Never-ending Cycle of Death
Written: Aug 15 '01 (Updated Aug 15 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good variety of characters and equipment to play around with; great sound effects and music
Cons: Can get repetitive
The Bottom Line: This game is great to satisfy the Conan (the Barbarian, not O'Brian) in all of us. If killing isn't your thing, then stay away.
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| kenshin27's Full Review: Diablo 2 for Mac |
(aka, How many times can I use the word "kill" in one epinion?)
I've owned this game for quite some time now and this is actually my second go at it. With the release of the Lord of Destruction expansion set and the discovery that a few of my friends were really into the networked version, I decided to dust it off and take another look.
Diablo 2 - Take 1!
Having never played the original Diablo before, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect with this game. After a day or so where I must've gotten killed at least half a dozen times while trying out all the selectable character classes (Barbarian, Paladin, Amazon, Sorceress, Necromancer), I decided to play it safe and stick with the tried and true hack & slash barbarian. After getting about halfway through, catastrophic hard drive failure (and failure to back up my data properly) caused me to lose the character. So back to square one. Started over with a paladin this time around and managed to finish the game in about two weeks (yeah yeah I know, really slow, but I wasn't playing it every single day, man). Discovered after the ending that hey, it starts over again but at a higher difficulty level (Nightmare). After fiddling around with it for a few days and discovering that the automatic negative resistance handicap for this level really, _really_ hurts, I gave up on it. I mean, after just spending the last 2 weeks finishing the game, I wasn't particularly up to doing it all over again. And again, since there's a third level (Hell). So I put it on the backburner and forgot about it. Until....
Diablo 2 - Take 2!
Diablo 2 - The Lord of Destruction Expansion set was released earlier this month (or was it last month?). After speaking to a couple of my friends who had just spent the last few months playing the game over, and over, and over (apparently they have a higher tolerance for repetitive sequences than I do) again, I decided to pull my character out from retirement and venture onward. Of course, being equipped with some rather impressive weaponry by my friends helped tremendously as my paladin tore through the expansion set critters like a hot knife through "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter." And this time I kept going. I just finished the normal set in Nightmare mode and am a quarter of the way through the expansion again. The creatures are finally getting harder as I find myself often running away upon first contact with a mob, hoping to draw out and demolish the more aggressive ones singly before charging into the fray. Will I ever make it to the end of Hell level? Only time will tell.
Kill, kill, and kill some more!
The overall premise and gameplay of this game is pretty simple. The Three Prime Evils and their minions have returned to the world and it's up to you to basically kill everything in sight (besides the friendly NPCs). You actually only kill 2 of the 3 Prime Evils (Mephesto and Diablo) in the main game. Which I guess allowed them to make even more money by coming out with the expansion set where you get to kill the third Prime (Baal).
The game is RPG-like in that you create a character by choosing his or her class and then you gain experience points by killing things and every time you gain a level you also gain attribute and skill points that you can use to pump up your uh, attributes (strength, dexterity, constitution, etc.) and skills (physical, mental, offensive, defensive, etc.). Simple, eh? Of course different classes have very different skills and therefore stress different attributes. And, like an RPG, you go through numerous quests and side quests on your way to the ultimate goal. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view), there are no non-violent quests or puzzles or things of that nature. Basically anything that you can't talk to, you kill. And you can kill in so many different ways. Slash 'em, bludgeon 'em, freeze 'em and _then_ smash 'em, torch 'em, blow 'em up; this game takes monster destruction to new heights and probably even some lows.
But first you need a good sword
Where the game excels is in its equipment selection. There are just too many different types of weapons, armor, equipment, equipment enhancers, etc. to list here. There are gems and jewels and runes that you can combine into socketed equipment to make them more powerful (enhance your attributes, defense, offensive power, special abilities, etc). And if you put them into the equipment in the correct order, they're even _more_ powerful, etc. The variety can be mindboggling and I guess is part of the fun for alot of hardcore players. Everybody wants to find that next "mother of all swords" or war hammers or whatever. This game is great for people who love medieval weaponry and armor.
I love the sound of demons imploding in the morning
Another aspect of the game that I just noticed this time around is that the sound effects and mood music are just _really_ superb. I remember playing in the late afternoon one day alone in my apartment going into early evening and with no light on except for the glow from my computer screen when it suddenly hit me that, "Hey, this music is really freakin' creepy!" So they did a great job in the audio department. And the sound effects are varied and entertaining from the idle monster gibberish and growls to the heavy footsteps of really mean and fast demons chasing after you as you just realized that one hit from them just halved your life.
And they say you're not a people person
Diablo 2 can also be played over the network. Either an intranet amongst friends or the Internet amongst some friends but mostly strangers. I historically have been pretty bad when it comes to networked games mainly because I can't see myself putting in the effort and time needed to become really good at it. With shooters like Quake or Unreal or whatnot, the people out there are already so good that you'd be dead 10 times over before you can pick off someone who was almost dead already. With Diablo, it's not as bad since most of the time, the game play is communal. Groups of players will band together to tackle tough critters and such. Or you could just walk around and kill people too but what goes around, comes around since no matter how big and tough you are, there's inevitably someone else out there who's bigger and tougher.
And when you do Internet play, you pretty much have to be sure that you're going to be free for the next like half a day. I don't know about you but I'd feel bad if I was with a group of people on a mission and at a critical juncture I had to suddenly leave because my girlfriend was now throwing things at me because I had been ignoring her pleas to take out the garbage for the last 3 hours. Who needs that kind of stress? I know I don't.
But anyway, network play for Diablo 2 via Battle.Net works pretty well. You just need your own account, a valid serial #, and you're ready to go. Log on, look for games to get into, and off you go. There is a difference between open Battle.Net and closed Battle.Net. Open games allow you to use your own characters imported from the single player games. Closed games require you to make new characters that solely exists in Battle.Net. I'm sure tons of people out there play online. Heck, it's the wave of the future (for gaming that is) if you listen to most video game pundits. It's just not for me right now.
Are we done yet?
So let's see.... Diablo 2 started out with 5 different classes to choose from. With the expansion set, 2 new classes (Assassin, Druid) were added. 7 total then. With 3 difficulty levels (Normal, Nightmare, Hell). If you _really_ wanted to I guess you could go through all the levels for all the characters. That means you'd have to play the game completely through 21 times. 21 times!!! Geez, that's a lot of killing. Does anybody really have that much free time? And surely all that hacking and slashing and spellcasting and stuff has got to get old sometime. I guess the one good thing about playing the game with different classes is that each class requires different tactics to kill most efficiently which'll add variety somewhat to an otherwise repetitious task.
But until you do get bored of it, it's still one heck of an addictive game.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kenshin27
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Member: Ben C
Location: NJ
Reviews written: 34
Trusted by: 17 members
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