StarCraft II: Difference between revisions

The terran campaign, ''Wings of Liberty'', was released on July 27th, 2010. Set four years after the events of the Brood War, the campaign focuses on rebel hero Jim Raynor and the [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|Raynor's Raiders]], and their efforts to take down the corrupt empire called the Terran Dominion.

 

 

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=== This game shows examples of: ===

''"[[Night of the Living Mooks|Join ussss....]]"''<br />

''"[[Survivor Guilt|You were too late!]]"'' }}

* [[And Your Reward Is Clothes]]:

** Your only semi-tangible rewards for getting Achievements is new player portraits and occasionally new icons for your troops in multiplayer.

* [[Bar Brawl]]: The cutscene [[Meaningful Name|"Bar Fight"]]: {{spoiler|After you finish the mission "Maw of the Void" and collect the last piece of Xel'Naga technology, the non-primary members of the Hyperion are considering a mutiny because Jim "sold" them to the Dominion when Jim agreed to work with Valerian to defeat and de-infest Kerrigan, something they see as a betrayal, since they've signed up to fight against the Dominion, not to work along them. Then, Tychus (who was drunk) says that nobody can trust in "that drunk Jim Raynor". Jim heard all of this and had a fight with Tychus, which ended in Tychus being neutralized after damaging Raynor's jukebox}}.

* [[Baseless Mission]]: There's several of these in the game, many of which require you to be careful with your forces so you don't squander them.

* [[Batman Gambit]]: {{spoiler|Valerian's}} plan to recruit {{spoiler|Raynor}} relied pretty much entirely on predicting {{spoiler|Raynor would want to confront Arcturus face to face}} rather than, say, blasting his ship out of the sky with the Hyperion's Yamato Cannon. It also relies heavily on {{spoiler|Raynor's guilt of leaving Kerrigan behind and his wanting to cure her instead of just killing her like he swore he would in Brood War}}.

* [[Beehive Barrier]]: Immortals' hardened shields.

** The Zerg. Their tissues mutate and their immune response hunts mutated cells down; if the mutant tissue survives long enough, the ''entire body'' develops that mutation. Their amino acids also have "unique R-groups" that let them absorb protein to fuel their [[Healing Factor]]. That tissue culture Steinmann's got growing? It used to be ''rotting''.

* [[Blatant Lies]]: UNN's news reports (at least, Donny Vermillion's parts. He knows which side of the bread the butter's on, Kate on the other hand...).

* [[Bold Inflation]]: MAAR's SPEECH.

* [[Boring but Practical]]:

** There is also a Murloc Marine.

** ''[[Diablo]]'' makes a cameo in the rising lava level, reminding much of Hell as it was in Diablo 2.

* [[Converging Stream Weapon]]: The Void Ray. The number of beams that converge actually increases over time letting it be a much better weapon against targets that take a while to kill.

* [[Cutting Off the Branches]]: Although the storyline has multiple branching paths, Blizzard is on the record stating which paths are canon. If you want to know, the canon ending of the Tosh missions is {{spoiler|Breakout}} and the canon ending of the Ariel Hanson missions is {{spoiler|Safe Haven}}.

* [[Curse Cut Short]]:

* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: The protoss now sport a number of Dark Templar-related units beyond just the Dark Templar themselves. They have their own creepier version of the Dragoon, the Stalker, and a flying laser beam called a Void Ray.

* [[Dark Secret]]: In the form of {{spoiler|the Dominion behind the Hybrids}} and {{spoiler|Tychus' deal with Mengsk}}.

* [[Death From Above]]: Pervasive throughout, but one example that stands out is in the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4_BfuFoYmU A Card to Play] cutscene (a squadron of Banshees destroys an attacking Zerg force). Nuclear strikes initiated by Ghosts or Specters would qualify as well.

* [[Deep South]] {{smallcaps|IN SPACE}}:

** This is also thought to be the reason the game has Facebook integration and lacks LAN multiplayer.

* [[Exploding Barrels]]: Even the RTS genre isn't safe. In this case, they make an appearance in the secret terran mission.

* [[Fan of the Past]]: The jukebox in the Hyperion's cantina plays nothing but Southern rock and country, including covers of [[Lynyrd Skynyrd|"Sweet Home Alabama" and "Free Bird"]].

* [[Fanfare]]: The game's main menu music starts off with a remix of the original menu music and then usually fades into a quieter background theme, but every now and then it will instead progress right into the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyfqxU7mzyM full main title]. It is awesome every time it happens.

* [[Flash Step]]: Stalkers are able to short-range teleport with Blink, just enough to hop over a cliff or zoom out of range of an enemy. Zeratul's got his own version of Blink; it's functionally the same, but he turns into a puff of black smoke when he does it.

* [[Flavor Text]]: contrary to the first game, where non plot relevant exposition was in the manual, most of the lore can be accessed in game.

* [[Forgotten Fallen Friend]]: Possibly justified. The last time we saw Raynor in Brood War he was swearing revenge for Kerrigan's treacherous murder of Fenix. Fenix isn't even mentioned in this game, but because {{spoiler|Zeratul, the one who wants Kerrigan dead more than Raynor, tells him that Kerrigan is vital for the survival of the sector, thus rendering the whole vengeance thing as something... suicidal, to say the least}}.

