Diablo III: Second Thoughts

It’s been over a month since I reviewed Diablo III. I gave Diablo III a score of 8.1 out of 10. In comparison, my retro review of Diablo II is 9.1, a score that I feel it still deserves to this day. Why would the sequel to a game released in 2000 score a full point lower? Mostly because it just didn’t have that Diablo “magic” at all and my thoughts on the game reflected this. However, I was still in the “honeymoon phase” of Diablo III when I reviewed it, and that phase has since worn off. As a veteran of the Diablo series since day one, I’m going to look at Diablo III again and cite what’s wrong with it. This isn’t another review, but more of an analysis of why I believe that my review was not harsh enough and why this game may not even deserve to be above 8/10, something that is almost unheard of for what is supposed to be a major blockbuster game.

It’s okay Tyrael, it’s not your fault that Blizzard butchered your character.

Nobody Likes Diablo III
Now I know what you might be thinking! “Hold on guy, I really like Diablo III!” Maybe you do and there’s nothing wrong with that and heck, lots of people like Diablo III. However, there are a lot of people who have flat out tossed the game aside and said that they don’t want to touch it anymore. What really gives me the impression that Blizzard dropped the ball badly with Diablo III is the fact that, of five people I know in real life, all have stopped playing Diablo III. Two quit on the Hell difficulty, I quit on Nightmare, and two quit before even beating the game on the starting difficulty. To be fair I could have made it to Hell and kept playing at least for a little bit, but a freak event that occurred against Diablo on Nightmare saw me die when he had only a sliver of health left and I ended up shelfing the game as a result.

So everyone I personally know who played this game has stopped playing it already. 100% of real life players have quit, 0% remained for more than a month. This is pretty shocking that not even a single person in my real life circle stayed with the game. Things are a little more divided online with a lot of people still playing the game, but it’s impossible to deny that this game ended up being a disappointment to many long time Diablo fans. Pro-Diablo III supporters can mumble all they want about the game clearly being good due to selling like wildfire, but that argument means nothing at all. This game sold because of a loyal fanbase that was hyped for a sequel to two games that were proven winners. The six million plus people who bought Diablo III thought that this game would be a winner as well, but clearly various aspects of the game just didn’t meet their expectations.

Deja fucking vu.

Where’s The Atmosphere?
Diablo III is boring. There, I said it. The four acts in this game may be interesting enough the first time through the game, but once you experience the four locales and realize that there isn’t really any compelling and exciting areas in the game on the scale of several Diablo II areas, then the magic wears off in a hurry. Act 1 is a rehash of the first act of Diablo II. Ditto for the second act. Even the third act is modelled after Diablo II’s expansion pack but with a lot less interesting areas to explore. While I’m on the subject of the third act, I have to say that it is probably the most disappointing storyline chapter I have ever experienced in a video game. We were returning to Arreat to witness the destruction caused by the destruction of the Worldstone, but we spent half of the act mucking around on top of and inside a giant tower? There was little sense of progression and, when we finally did get out onto the snowy fields, it didn’t last long and we were immediately thrown into a Hell environment that was shoe-horned into the game just for the sake of there being a Hell environment. The fourth act was moderately interesting, but it didn’t even last an hour regardless of how fast or slow you progressed through the chapter.

There’s also the fact that, after the first act of the game, the story just fell flat on its face as a result of Blizzard’s questionable story telling abilities as of late. Everyone I’ve spoken to seems to agree that the first act was indeed the highlight of the game, as it certainly possessed the most genuine Diablo “feel” to it. Anyway, this sort of leads into the next point.

Been There, Done That!
Why is this essentially just a melting pot of good ideas from Diablo II that have been bastardized? Aside from the crafting NPCs, there have been no major innovations in Diablo III. Heck, you could even argue that Shen is nothing more than the Horadric Cube with an annoying voice and desire to milk you of your hard earned gold coins. Actually, doesn’t this make Shen a step back in terms of features? The Horadric Cube allowed us to upgrade gems for free.

My biggest beef is that every location we visit just feels like an area of Diablo II with a new paint job. Blizzard could have gone in many different directions with this game, but they chose not to. We could have explored beaches, murky marshlands, rocky mountain pathways, or actual dense forests with meadows and winding rivers. Instead we’ve been given the Tristram area (for the third time), a desert (for the second time), and the Arreat region (for the second time). Has anyone seen a map of Sanctuary before? There are at least two dozen places we haven’t actually seen that would be worth going to. Are we EVER going to see the awesome city of Westmarch? It is referenced in every Diablo game but we’ve never seen it. Instead we’re thrust into Caldeum which is arguably not even half as cool as Lut Gholein was when it was introduced.

