It’s no secret that Starcraft 2 is the most popular RTS game of all time having literally millions of dollars in tournament prize money being earned every year.
But a recent development has put Starcraft 2 into a different light… development tool. Starcraft 2 always saw free to play titles that were made by people in their spare time. They are high quality and add a tonne of great content to Starcraft 2.
But the latest Kickstarter really brings up this game into question. The Kickstarter has an initial goal of $100,000 and a final goal of $1,000,000. This Kickstarter has already reached its $100,000 goal… which means this Starcraft 2 Arcade developer is now sitting on a six figure salary to make a Starcraft 2 mod.
They try to explain that its not a mod but the game requires the base Starcraft 2… so it is.
If this becomes a massive success you may see some more Kickstarters pop up so people can quit their second job and use their own.
It might also mean that the XBox One development tool set (which is available to all players) may also see its own unique Kickstarters coming out.
A new study from Queen Mary University of London found something very interesting. Strategy video games, improve problem-solving skills.
Now take it with a grain of salt. There were only 72 participants in this study, only 2 were male. When questioned they stated that they had problems finding males who played less than 2 hours a week (which was necessary for this study).
It’s at least interesting that there is now a link to types of video games causing behavior. The Sims 3 for example seems to have caused participants to get depressed.
Well it looks like Amazon is matching Steam on prices during the Steam sales. They are also offering 15% off on one game if you use the promo code “GOONCAVE.” So actually you can get at least one game cheaper from Amazon.
I found this sale and honestly… it just didn’t feel like much of a sale to me:
It’s the final mission of the game! This mission is unique because every single unit that Mengsk creates are specialized named groups of mercenaries.
Among the worst to deal with are the medivac/reapers who can take out an entire army by themselves if Kerrigan is around to carry weight.
Luckily for this mission you have Kerrigan and she kills everything very easily, even these hero units.
This mission is more about numbers and less about composition. You will need to have something to soak tank blasts (zerglings, ultralisks, abberations, or roaches) and you will need to diversify between range and melee range units. Flying units have largely been useless in this mission, despite there being two giant hero waves of air units.
In this map there are three Zerg entry points you can unlock. They are unlocked by destroying the bunkers in front of them. Two of them have planetary fortresses guarding them. A great and easy solution to this is to roll banelings into them. Combined with the splitter upgrade these banelings will get rid of all these static defenses cost effectively.
The mission has two achievements.
Achievement: Swarm Guardian
This achievement merely asks that Raynor’s Hyperion does not take any damage. This is a relatively easy thing to accomplish and on Brutal it is very important to protect Jim anyway.
Unlike in other difficulties, on Brutal none of your allies really carry their weight. After releasing any of the three Zerg leaders they wil launch a massive force that will all die to one round of tank fire. James Raynor is equally useless as each of his attacks is immediately quashed.
The attacks by the enemy have a timing. After James Raynor sends his forces forward and loses all of his forces he will immediately get counter attacked by Mengsk. The first wave is a group of banshees and vikings, the second wave is battlecruisers and siege tanks, the third wave is an Odin with Goliaths.
To deal with the first wave your unit of choice will be the LURKER! Yes it’s finally useful. Create 4-5 lurkers and place them at the entrance of Raynor’s base. Once Mengsk sends his first group to kill the Hyperion, slightly move them a little north of the bunker. All of the vikings will land here and immediately die to lurker damage. Raynor’s thors can deal with the banshees very effectively, as can marines.
The second wave you will need to either bring Kerrigan or hydralisks. It is also possible to intercept this if you have made enough progress with destroying Mengsk’s base. The frenzy ability is particularly useful in adding extra damage.
The third wave is the Odin. This waves is the easiest and can be destroyed simply by dropping a spawn baneling on top of Odin which will kill all of the goliaths. After that you merely attack him head on with your army and he dies very easily.
If you defeat these three waves Mengsk will not do anymore attacks that can destroy the Hyperion.
Achievement: Speed Bump
Speed Bump is not accomplishable with Swarm Guardian. Unfortunately the timings work out so that if you are attacking aggressively into the enemy, you can’t save Jim.
Speed Bump benefits very heavily from a fast max tactic. Fast maxing generally involves high amounts of roaches mixed in with some zerglings. As you push forward you can start mixing in hydralisks as more of your army dies out.
You should have Spawn Banelings for the fast burst damage (with splitting banelings), the single target nuke ability, having the ability to Crushing Grip will be great or area of effect single target is amazing as well. The Pod ability is useful but the area of effect damage spell can also be useful.
You should make sure to have your abilities on CD almost at all times. You can use Kerrigan to do some damage by herself a lot of the times without risking too much of your army.
Head northeast with your army, this is the path of least resistance.
Upon getting this achievement you will also get the Mastery which involves killing Odin before he gets to Raynor.
This mission has two acheivements Terran up the Sky and Apex Predator.
Terran up the Sky can be achieved within the first few minutes. After your primal leader knocks out the generator you will have a few minutes to do some damage. The achievement is to knock out 20 buildings before Drahara’s second attempt at knocking out a generation.
Start by attacking the southeastern base, it will offer little defense. After this is out spend your time trying to hit outlying buildings around the planetery fortress. Kerrigan’s nuke spell can be very useful in quickly dispelling enemies. Spawn banelings as always is very useful.
Once you are at 1:30 on the clock Kerrigan’s ultimate spell will pop up. Hopefully you went with Drop Pod. Drop Pod on top of the planetary and destroy it. You can just A+move north to clean up and you should be able to knock out 25-35 buildings by doing this. Be aggressive with Kerrigan’s spells as they will dispel buildings very quickly.
Accomplishing Apex Predator is not especially challenging. However note that the longer you take the more damage your units will take.
Drahka (the primal leader) in the first round will have a heal. If you feel like you will still die he can burrow and wait for his heal to come back up.
In the second round he gets a yank. This yank is far more useful than it is sold as. The pull ability not only pulls a unit to Drahka but it also happens to stun the unit. This makes it not only useful in these little engagements, but it also makes it useful later on when he joins the main army.
In the third round he gets a spawn primals ability. This ablilty allows him to call in two primals who can jump up like he can. In the third round you can actually skip over a lot of the fighting by jumping along the top. This also keeps Drahka safe from all of those evil things on the ground.
For the ground attack having an army composed largely of roaches and hydralisks will be very valuable. Note that on the main attack the psi destroyers will actually just out right destroy giant chunks of your army. So when it comes to this final engagement, it’s wise to right click all of your units on it.
Drahka is especially useful because he is not effected by it. As well since he can melee air units he can solo the final area.
Unfortunately just like Krukov, this is one awesome hero you will never see again.
TheGameGuru.Me 