Anne-Gwish's Full Review: Diablo 2 - Bestseller Series for Windows
Hello readers. It's your old friend Anne-Gwish, returning to Epinions to write a review on the much anticipated sequel to everyone's favorite game... Diablo. Yes, as of a year ago, Diablo 2 hit the shelves, and fans everywhere lined up, pre-ordered, and maniacally rushed to pick it up for their gaming pleasure. However, after all this time, and believe me, I gave it a year, I am still left with a bad taste in my mouth... and in all honesty, I was not impressed, nor was I nearly as entertained as I thought I was going to be.
What's new, Doc?
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Diablo 2, Hack n' Slash galore. More towns, and I must add, some of them are pretty extensive. Wider variety of items, which are mostly crap (I have about 20 rings that are about as useful as a pet rock). A choice of 5 different characters, a huge difference from the 3 basic classes in Diablo 1, but, I've played all 5: the sorceress, the necromancer, the barbarian, the amazon, and the paladin, and, I still like the D1 rogue better than all 5. Call me old fashioned. Anyhoo, other things that bothered me about Diablo 2... well, for one, I think their server set up was by far the most annoying structure I've ever encountered in a game. You have choices, but, say a friend sets up an account on USAEast, and yours is on USAWest, guess what! You won't be playing together unless one of you bites the bullet, makes a new character, and you're both on the same server. Or, you could play on Open Battlenet, and deal with all the hacking that was so infamous with D1 (people using the Bobafett trainer, item importers, and character editors). So, being 'legit' isn't really too realistic unless you play alone, or with friends you can trust.
Chat Room Fun and Frolic:
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Stay out of the chat rooms. Need I say more? Ok. I'll say more. The majority of the chat rooms are filled with rude, insultive, obnoxious children, who will mock you to no end if you ask for help of any kind. Notice I said the MAJORITY of the chat rooms, not ALL. So be selective. And for god's sake, stay out of channel 'sex'. Blech.
Whoops!
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There's also been quite a few problems with characters saved to any of the closed servers. I'd seen a few of mine magically disappear, even though they were active and frequently used, and, I've noticed some of my items vanishing from my inventory as well. How annoying is that? VERY. Does Battlenet care? No. So don't bother emailing them to complain, their "customer service" is about as friendly and helpful as Sling Blade.
Boo! Hiss! The D2 Expansion Set:
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Also, I must add, for this game having been in the making for 5 years, I was able to finish it quite quickly. And, I'd like to add, I NOT very good at games in general. They're mostly entertainment for me. I thought to myself, "Hmm... Diablo was an aweful easy boss, even on nightmare mode, I wonder why." Well, I know who now! Because as of a few months ago, the Diablo 2 Expansion Set: The Lord of Destruction hit the stores. New town, new quests, 2 new characters, and a brand new boss named Baal. I admit it, I purchased the set. I finished all it's new adventures and obstacles in less than 1 day. Sad. VERY SAD. BUT... and here's my BIGGEST complaint about Diablo 2. If you want to continue playing D2 with your friends, do NOT BUY the expansion set unless they're planning to do the same. Once you convert your D1 characters to "expansion" characters, you will ONLY be able to play with those using the expansion set. And, any new characters you make, will all be expansion characters. Sorta feels like Blizzard's way of forcing people to spend more money, IMHO.
The Secret Cow Level
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Not just a rumor anymore... yes folks, for all you die-hard, old-school Diablo players, the infamous 'Cow Level' is no longer just a stupid rumor believed by the naive. Obviously someone at Blizzard has a sense of humor, because, once you finish off Big D (Diablo), the final boss, you can open up a portal to 'The Moo Moo Farm', by inserting a Tome of Town Portal and Wirt's Leg into the Horadric Cube, hit 'transmute', and wha-la. In you go. But I must warn you, the cows are not very nice. Sure, they moo like drunken tech support staff members, and they drop some interesting items, but they are brutal. They're more brutal than any boss in this game. How sad is that?
The Gothic Mistress Hath Spoken!
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So in short, nice eye candy, poor design, easy, cheesy, developed by hungarian monks with no concept of time. Save your money. Find something more worthy of your energy. I lie not.
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