What happens when space colonists and two alien races fail to see eye-to-eye? Endless war! And that is what you can expect from the latest addition to the Starcraft franchise. Heart of the Swarm is the second in a trilogy of games that make up Starcraft II, the successor to the best-selling real-time strategy (RTS) of all time. The game combines science fiction and military tactics with a dark storyline that finds space for a little love, hate, revenge and reckoning in between. So if you’re a fan of strategy games, but find chess too timid, Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm should be right up your alley. 

The story thus far…

The Starcraft saga revolves around three distinct races: Terrans (hardy exiles from earth that have established colonies in space), Zerg (monstrous aliens that evolve by assimilating other species) and Protoss (an advanced space-faring race with ‘psionic’ abilities and superior technology).

While all three races are playable in multi-player, the single player campaign in each game of the Starcraft II series focuses on a single race. So while you commanded Terran forces in Wings of Liberty, in Heart of the Swarm, the story revolves around the Zerg. The player sees events in the war from the perspective of the “Queen of Blades”, an infamous Human-Zerg hybrid. Transformed into a human in the previous game, Heart of the Swarm follows her quest to reunite with the Zerg hordes and rescue an old friend.

Game on

The campaign in Heart of the Swarm takes place over 20 missions, each ending with an epic cinematic cut scene. Besides the core missions, there are seven optional missions to improve your forces.

The game mechanics revolve around building your army by collecting resources. There are two types of resource, minerals and vespene gas, and individual units require different quantities of each in order to manufacture. One of the winning strategies talked about in Starcraft II forums is economy, with the key to success in a war underpinned by efficient and speedy gathering of resources.

Once you have the resources, you can start building your army, but different units require different production facilities. What is more, the building capabilities can be upgraded by establishing even more structures, so you’ll have to plan out your army composition carefully, given the limited resources available. Some units are more equal than others, but sheer numbers can often turn the tide of a battle. 

The missions mostly follow the tried-and-tested formula of build base-annihilate enemy, but a few stand out for their wicked content. Once you finish the single player campaign, there’s no need to shut down the game either. As one of the premier e-sports (yes, online gaming is now a sport) being played nowadays, you can test your skills against players worldwide in free-for-all battles or in cooperative gameplay.

An eye for detail

Starcraft II employs an isometric top down perspective of the battlefield for a tactical overview of the battle. But you can zoom into individual units and buildings to get an up close look. And with over 15 unique units and an equal number of structures available to each race, there’s a lot to look at, especially in combat situations, but this might not be ideal if you plan on winning.

With up to 400 units involved in a clash between two players (or 1,600 units in the case of a team battle), system resources can get taxed if you’re running at a resolution of 1920x1080 with ultra quality textures. Individual units are rendered in great detail, with the 3D graphics engine capable of handling intimate details like bursts of gunfire throwing light on adjacent units and intricately textured maps. It’s leagues ahead of games like Age of Empires and Warcraft III, which are now a bit dated.

You don’t have to fret if your PC isn’t up-to-date. But if you have the specs to handle the best Heart of the Swarm has to offer, you can revel in the improvements to the Wings of Liberty engine, in particular, enhanced physics. There’s something about a rocket launcher blast sending an enemy unit flying off the battlefield that screams “attention to detail”.

We Say

Rage, fury and revenge are dark themes that often define successful games. And having an anti-hero as the protagonist is icing on the cake for gamers looking for more than a predictable storyline. Since Heart of the Swarm is a sequel, you have to own an original copy of the first game in order to play it.

Where Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm scores highly is that when the single player campaign is over, there’s fun to be had with multiplayer. But it does have its sore spots, mainly the need to be connected to the internet all the time in order to play. Online gaming can also be too difficult for beginners to compete effectively, but you can hone your skills against an excellent AI that matches its skill level to your own.

It’s not often that we run into games where success or failure is defined in terms of “action per minute”. But that’s the new benchmark that sets amateur gamers like us apart from the best teams and players, who are competing for millions of dollars in Starcraft II prize money every year. It’s enough to rouse that competitive spirit even in the most pacifism-oriented among us and get us to jab keys and click furiously in pursuit of e-sports glory.

Rs 2,200 (approx.)

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