HotS II: trying to use Swarm Hosts

So last time I whined a lot about the Swarm Host and how it was virtually useless. As usual, I just wasn't using it right. 

To be sure, having three micro-intensive units (Swarm Hosts, Infestors and Vipers) is above my relatively useless skill level (check out this Terran wall! Am I gonna build Banelings or Roaches?  Nope!). But I've found two uses for these guys, one of which is less risk-intensive than a similar strategy I tried using in Brood War with Lurkers. 

Basically, you bury them on high ground near (but - and I can't stress this enough - not in) the enemy attack lane, and rally the Locusts to the far side of the attack lane.  The closer they are to the enemy base, the more warning you'll have that the army is on the way and the more easily you'll be able to use them for base harassment once that army is dealt with.  On the other hand, the closer they are to your base (or at least your army), the easier time you'll have saving them in the event that the other player has detection (and he better have detection - you're zerg) and decides to hunt down your Swarm Hosts. 

There was another game on Crossfire where I used them to harass an enemy's third while I went after his natural.  Since his army turned around as soon as I started attacking the natural, the Hosts were able to wipe out his third and then take that upper corridor towards his main, tear down those destructible rocks, and swarm in from the side.

One thing that HotS has definitely done to my Zerg build is force me to tech to a Hive as fast as possible, because my favorite new unit is hands-down the Viper. "Oh, you just blew 400/300 on a nice shiny Battlecruiser that you're keeping on the edge of the battlefield and trying to repair with SCVs on the high ground? Here, lemme just drag that baby over into the middle of my Hydralisk swarm." "Oh, you went through the trouble of properly micro-ing your units so your Siege Tanks were in the back of the line?  Yoink!"  "Hey nice Thor. Let me drag you away from my Ultralisks and into the middle of my Zerglings."  "Oh, I wasn't paying the macro any attention whatsoever, got curbstomped, and now all I've got to defend my base are a bunch of Speedlings and a Viper?  Blinding Cloud."  Go ahead and ask me if I'm even using Infestors any more. 

Starcraft HotS beta

Okay, you might have noticed the lack of a GoldenEye review yesterday. This wasn't a case of me being lazy all day, honest. It was a case of me spending the morning in the emergency room and then being lazy in the afternoon.

Apparently I'm fine, thank you very much.

Anyway I have about half an hour left in the movie to actually review, as well as screencaps to stick in... and I'm abusing my aunt's hospitality while my GoldenEye DVD sits back at my place. So I'm going to talk about HotS now, and maybe have the review up tonight.

First of all, I am by no means a professional player. Hell, the last level of the campaign on Normal gave me conniptions (and I recently re-played the campaign and tried to brute-force my way through the last level with nothing but Banshees... while playing at the "faster" speed. Whoops).  Secondly, I keep flipping back and forth between protoss and zerg, mainly because I only know one way to win as terran (mass Vikings and Banshees) and that gets old fast. 

So let's just jump in and complain about all the new units.

Terran

First off, the Medivac gets a speed boost so as to... give terran an advantage in combat drops, I guess. Now, this kind of makes sense because the zerg can Nydus and the protoss can warp. But both of those strategies involve buildings, and buildings are easy enough to kill if you, you know, pay attention. I always thought that the Nydus Worm and Warp Gate technologies were there to counter the terran ability to move their buildings and thus have less risky proxies.  (Of course, Warp Gate is basically what protoss get now instead of Recall from the first game, which was probably OP if I ever learned how to play the first game... I think the only hotkey I ever used in StarCraft was "A" for attack.)  Anyway, the devs said that it was hard coming up with new stuff for terran because they already have the coolest toys, soooo...

The Reaper is almost an entirely different monster now. They can still go up and down cliffs, but there's no speed boost upgrade and no anti-building grenades. And they regenerate health "outside of combat" which actually means "so long as they haven't been shot in the last five seconds." And they don't require a tech lab.  So basically now they're there for worker harassment as opposed to demolition, which makes the Hellions kind of pointless...

The Hellion can now transform into a Hellbat which does short-range splash damage. Good for blocking ramps, and guarding Siege Tanks and generally forcing your opponent to go air.

F*cking OP Hell God King Emperor Death N00bpwner Widow Mines are another means of forcing your opponent to immediately go air. Which is funny because as you can see, terran gets absolutely nothing to counter Mass Muta.  Except for F*cking OP Hell God King Emperor Death N00bpwner Widow Mines. For the price of a Baneling, terran gets a mine that homes, does splash damage, can target air units, and oh yeah doesn't freaking die once exploded. Oh, and you can unbury then and rebury them at will. Enemy players will need detectors and long-range units by the truckload. Why didn't terran just get the Perdition Flamethrowers from the WoL campaign? Heck, you could let them target air units and they still wouldn't be OP because they can't sodding move around the map. 

