Izsha, an infested adjutant who gives you details and advice on your upcoming missions.

I decided to choose the mission on Kaldir first, which would award me with the Roach for the next missions. Kaldir is beset by harsh flash freezes which would freeze my zerg units in their tracks for the duration of the blizzard, leaving them prone to attack. I chose to upgrade my Zerglings, learning the ablity to hatch them instantly and also giving them the metabolic speed boost by default. After completing the mission on Kaldir I was able to upgrade my Roaches – adding +1 armour and +2 damage to them. I always like to use a lot of Roaches, they are a personal favourite. Interestingly once you have fully upgraded a unit, you can choose to evolve it into a new form completely – such as evolving a standard Zergling into either a Raptor or a Swarmling which gains combat bonuses or spawns three for every larvae respectively.



The gameplay is of course, unchanged from Wings of Liberty. The basic concepts behind Starcraft II simply work, and there is no need for any major overhauls to the way it plays. You still build your base, harvest resources and look to complete the major mission directives. The differences are more subtle – obviously you are playing as the Zerg, who work very differently to the Terrans of Wings of Liberty, but you also now control Kerrigan as a ground unit in every mission, which wasn’t a feature of the previous game. Kerrigan also comes with her own upgrade system, allowing you to switch between her different abilities or “battle focuses” – such as her spec ops Ghost abilities or her corruption abilities, part of her Zerg side. Each mission also presents unique challenges, the same way as Wings of Liberty’s campaign did – Kaldir requires you to harvest DNA from local wildlife to allow your Zerg to develop an immunity to the freeze which comes in very handy. The mission on char neccessitates the use of Banelings to plough through enemy structres and clusters of Zerglings and Infested Terrans. I played through on Normal difficulty, which was much too easy for me, a relatively experienced Starcraft II player – so keep that in mind for the future, if you have played the original, you’ll want to crank it up a notch to get more of a challenge from the campaign.



The main reason Heart of the Swarm feels so good to play, is that it’s more Starcraft II. It’s more vespene gas, more minerals, more fantastic Blizzard cinematic work. I’m sure I’m not the only one invested in the storyline and I confess to a certain degree of salivation at the prospect of continuing it. I’m still playing Wings of Liberty online over a year after its release and the prospect of hearing “We need more Overlords” on an even more regular basis is enough to set my leg shaking with anticipation. There has been no word yet as to how Heart of the Swarm will change up the multiplayer experience and this is perhaps the main source of interest in the game but fans of the singleplayer will be pleased to know that Heart of the Swarm, and the Zerg are coming on strong.

Source: http://deltagamer.com/14525/hands-on-st ... -the-swarm