* [[Foreshadowing]]:

{{quote| '''Zeratul''': {{spoiler|You will hold her life in your hands...}}}}

** Tosh tells Raynor {{spoiler|he suspects someone on the ship is working for the Dominion}} and Horner constantly tells Raynor that {{spoiler|Tychus is up to something and that someone has 'a gun to his head.'}} Both foreshadow {{spoiler|Tychus's betrayal at the end of the campaign}}.

** An otherwise unheroic Dominion reporter gets one in Starcraft II when {{spoiler|he finds out Mengsk turned the zerg on Tarsonis, and he's seen on-air mumbling "I had a brother on Tarsonis...I had a brother"}}. Later the field reporter takes his position, stating he committed himself to a mental institution, [[Noodle Implements|"dressed only in his socks and in possession of the Emperor's manifesto and a pound of peanut butter"]].

** Kerrigan has one of these in the New Gettysburg flashback: after she ran out of ammo, energy (her cloak failed), and had no other possible weapon of fighting the zerg, she tossed her IR goggles away, dropped her rifle (which we see clatter to the ground in slow motion), and stared up at the sky as the camera pulls away.

* [[Hold the Line]]:

** The third mission, a direct throwback to the third mission of the first game. They even take place on the same world, and probably close to the same location. {{spoiler|The last mission of the main campaign}} also qualifies.

** Valerian also gives Raynor the resources and blueprints needed to construct warships (his funding helps explain the fleet part). Speaking of which, the moebius foundation gives him a lot of money each mission. They also had a zerg chrysilis, that contained a treasure trove of zerg dna and research material.

* [[In Working Order]]: The xel'naga artifact. Interestingly, Ariel Hanson notes that the artifact is thousands of years old, which is really ''young'' compared to most xel'naga artifacts, which are ''millions'' of years old. Probably built around when they were uplifting the Protoss.

* [[It's Personal]]: Kerrigan was the Confederate Ghost who killed Mengsk's father, mother, and ''[[Dead Little Sister|little sister]]''. This leads to Mengsk [[Fate Worse Than Death|betraying]] [[Love Interest|her]]. Oh, and he [[Genghis Gambit|killed a couple billion people]] and [[Awful Truth|lied about the foundation of his empire]]. Mengsk's betrayal of Kerrigan pushes Raynor into rebelling against him, (although he may not know about the whole Kerrigan as a Confederacy Ghost thing) and is the reason he mentions most often in both ''[[Starcraft]]'' and ''[[Starcraft II]]''. Horner even calls him out on it.

* [[It's Raining Men]]: Mercenaries, MULEs, and a couple of protoss tech upgrades deliver units in orbital drop pods. The Zerg get their own equivalent of this in some of the ''Wings of Liberty'' campaign missions; some kind of purple, fleshy torpedo falling from the sky that unleashes zerglings and creates a Creep Tumor on the spot. The Protoss are exempt from this trope, presumably, because they just warp in units via teleportation.

* [[The Jimmy Hart Version]]: An almost note-for-note rendition of a common [[Firefly]] theme appears as {{spoiler|Raynor stands victorious over Tychus after their bar-fight.}}

* [[Karma Houdini]]: {{spoiler|The Queen Bitch of the universe herself, Sarah Kerrigan. It's even pointed out that she deserves death for the crimes she's committed, but they need her so she get's off without as much as a slap on the wrist.}}

* [[Knight Templar|Knight]] [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Templar]]: The Tal'darim, a fanatical protoss faction that stayed behind in Aiur colonies has become quite xenophobic. In the mission "Maw of the Void", {{spoiler|they've captured some Dark Templar, which will join you after you free them}}.

* [[Large Ham]]: Units come in two flavors: hammy and [[Deadpan Snarker|snarky]]. Maar IS PRETTY bad about ''THISSSS'', as well as the heroes in the last Protoss mission (sans Mohandar, who isn't even that snarky to make up for it) There, in the face of total annihilation, [[Chewing the Scenery|they consume massive amounts of scenery]], [[Heroic Sacrifice|especially when they die]]:

* [[Loophole Abuse]]: People often stream their games. [[Aint No Rule]] saying you can't go in their stream, queue up at the same time as them, and then spy on them through their stream.

* [[Lost Forever]]: Once you {{spoiler|invade Char}}, you can't complete any missions from other arcs, nor can you play Lost Viking anymore. At least you're warned of this beforehand.

* [[Ludicrous Gibs]]: The Zerg, oh lord the Zerg. Marines/human infantry in general are not spared from this either.

* [[MacGuffin Delivery Service]]: Sort of. The characters spend most of the campaign collecting pieces of an artifact, including one left on a world whose sun goes supernova. The [[Big Bad]] also wants this artifact, and at the start of the final mission {{spoiler|she even says "You've brought me the Xel'Naga artifact"}}. However, {{spoiler|perhaps she was mistaken about it, or was going to use it a different way, because it seems very effective at the purpose for which Raynor uses it, and which Kerrigan was trying to stop him doing so.}}

* [[Made of Explodium]]: The Aberration, when killed, turns grey and explodes in several different areas, culminating with its [[Your Head Asplode|head exploding.]]