Protoss

Protoss now gets a Mothership Core, which functions exactly the same as a Mothership except is moves faster and doesn't cloak friendlies. The Recall ability now sucks (instead of Recalling all the units in a given area to where the Mothership is, it  takes the Mothership and all nearby units back to a Nexus), and instead of Vortex you now have Time Warp. The thing's available as soon as you have a Cyber, so you could take a map like Scrap Station, fly the Core over to the enemy base as soon as possible, and drop a Time Warp in the enemy mineral line. Boom you're ahead. Oh, and then it can stick a Cannon on your Nexus for a bit. So now Toss can Planetary Nexus rush.

The Oracle is basically gets a variation of the Parasite ability from the first game. It can also function as a detector or give itself a weak laser for a while. Haven't really figured out how to make it useful yet. Heck, the mineral disruption is really the only useful trick I've learned for the Mothership Core so far. However...

The Tempest is a flying siege tank.  That can target air units as well as ground units. So now Toss have two of the longest-ranged units in the game. Huzzah.

Zerg

Let's start with the good because there's a lot of ugly. First off, you can research Burrow and the Overlord speed upgrade without a Lair. Second, the Hydralisk speed upgrade from the first game is finally back.

Third, they have an awesome new caster called the Viper, which goes a long way towards countering enemy Siege Tanks and Colossi because it can either blind those units so they can't attack long-range, or drag those units right into the middle of the zergling swarm. Oh, and the Viper flies. So zerg have a flying caster again.

Which is a good thing because the Infestor's Fungal Growth ability got nerfed to hell. I probably shouldn't be complaining that much, because I only just learned how to use it effectively when I switched to HotS, but come on, I had only just learned how to use it effectively and then it got nerfed.

The zerg also have a unit called the Swarm Host which is effing useless because any competent enemy will have detectors in his army. The purpose is to give the zerg a siege unit, but, uh, we already have one. It's called the Brood Lord.

B5: The Coming of Shadows

This Season 2 episode is where the story really starts to pick up the pace. Really, B5 has an even slower burn than Game of Thrones, and that took an entire season to get to the war. With B5 we're eight episodes into Season 2, and it's obvious that war is on the horizon... but who's going to start it?

The Centauri Emperor is going to pay Babylon 5 a visit, even though he's old and doesn't think he'll survive the entire trip (at least judging by the way he says good-bye to his Hand Lord Chancellor). G'Kar of the Narn is naturally pissed about this, seeing as how the Centauri enslaved his people and the Emperor's father killed "over a hundred million Narn."

...yeah, sci-fi writers have no sense of scale.  Anyway Sheridan correctly points out that the current Emperor's hands are clean.  G'Kar doesn't care. He decides to assassinate the Emperor, apparently for kicks and giggles, because he records a message saying (falsely) that he's acting without the knowledge or permission of his government. So, uh, if they do believe him, all he's done is throw his life away in a pointless symbolic gesture. And if they don't believe him, it'll mean all-out war between the Narn and Centauri...

Speaking of all-out war between the Narn and the Centauri, Londo's new associate Lord Refa wants to send some sort of message while the Emperor is on-station. Londo is at first reluctant but decides that this is another opportunity for advancement, and if a Narn colony has to die for him to get ahead in life, so be it. And you thought Game of Thrones was full of jerks, petty rivalries, and magnificent schemers. So Londo has Vir get in touch with Morden, but we don't actually get to see Morden in this episode because the guest cast list is already quite long...

Garibaldi arrests a guy for following him, because in addition to the coming of Shadows, we're watching EarthGov slide into fascism and he thought he'd just get a head start on things. Okay, I kid. It's time for the Emperor's speech and he's the head of security, so naturally he's on high alert. Especially because about eight weeks ago (from his perspective) he failed to save President Santiago. Anyway, it eventually turns out that the guy following him is a Ranger (yes, named after the guys in that other really famous fantasy series, the same one that gave us Za'Ha'Dum) working for Ambassador Sinclair. So he's still in this game. And now Garibaldi knows about the Shadows.

Which is good, because the Shadows just went ahead and knocked out a Narn colony. Centauri ships came by to make sure the job was done, and some Narn ships caught them in the act, and now... yup, war.