Why do we need to visit Tristram with each game as well? Blizzard can only throw us back into that hamlet so many times before they start retconning their own lore. We’ve had to run through the town of Tristram three times now and we’ve had to delve into the Cathedral twice. This doesn’t seem like a series that wants to advance. Blizzard is stuck in the past, unable to get over their admiration for the town of Tristram. Well I say get over it, because no series should make the player constantly revisit the same old areas time and time again. That’s not pushing the boundaries, it’s unimaginative game design.

Blizzard Fans = Sheep

Money Rules Everything
The fact that the auction house has become such an integral part of the Diablo III experience is disappointing. Remember when these games were all about hunting for loot? Remember when we did that and it was fun? Diablo III doesn’t remember since the game seemingly forgets that gear should be found off of monsters, not listed by John Doe on the auction house. This takes all of the fun out of finding loot. The fact that Blizzard made improvements freakishly difficult to come across pretty much says it all in my opinion. Looking at my Diablo III character, I found a few great upgrades in the first act on the second difficultly, but do you know what? By the time I was fighting Diablo, I was still wearing items that the Skeleton King had dropped all because Blizzard decided to make decent items much harder to come by so that we would be encouraged to use the auction house. There’s something wrong with that picture.

What is even more disappointing is the real money auction house, or RMAH. I can’t even fathom how it is morally acceptable to sell virtual pixels with numbers attached for over a hundred dollars. What boggles my mind even more is that there are people willing to purchase these items for over $100 just so that they can see slightly higher numbers dance across their screens as they wail on goatmen and giggling skeletons.

Jesus Christ!

Diablo III: Wrath of Error 37
Even though Error 37 is mostly a thing of the past, it doesn’t change the fact that one fundamentally wrong thing about Diablo III is the fact that the game must be played online at all times. We, the players who laid down $60, are not allowed to play whenever we wish. Even those of us with stable connections aren’t as fortunate as we like to think. What if our ISPs are doing routine maintenance for a few hours? No Diablo III for you. What about on Tuesdays when Blizzard conducts routine maintenance for eight hours? Again, no Diablo. Despite the fact that Blizzard conducts the maintenance when most people are at school or work, it still scews over Australian players and the like who are in different time zones but use the US servers. Australian players are upset that they cannot play during prime time hours on Tuesdays, and who could blame them? Most of us like to unwind in the evenings and play a game or two for a little while, but Australians cannot do that with Diablo III despite paying good money to play it.

A lot of people like to take a pretty radical stance on this issue and say that nobody has bought the game, that we have only paid Blizzard a license to be allowed to use their product. Wait, what? There is literally no other medium where this is an acceptable practice. Would you let Levi’s take away your jeans because they decided that they want to perform an eight hour inspection on your pants despite the fact that there’s clearly nothing wrong with them? What if it is your only pair of pants? Imagine if you just bought a beautiful Dodge Viper but, at any random moment, Dodge could flick a switch to forbid you from driving your car. You’d be pretty pissed off, wouldn’t you? Diablo III is essentially a library book that the library is allowed to take away from us at any moment without warning us or letting us know. I don’t like this one bit.

Many people support Blizzard in this stance, but I can’t fathom how or why. These people would be up in arms if this applied to their favourite offline single player games. Imagine if Nintendo pulled this with Mario once a week. For eight hours every Tuesday, nobody would be allowed to play Mario because Nintendo would have to inspect Mario’s jump physics or something. I’d be up in arms. So would everyone else. If you lay down money for a game that comes with a single player aspect to it, you don’t expect random disruptions that prevent you from playing the game.

Ah, customization at it’s finest!

Play Our Way Or The Highway
I was supportive of some changes Blizzard made for Diablo III back before the game launched, but not so much anymore. I’m okay with them removing a little freedom of choice. Maybe we don’t need attribute points or skill points to fiddle with each time we level up, but come on Blizzard… taking away EVERY freedom that players enjoyed in previous games? We can’t choose what areas our characters will physically specialize in, we can’t choose what skills they will learn or when, and we can’t determine what field of expertise our characters will follow. Everything is 100% decided for us. Every single aspect of our character development is set in stone.

