Blizzplanet's review explores some of the topics and key characters of the StarCraft universe found throughout the novel tie-in StarCraft: Ghost--Spectres by author Nate Kenyon.
The book is not truly a novelization of the postponed StarCraft: Ghost video game as originally expected, but it still contains a couple of elements straight from the video game's intended storyline such as the Terrazine gas and a support character from the game known as Colonel Jackson Hauler, commander of the Nova Squadron.
The Terrazine gas plot was touched upon in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty during the mission "Welcome to the Jungle", and the Project: Shadowblade mentioned in one of the in-game cinematic cutscenes is fully explored in the novel.
Nate Kenyon is an award-winning author of science fiction, horror and suspense novels. He definitely adds these three elements into the StarCraft universe setting with plenty of action, blood and gore.
This book serves as a continuity hub connecting all the previous Ghost novel, the manga, the comic book and the StarCraft II video game's plots together. Tokyopop shutdown its California offices before StarCraft: Ghost Academy Volume 4 could be published. However, the outcome of the never-published finale of the StarCraft: Ghost Academy series is poured in into StarCraft: Ghost--Spectres as a generous bonus.
This book could get a 9/10 merely because it didn't actually novelize the StarCraft: Ghost video game's storyline the way Warcraft: Lord of the Clans novelized Warcraft Adventures the video game, or how StarCraft: Queen of Blades novelized step-by-step the events in the original StarCraft (1998) game.
Despite this, the author is not responsible for taking this decision, thus it would be unfair. Nate Kenyon was a finalist of the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stroker Awards in 2006, 2008 and 2009 for his previous works: Keeping Watch, The Reach, and Bloodstone.
His contribution to the StarCraft universe definitely deserves a 10/10. Keep them coming.
This week, Blizzard Entertainment dropped both 'StarCraft: Remastered' and 'StarCraft II Campaign Collection' into PC Game Pass.
Hopefully these get released on Switch and Playstation, along with Age of Empires. There’s a severe lack of good RTS games on both those platforms.
Happy spooky season to those who celebrate! We have a collection of scary games for you to enjoy with Game Pass, while hiding under the blankets (or maybe that’s just how I play). And if you want to do something slightly less scary, we have a whole list of games for you to start pre-installing including more day one additions like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and more! Let’s get to the games.
• South Park: The Fractured but Whole (Cloud, Console, and PC) – October 16
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – October 25
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (Cloud) – October 25
Game Pass Ultimate
• Call of Duty: Warzone (Cloud) – October 25
Game Pass Ultimate
• Ashen (Cloud, Console, and PC) – October 29
• Dead Island 2 (PC) – October 31
• StarCraft: Remastered (PC) – November 5
• StarCraft II: Campaign Collection (PC) – November 5
Let the COD on GamePass experiment begin!
I would think their quarterly revenue will take a hit compared to a year ago, but will maybe make up for it throughout the year as the monthly GP subs keep coming in
Was up with call of duty man?
I downloaded cod on gamepass and for some reason I cannot access the game.
just curious what version? There are some that you can pre-load, but they wont work until their release date later this month.
I have to redownload it again for the 3rd time to check.
I ended up just deleting it to make room for other games after the second time.
It was on Xbox game pass, I didn’t know there was other versions. I just downloaded everything, but sadly I couldn’t even access the game. Maybe 3rd time the charm. I’ll download it again.
On xbox there is the last gen/current gen versions pc though you could also get a xbox version.
When that new forza first came out for one day they had the xbox version on the pc store i was like ? what it was odd.
On xbox you can easily download the one version of a game instead of the series version so you run into issues on your series console.
Because a game won’t run after I download it??
Man your kids must hate your @ss if that’s how you think.
It's going to be very interesting to follow up on how the new entry of CoD will perform at the box office, player numbers and distribution of Xbox, PC and PS versions this year.
I got excited thinking they ported StarCraft to consoles but it's just the PC version. Also, I thought Starcraft 2 was already free to play.
Jason Hall, currently an indie developer and former Blizzard employee, has been sharing some really interesting stories from his long career in the industry for a while now. Some of them are truly insightful, while others may seem depressing.
I’m a little shocked that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty sold only around 6 million copies. The original StarCraft did over 11 million. Maybe Blizzard was too leisurely in releasing StarCraft 2? Starcraft 2 came out 12 years after it’s predecessor.
Im surprised too. Starcraft was still a huge name in 2010. It was kinda the only new RTS around and other genres like MOBAs hadn't really kicked off yet. I do remember at the time sentiment around the game was
pretty angry the game was being split into 3 but I doubt that would have impacted sales to that degree
For a long time I believed StarCraft II sold on par or better than its predecessor. There was so much hype for the game. Plus it had a pretty strong E-Sports scene for a few years.
Myself and half a dozen friends all bought StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and played it religiously for a full year. While I bought the expansions, most of my friends did not. RPGs seem to be a generally low selling genre.
I'm not shocked at all. This was an early example of Blizzard being greedy. Instead of releasing a complete experience, splitting Starcraft 2 in 3 parts so it could make us purchase it 3 times if we wanted to know the whole story and play story mode with the other races.
I originally had that stance. However, Wings of Liberty, was just as long, if not longer than StarCraft 1. The expansions were of decent length too and added a good amount of additional content.
and people wonder why we are having mtx in everything. i blame the people who actual buy them.
It's interesting he used Brazil as an example of the importance of regional pricing. Nowadays many companies on Steam are setting their prices in Brazil as high as, if not more than, their price in USA. I simply refused to buy a few games when I noticed that's the case.
Very action-packed read. Hopefully more Starcraft novels keep coming now with Heart of the Swarm in the horizon.
The next StarCraft novel is scheduled to hit bookstores on April 12, 2012 by Christie Golden (StarCraft: Secret Missions).
During our recent interview with Nate Kenyon, however, he revealed he is currently writing a new Diablo III novel tie-in. It won't be long before fans get to see what he has to bring into the Blizzard Entertainment properties.
I have a hard time believing any of the Starcraft books are at all worth reading when the writing for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty read like the dregs of fanfiction.