** Banelings and Scourges also use this since suicide is their primary form of attack. The Aberration was originally going to be the same before it was turned into a melee fighter.

* [[Meaningful Name]]:

** Probably Dr. Emil Narud. Emil means "to rival, to emulate, to copy". Now spell his last name [[Sdrawkcab Name|backwards]] and consider the meaning of his first anew. On a more prosaic note, take a wild guess as to the profession of [[Four-Star Badass|Horace Warfield]].

** The campaign also has the Leviathan, which theoretically can produce mutalisks and brood lords quickly enough to reach the 200 supply limit in less than a minute. Fortunately, when controlled by the AI, it produces them at a much slower rate.

* [[Moral Guardians]]: A quite [[Egregious]] example of this trope is found in Starcraft II; Blizzard has, in order to promote a "safe" online community, announced their intentions to ban all maps they deems "offensive" or "inappropriate," claiming they have "no place" on Battlenet. Cue uproar from diehard UMS fans.

* [[Mordor]]:

** Char, a mineral-rich volcanic planet, isn't the zerg ''homeworld'' but it is their main base of operations, and it's a nasty place indeed.

** {{spoiler|Everything the zerg Overmind did in the first game, from infesting Kerrigan to the invasion of Aiur, was an attempt to circumvent the Dark Voice's plans. The Overmind couldn't resist its xel'naga programming, so it arranged its own destruction, transferring control of the Swarm to the hopefully-independent Kerrigan.}}

** Also, as seen in some of the earliest trailers, the scene of Kerrigan's infestation is changed too. {{spoiler|Originally occuring on a platform called New Gettysburg over Tarsonis, ''[[Starcraft II]]'' shows it taking place on the surface of Tarsonis in a city of the same name}}. (That has been retconned since the campaign's novelization, ''Liberty's Crusade'', came out. Also, the city called New Gettysburg was in a mission that was cut from the original game, possibly adding to the confusion. And the orbital platforms did exist, as seen in the artwork of the recap slideshow that plays while the game is loading.)

* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: From what we've seen so far of the upcoming Zerg expansion, Kerrigan is downright ''pissed'' at Arcturus ([[Up to Eleven]] compared to Raynor), after what Mengsk did to her in Starcraft 1.

{{quote| '''Kerrigan''': "The killing will never stop... until Arcturus Mengsk is dead."}}

* [[Smart Bomb]]:

** During the final Terran mission.

* [[Soul Brotha]]: The Marauders got a whole lotta love for their own voicework, baby.

* [[Space Western]]: The new flavor of the terrans, altered from their previously distinctive [[Deep South]] flavor (right down to the Confederacy using the [[American Civil War|CSA battle flag]], only altered slightly).

* [[Stealth Pun]]:

{{quote| "Why is the Stalker talking about taking pictures of me and calling my phone? ...''Oh.''"}}

{{quote| Stetmann: "Those things are pretty nasty. Next time you should try not to let them splash you.<br />

Tychus: "Thanks for the advice, son. Now shut up." }}

'''Raynor:''' I should have know it. Damn you, Tychus!<br />

'''Tychus:''' I swear man, I didn't know nothing about no Zerg. }}

* [[This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman]]: A lot of the campaign missions are designed specifically to put to use the new unit introduced in that mission:

** The Diamondbacks can attack on the move and do additional damage to armored units--they're introduced in a mission ("The Great Train Robbery") where you need to chase down fast armored units.

* [[Tripod Terror]]: Technically, Colossi have four legs, but they still fit the spirit of this trope, since they're gargantuan walkers on long legs whose primary attack is frying the enemy from a distance with a sweeping heat ray, just like the Martians in the ''War of the Worlds.'' As a bonus, those long legs aren't just for show--they can walk right over cliffs, giving them a good mobility advantage.

* [[Tron Lines]]: Ghosts and spectres (judging from Tosh and Nova) both have these as part of their suits.

** Several buildings can also produce units far too big to fit inside, like the Thor and Battlecruiser.

** Lampshaded with the Odin: it's only a tad bit bigger than the Thor in-game, but Swann specifically notes that it's too big to even fit inside the hanger, while apparently you can fit multiple Thors inside.

'''Raynor:''' All the scrapes were in back in the day, all the narrow escapes...none of it compares to how terrible they are, Tychus. You don't know what real fear is until you've got a thousand of these sons of bitches bearing down on you. }}

* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]]: Happens in {{spoiler|the Overmind's vision where the zerg, commanded by the hybrids, who are themselves puppets of a greater power, are used to destroy the last protoss army, and then the hybrids are used to kill them, themselves, and every other living thing in the universe.}} Most, uh...Triumphant, for lack of a better term, Example?

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Science Fiction Video Games]]

[[Category:The New Tens]]

[[Category:Blizzard Entertainment (Creator)]]