Now this is where some loyal Diablo III players will pipe up and support the rune system. That’s not character development and it’s not customization, it’s just picking skills. That’s it. When anyone can copy your “build” within thirty seconds at zero cost, it’s not customization. There is no customization in this game, I’m sorry to say. Even the process of gemming isn’t as thorough as it used to be. Gemming in Diablo III is only half as deep as it was in Diablo II. Hell, we don’t even have as many socketable items anymore. Does anyone else miss diamonds and skulls? What about REAL runes?

Hey baby, wanna go for a… wait, what? That’s a GUY!?

Hollywood, Get Outta Diablo!
The story is utter garbage. Why does Azmodan constantly tell us exactly what he is plotting? Does he want us to stop him? Isn’t he a master tactician? If he is, why is he blabbing his fiendish master plans to the entire world? I don’t know, maybe he’s just lonely. He certainly does like talking a lot. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes every single time his fat holographic head appeared because the music would suddenly change as if it was some badass scene when, in reality, I just felt like Azmodan was Claw from Inspector Gadget who randomly decided that he thought spilling all of his plans would spice things up a bit. What the hell?

And what was with Cain’s death? That had to be the crappiest death I have ever seen for an iconic video game character. He didn’t even get to go out in a blaze of glory. What killed Cain? A sissy little projectile that wouldn’t even make a quill beast flinch. They tried to make his death feel dramatic, but it didn’t. Cain’s death was cheap. Blizzard merely killed him off for the “whoa” factor. The cinematic at the end of the act was kind of sad, but it would have been a lot better if Cain didn’t go out like some weak bitch.

Should I even touch upon Adria and Leah? I mean really? Adria practically had “look out, I’m a traitor” branded on her forehead from the moment she was introduced. Even Kulle pretty much made fun of the player for keeping Adria around. You know what would have been a good story? Siding with Kulle and taking down Adria before she could even pull any lame stunts. At least that would have spared us from having to endure the sight of Diableah. I’ll give Diablo props for making Leah’s own mother sacrifice her and allow her to be Diablo’s host, that was pretty cool… but the aftermath was not. Here’s the end of the game in a nut shell.

Bam, I am Diablo and I’m inside of a human girl.
Bam, now I am myself again… though I now have a sexy swagger and great hips.
Bam, now I’m dead.

It all happened so fast, and why the heck was Diablo so social? I don’t recall him talking at all in the previous two games. I mean okay, I think he spoke when he was the Dark Wanderer and I had no problem when Diablo was talking when he was still using Leah’s body, but half of the “terror” he made me feel in the first two games came exclusively from his silence. Diablo was a silent antagonist and it worked in his favour tremendously well. You could always trust in two things… First, that Diablo wouldn’t utter a word. Second, that Diablo would fuck shit up. I just… I can’t even fathom how Blizzard thought this story would fly. I haven’t spoken to a single person who has said, “Wow, awesome story in Diablo III!”

The result of randomization taking a backseat.

Have I Been Here Before?
Remember when Diablo III had lots of randomization? Yeah, neither do I. Blizzard promised that this game would have loads of randomization similar to what we experienced in the first two games, but did we? Well, not really. Almost every area in this game is entirely static. I think that the only randomization I experienced was in the Tristam Cathedral, but even there the randomization was pretty poor. There was hardly any variety in the set pieces used in the randomization and everything always felt the same.

A good chunk of the fun of past Diablo games came from the fact that nobody ever knew where to go. Finding a dungeon’s exit was often just as challenging as defeating the inhabitants of the dungeon. It gave us a lot of opportunities to explore and collect additional loot. None of this exists in Diablo III. Right from the very start the game is a linear line until the Tristram Cathedral. Everyone knows exactly where to go, and that’s not what made Diablo fun. The only thing Diablo III has working in its favour would be the random dungeons, but even these are static locations inside. Woohoo.

In conclusion? I was too nice to this game. Too many changes have been made and almost none of them were for the better. Diablo III is a massive step back from Diablo II in all departments other than graphics and gameplay flow. If you want a deep and engaging action RPG, then Diablo II is the way to go. If you want to go a little more modern, check out Torchlight along with Torchlight II when it releases sometime this summer. So what score does Diablo III truly deserve? Probably around a 6.5 or so at best.

