NANO Posted October 1, 2019 Share Posted October 1, 2019 StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is an expansion pack to the military science fiction real-time strategy game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and the second part of the StarCraft II trilogy developed by Blizzard Entertainment, with the final part being Legacy of the Void.The game was released on March 12, 2013. The expansion includes additional units and multiplayer changes from Wings of Liberty, as well as a continuing campaign focusing on the Zerg race and following Sarah Kerrigan in her effort to regain control of the swarm and exact her revenge on the Terran Dominion's emperor, Arcturus Mengsk. During BlizzCon 2017, Blizzard announced that StarCraft II would be re-branded as a free-to-play game, hence opening the multiplayer mode to everybody and bringing some changes to previously paid features of the game.The Wings of Liberty campaign was made completely free while the campaigns for Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void still required payment. However, those who had already bought Wings of Liberty before the free-to-play announcement were gifted the Heart of the Swarm campaign free of charge. This new free-to-play model and changes to the availability of the campaigns was in line with Blizzard's vision to support the game differently going forward. Micro-transactions such as Skins, Co-op Commanders, Voice Packs, and the War Chests proved to be successful enough to sustain StarCraft II as a story-driven and eSport title. Heart of the Swarm features a single-player campaign with 20 missions (plus seven evolution missions which allow the player to upgrade units), and continues the story from Wings of Liberty.The player plays from the perspective of Sarah Kerrigan, recently returned to her human form by Jim Raynor.Similar to Wings of Liberty, the briefing room allows interactive exploration, this time on the Leviathan, an enormous Zerg breed which functions as a bioship. Kerrigan and her allies are located in the nerve center. She has a personal chamber for altering her abilities, and there is an evolution pit where she can upgrade her units and perform evolution missions with the evolution master Abathur. At BlizzCon 2011, it was revealed that Heart of the Swarm would feature seven new multiplayer units, while removing three units and changing the abilities of existing units and buildings. The exact modifications have since changed. In a blog post, game director Dustin Browder explained the current status of the units. The Terrans were originally expected to feature two new units: the Shredder and Warhound. The Shredder was a mobile, burrowing turret based on the design of the Zerg Spine Crawler, attacking via clouds of toxic gas that were devastating to biological units. Internal testing revealed the Shredder was too flexible and powerful, and it was therefore replaced by the Widow Mine, a mobile burrowing unit that fires missiles, causing splash damage. The Warhound was a bipedal combat walker with an arm-mounted high-calibre cannon; it also possessed a missile for use against mechanical units.During the closed beta testing phase, pro gamers decried the Warhound for failing to function as intended; it was ultimately removed from multiplayer gameplay although it can be fought in the single-player campaign. Several Terran units were modified in Heart of the Swarm. The Hellion, a four-wheeled buggy with a swivel-mounted flamethrower, gains the ability to transform into the Hellbat, a smaller bipedal walker unit relative to the Viking, whose flamethrower strikes in a fan shape instead of in a line. The Hellbat counts as both biological and mechanical, and can therefore be either repaired by SCVs or healed by Medivacs and Medics. The Medivac gains an "Ignite Afterburners" upgrade which acts as a cooldown-based speed boost. The Reaper has undergone extensive changes. It no longer does extra damage to light units, and its grenade, used only on buildings, has been removed entirely. It now has a passive health-regeneration ability that kicks in several seconds after the Reaper last took damage. Additionally, it no longer needs a Tech Lab add-on to be produced, allowing Heart of the Swarm players to train two of them at a time using the Reactor add-on. The Protoss were originally expected to feature the Replicant, a unit which could transform into a clone of any other unit in play, including those controlled by the enemy. This unit was ultimately cut from the game because of its tendency to stifle unit diversity. Three new units made it into the game: the Oracle, Tempest, and Mothership Core. The Oracle is a fast, spellcasting, flying unit; it has no abilities that do not require the consumption of Energy. Its original version focused on slowing down economy by blocking off mineral access for a short period of time. It was decided that the ability was too powerful and that it should cause mining to slow, instead of to stop, and thus was replaced with the powerful Pulsar Beam. A