StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops — Mission Pack 1 /review
A ghost story
Once upon a time, before we paid our first World of Warcraft subscription and long before Hearthstone was a thing (let’s not even mention Overwatch), Blizzard announced StarCraft: Ghost, a third-person stealth-action game set in their StarCraft universe. It was supposed to introduce us to Nova, a covert Ghost operative fighting Terran Dominion’s secret wars, but instead of becoming Blizzard’s Splinter Cell, the game was indefinitely postponed, and later cancelled.
As you would expect, fans never forgot Nova — but, as it turned out, neither did Blizzard. First, they gave her a small role in StarCraft II’s story, and now a whole standalone single player campaign, divided into three smaller episodes. Each of those will consist of three missions, and if the first one is anything to go by, we’re in for another fun ride.
Nova Covert Ops is set few years after the epilogue of the last StarCraft II campaign, Legacy of the Void, and follows Nova on her mission of finding out who and why is threatening Terran Dominion this time. And before you ask, yes, along the way she’ll encounter hostile Zerg forces, as well as some rogue Terrans, while Protoss are, at least for now, missing in action.
Narrative, or what’s there of it, seems interesting enough to make you look forward to the next couple of episodes, but since this is just the beginning of Nova’s story, it would probably be best to leave it on the side until we get a chance to finish the whole campaign.
All three missions that are in the game are fun and each has its own twist on the tried and tested RTS formula that Blizzard perfected during the years.
Luckily, when you do that and focus on the other, more interactive parts of the StarCraft equation, you’re left with another set of missions that justify StarCraft II’s reputation: all three missions are fun and each has its own twist on the tried and tested RTS formula that Blizzard perfected during the years.
During the first one, you’ll control only Nova, who has to use her special skills and avoid enemy units, which have clearly marked view cones that could remind you of classic stealth titles like Pyro’s Commandos or Spellbound’s Desperados. On the other hand, it’s worth mentioning that you won’t find their depth and abundance of systems here — Nova has only handful of skills that she can use, and enemy AI is pretty dumb (you can kill a soldier while cloaked, and the one standing right next to him won’t turn in the direction of his screaming and dying buddy). And while that does sound kind of bad and shallow, the mission itself is pretty fun, and it can get challenging if you’re not paying attention to some of the more dangerous enemy units. Oh, and in its second half it turns into a side-scrolling shooter in which Nova drives a trusty Vulture, shooting enemy units while trying to avoid crashing into civilian vehicles on a busy highway.
Other two missions, in which you get to build a base and upgrade your units, are even better, especially when, in the second one, you have to defend your allies’ base from the Zerg armies that keep coming through couple of canyons — canyons that you can defend from the cliffs with your Reapers or with mines that you can lay along enemy paths in-between their attacks.
Also, since you’re not getting any new units, this time you won’t be able to grind your enemies to dust with the proven StarCraft II strategy of amassing that one unit type that you just unlocked. Instead, you’ll have to combine all the units available to you, and while the missions so far haven’t been too hard — at least on the Normal difficulty — you’ll still have to watch out for special enemy units and their attacks that can wipe out your whole squads in couple of seconds.
And then there’s the new upgrade system, which enables you to unlock new equipment for Nova, with new attributes or passive skills, as well as new upgrades for your units. Those are limited in number (for example, you’ll be able to give jetpacks to only one of your unit types), but you can distribute them freely (so you can put those jetpacks on your Siege Tanks, and then watch them jump up and down the cliffs). In other words, there should be enough options for the more demanding strategists among the players — especially in the upcoming episodes and their missions, which should bring even more units and different upgrades for them.
Even though I wasn’t expecting anything special from Nova Covert Ops, it turned out to be quite a surprise — not only does it feel more meaty and way more fun than Blizzard’s latest similar mini campaign (last year’s Whispers of Oblivion), but it also knows when to give you new toys to play with, when to introduce you to some new mechanics, and when to turn already fun missions into something different, but still equally enjoyable.
StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops (Mission Pack 1)| official site | developer: Blizzard Entertainment | type of game: old school RTS| platforms: PC | finished three story missions in an hour and a half