But before news of the unprovoked attack reaches the station, there's still time for G'Kar to make his unprovoked attack on the Emperor. Unfortunately for him, the Emperor is inconsiderate enough to suffer a heart attack and die before G'Kar can kill him. Or rather, the Emperor suffers a heart attack, reveals that he came to apologize to G'Kar, and then dies. What follows is an amusing scene where Londo and G'Kar have a drink. Londo already knows that the news and the war are on their way, but G'Kar - who, again, was ready to throw his life away a few hours ago - is all happy for the future for pretty much the first time on the show. It's especially great because Londo's just had a dream showing exactly where all of this is going to lead: the Shadows will eventually swarm over Centauri Prime, Londo will become Emperor, and then he and a one-eyed G'Kar will strangle each other to death. He mentioned this dream all the way back in the first episode (the mutual kill with G'Kar part), but this is the first time we see it.

Well, then the news hits. G'Kar is pissed, naturally, but again this was a guy who was going to kill the Emperor. Now, yes, killing one guy is a bit different from obliterating a colony. Oh, wait, hang on. Despite the Shadows raining plasma death on the colony, apparently a lot of people are still alive down there. The Centauri intend to use them as slave labor, but Sheridan, acting on information from Garibaldi that the Centauri must have had help, says he'll be sending observers both to make sure the Narn civilians are well-treated and to investigate exactly how the Centauri were able to subdue the colony. Londo backs off. Garibaldi allows the Rangers to use B5 as a base of operations, and we learn that Delenn is going to get involved in their operation as well.

And there we go. The ante has been rather significantly upped. Great episode.

The top five James Bond title songs

Honorary mention: On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which trumps everything you're about to hear, but is disqualified because it is not "a song." The only thing stopping me to call it an audio orgasm is that ridiculous synth.

ADWD Reek I, Bran II

Good news and bad news, everyone. The bad news is that Theon Greyjoy's still alive.

The Citadel

is going to be the subject and setting of the final Mass Effect DLC. Pretty much everybody is going to be in it. Yes, including Zaeed. But probably not Thane. (And thus probably not Mordin either.) It's going to be expensive, but also about as big as Lair of the Shadow Broker.

And it drops basically a year to the day after Mass Effect 3 did, and a year minus one week before everybody started hating on the ending. ...and about a week before StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, so I have to ask, what is it with sci-fi video games and March?

The other thing, of course, is figuring out when the right time is, story-wise, for this DLC, which I won't be able to do until I've played it obviously, but I still like to wonder...

With Mass Effect 1, I only have Bring Down the Sky (and I've heard Pinnacle Station is awful, so...), and really I don't have a set time that I like to play that one, although I do have some criteria...

• Before Virmire. It doesn't make sense for Shepard to go off to save one colony when the entire galaxy is at stake.
• After the Heart of Darkness "Father Kyle" mission. Usually after Feros as well.
• If Shepard is a Colonist, either before or after the encounter with the escaped slave back on the Citadel, depending on whether or not Shepard's going to sacrifice the colonists to kill Balak. (See, once I know the variations on the story, I like to mold it as much as I can.  This is why the series doesn't feel stale yet.)

In Mass Effect 2, I tend to do Zaeed's and Kasumi's missions early on, because my understanding is that TIM sets up the trap on Horizon because you're taking too long dicking around the galaxy.  Alternatively, I'll do Kasumi's mission before Horizon, and then Zaeed's and Garrus's back-to-back because they're thematically similar. Despite the fact that Shadow Broker is kind of written as a post-game mission, I like to do it beforehand, usually around, again, the time of Garrus's loyalty mission. Overlord has to be done before the Derelict Reaper mission for it to make any sense, and if you can time it right and do it right before the Collector Ship mission (so you have even more incentive to distrust Cerberus), more power to you. Arrival is always dead last, after the rest of the game, unless a) I'm rushing through to see how one change I made in 1 affects the story in 3, or b) I want to see the holographic Collector General for some reason. Firewalker and Normandy Grave Site are dead to me.

As for Mass Effect 3, I like doing From Ashes near the beginning, to give Mordin time to work on his genophage cure. Also to get Javik and not miss out on too many of his lines (getting him after the salarian homeworld mission means missing out on the line about a certain Prothean delicacy... oh well. It also preserves the integrity of giving the Atlas its own cutscene on Sur'Kesh but not on Eden Prime).  I really like to spread Leviathan way the hell out over the entire game, because the tone is just a tad schizo. At the beginning of the game you've still got the time to get bogged down in Dr. Bryson's hobby, which doesn't seem to work near the end of the game.  Near the end of the game there's more urgency, and it's more reasonable to accept Anne's willingness to get herself mind-raped to find Leviathan. Don't get me wrong, I love that scene, but she seems a tad too eager to volunteer. Omega is, if nothing else, a great diversion from the tedious Act 2.