single Oracle can kill worker units very quickly with Pulsar Beam, but will just as swiftly drain its Energy reserves. The Oracle also has two other abilities: Revelation, which reveals enemy units and buildings within an area, and Envision, which grants Oracle the ability to detect invisible or burrowed units. The Tempest is a large, slow flying unit that was originally developed in the Wings of Liberty beta as a replacement for Carriers. (Blizzard have tried to remove Carriers from the game before both StarCraft II releases, only to put them back in due to overwhelming fan demand.) After Wings of Liberty, in which it functioned basically like a Carrier, it was revised in Heart of the Swarm to provide large amounts of aerial splash damage, and then again to do extra damage to Massive units. It is slow and does not fire often, but has very long range, requiring a spotter to make the most of its reach. The Mothership Core is a slow-moving flying unit that has three abilities: Photon Overcharge (previously known as Purify) allows a targeted Nexus to gain a single-target, long-range energy attack, similar to the Photon Cannon; Mass Recall warps Protoss units around Mothership Core, and the Core itself, to any targeted Nexus; finally, Time Warp slows down enemy ground units' movement and refire rate in an area. Once a Protoss building called Fleet Beacon is constructed, the Mothership Core can transform into the Mothership from Wings, trading in its Photon Overcharge for the mass cloaking field. However, the iconic Vortex ability has been removed entirely to make room for Time Warp, as Blizzard felt the ability was too powerful. In addition to the new units, the Void Ray's Prismatic Beam has become an active ability that temporarily increases damage against armored units only, while the original effect of gradually increasing damage over time has been removed. The Zerg gained two new units, the Viper and the Swarm Host. Like the Oracle, the Viper is a flying spellcaster with no integral weapons. It has several abilities: "Blinding Cloud" reduces the range of enemy units to 1; "Abduct" pulls a unit to the Viper's location; "Consume" allows the Viper to steal health from a friendly structure to increase its energy. The Viper is intended to support large Zerg armies, whereas the Oracle is designed for early-game harassment. The Swarm Host also lacks any sort of basic attack. Its strength is revealed when it burrows underground: it then begins to periodically spawn Locusts, insectile creatures with low health, high damage output, and slow movement. This ability allows Swarm Hosts to attack from long range (and underground), and it does not cost any resources or Energy. Swarm Hosts are not very effective in small numbers, but past a certain critical mass, their ongoing waves of Locusts can become overwhelming, winning wars of attrition with free throwaway units. The Locusts are unable to attack air units however, requiring other units or Spore Crawlers to defend the Swarm Hosts. The Hydralisk has regained its speed boost upgrade from Brood War. Additionally, both "Burrow" and the Overlord movement speed boost may be researched at the Hatchery, no longer requiring a Lair to be built. In the single-player campaign mode, each Zerg combat unit may be evolved into either of two possible alternative versions, each with a powerful, characteristic trait (for instance, the Torrasque strain of the Ultralisk has the ability to revive itself upon death). In addition, there are "primal" versions which are elements of the plot and sport a radically different look (the differences are akin to those between regular and mercenary units in Wings of Liberty). Primal zerg may not be produced. There are no mobile Zerg cloak detection units or troop transport units in the campaign mode; as a result, any cloaked units, such as the Protoss Dark Templar and Terran Banshee, are either completely absent (in the case of the former) or do not make use of their cloaking abilities (in the case of the latter and the Ghost). System Requirements Minimum Requirements Operating System :Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7/Windows® 8 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c Processor:Intel® Pentium® D or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Video:NVIDIA® GeForce® 7600 GT or ATI™ Radeon™ X800 XT or better Memory:1.5 GB RAM Storage: 20 GB available HD space Internet: Broadband Internet connection Media: DVD-ROM drive Resolution: 1024X768 minimum display resolution Recommend Requirements Operating System:Windows® 7/Windows® 8 (latest service pack) Processor:Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 5000+ or better Video:NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GT (512 MB) or ATI™ Radeon™ HD 4850 or better Memory:2 GB RAM Storage:20 GB available HD space Internet: Broadband Internet connection Media: DVD-ROM drive Resolution: 1024X768 minimum display resolution Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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