Now, knowing nothing else about Citadel, I'm going to go ahead and play it... hrm. My first instinct was to play it during Shepard's trip to the Citadel at the beginning of Act 3, since that's the last time he has to go there... but there have been hints that not doing it right before the point of no return means that a certain character won't show up because their fate hasn't been determined yet.

We'll see.

Amended schedule (UPDATED AND AMENDED AGAIN!!)

Tomorrow: Reek I, Bran II
Friday: GoldenEye
Saturday: StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
Sunday: Tyrion IV, Davos II

Sometime next week: From Russia With Love and a B5. The other days, two more chapters.

I've amended the schedule because my reading pace has slipped rather badly. I'm only on Davos II right now, and it's highly unlikely I'll finish it before the end of the week. Also I need another day to finish GoldenEye. And by "finish" I mean "run back and grab screencaps because I did that for Skyfall."

2/21: Reek I, Bran II
2/22: B5: The Coming of Shadows
2/23: GoldenEye
2/24: StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm beta notes
2/25: Tyrion IV, Davos II

The 22nd is the 20th anniversary of the Babylon 5 pilot movie. Hence the schedule change. I don't actually have the movie, but I do have the first episode to win a Hugo, and to my surprise I haven't reviewed it yet.

ADWD Jon III, Daenerys II

Up in the frozen northern wasteland, the nice priestess Melisandre has lit a fire to help the poor, desolate wildlings keep warm.

ADWD Tyrion III, Davos I

Tyrion and Illyrio part ways. Still don't know what the cheesemonger's ultimate goal was, considering that he can't imagine Daenerys owes him squat at this point. Tyrion meets Duck, alias Ser Rolly Duckfield, the Unimaginative Knight. Y'see he was knighted in a field and there were some ducks nearby. He's traveling with Griff. Tyrion adopts the alias of Hugor Hill, because let's face it, when you're on your way to meet the Dragon Queen, you really don't want to mention, "Oh by the way I'm the son of the guy who had your niece and nephew murdered and also the brother of the guy who killed your father. Yeah, I hate them all now, but... no, nice dragon, nice yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrhrhrhghghghghhgghhgghghgh!"

Griff has a son, Young Griff. His hair is dyed blue because Essos is Japan. (There I go again with my ethnocentrism. Last time it was calling a half-Jamaican half-Trinidadian English actress "black," now I'm saying everyone in Japan has Anime Hair.) He's in roughly the same age bracket as Daenerys, so I think her suitors are piling up rather rapidly. Griff himself doesn't take much of a liking to Tyrion and basically keeps him alive just so he can write down all he knows about dragons. Hey, remember those books Tyrion was reading back in A Game of Thrones? Good job on that.

Davos wound up on the Sisters (a trio of islands near White Harbor) after Salla finally got tired of waiting for payment. Really not a lot happens here. Lord Manderly has pledged his allegiance to the Iron Throne, so Davos's mission to recruit him for Stannis seems doomed to failure before it even began. And we already know from Feast that Davos is going to end up on a spike (or do we?), but if he does, I'm going to be annoyed, because GRRM already jerked us around pointlessly with another character in the last book.

Schedule

Tuesday: Tyrion III, Davos I
Wednesday: Jon III, Daenerys II
Thursday: GoldenEye
Friday: Bran II, Tyrion IV
Saturday: Davos II, Daenerys III, Jon IV
Sunday: Tyrion V, Davos III, Reek II
Monday: B5. I haven't decided what yet.
Tuesday: Jon V, Tyrion VI
Wednesday: From Russia With Love

After that... we'll see.

Skyfall review

I could go through and narrate every single element of the plot, or I could just say "it's GoldenEye with some parts done slightly better and some parts done slightly worse, with elements from The World is Not Enough and On Her Majesty's Secret Service chucked in. It has some good moments and the last 45 minutes are probably the best thing the series has done in more than twenty years, but on the whole nothing felt developed enough for the Serious Bond Film it obviously tried so hard to be."

Okay that's my review! Leave a comment below and tell me which Bond film you wanna see next.

Oh fine. Full recap with snark below the jump.