Diablo III vs. A Rock

I thought that this was a slightly amusing find, so here I’m throwing it up on here! This is a silly comparison between Blizzard’s blockbuster video game Diablo III and a common rock. The chart compares the entertainment value between the two and it seems that a rock may give you more bang for your buck… but then again, rocks are free and plentiful and can be found just about anywhere!

You can click the following image for a full size version. Also note that if I see any queued comments screaming at me over the nature of the image, I’ll refuse to approve them. Remember, this image is all in good fun. Don’t take video games seriously.

Diablo III (Review)

I don’t know what to write. I hate to open a review by saying that because you’re here for my opinion on this game, but I truly have no idea how to go about reviewing Diablo III. This is a game that is so hard for me to describe my feelings for. When I’m playing the game, I think it’s a lot of fun and I don’t want to stop… but when I’m not playing the game, I pretty much have nothing but bad things to say about it. I’ve never felt so conflicted about a game before! With that said, if you are reading this now, then surely I came to a decent conclusion about this game that I felt was worth expressing. Let’s hurry up and cut to the chase, shall we?

Diablo III is the third installment in Blizzard’s sixteen year old action RPG franchise. It’s hard to believe that the Diablo series is so old now with only three games to its name, but keep in mind that the original Diablo III would have happened over half a decade ago if it hadn’t been for the unfortunate demise of Blizzard North. Twelve years have passed since Diablo II and, in that span of time, one would expect Blizzard to come up with a lot of exciting and innovative ideas for the next game. To put this span of time into perspective, the time that passed between Diablo II and Diablo III was greater than the time that passed between Super Mario Bros. on the NES and Mario 64 on the N64. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Even more so hard to believe given the severe lack of innovation in Blizzard’s latest outing. Irvine, California based Blizzard definitely played it safe with Diablo III, believing that sticking to what they knew, rather than pushing the envelope, would be the key to Diablo III’s success. Why do I say that Diablo III isn’t innovative and that Blizzard played it safe with the development of the game? Unfortunately, it’s because Diablo III is pretty much just a 3D version of Diablo II with several features stripped away or dumbed down. For each step forward this game takes, it then takes a dozen steps back.

An absolute mess of a skills menu.

Remember socketed gear in Diablo II? Don’t even think about seeing it until midway through the game’s second act. Socketing works the same as it did in Diablo II, though there are not as many kinds of gems available and the socketing rewards are not as exciting. You see, since Diablo III also removed stat point allocation, the process of distributing additional stat points has been placed upon gems and socketing. Gems now increase strength, dexterity, and other stats rather than offering additional bonuses like in Diablo II. The whole socketing meta-game feels a little cheapened in Diablo III, but there is one definite feature which I welcomed with open arms. You are now able to remove gems from items and reuse them again. While I like this feature and find it to be incredibly handy, I will admit that there is a definite disadvantage to it. Without having to worry about permanently socketing an item anymore, the risk of losing gems or using them on something that will soon be obsolete no longer comes into play. There’s no risk and reward gameplay involved in socketing anymore, removing the aspect of gemming that sort of felt like a lottery at times. Plus why bother hunting down new gems when you can just take out the old ones from your previous pieces of equipment?

The greatest change, aside from stat point allocation going the way of the dinosaur (which I’m fine with), is the streamlining of player abilities. This is a feature that I’m glad to see, but it was implemented horribly and is an awful mess. Rather than choosing which skills to learn and refine via skill points that you gain as you level up, players now learn new abilities upon each level up. It’s not a bad system because it allows players to try out everything and figure out what works best for them rather than playing what I like to call “skill point lottery” by sinking a bunch of points into skills that may end up being garbage later on. All abilities scale with your level, so they’re all viable throughout the entire game. Combined with runes, which are performance changing modifiers that you unlock as you level up, each class has dozens of different combinations to play with. Now, what makes this a horrible mess? The ability menu does. It’s clunky and not at all user friendly. It feels like something I’d expect to find in a children’s game, as everything it tucked away into little categories that you have to click to access. The game practically recommends what abilities to use and in what slots, which takes away from the player’s independence a bit and really holds their hand. Thank goodness for elective mode, which lets you place any skill into any slot on your hotbar.

Scrolls of identify and town portal have vanished as well. Players can now use town portals whenever they want, but the spell to cast a portal must first be obtained from an early quest in the first act. As for identifying items, almost everything already comes identified for you. Rare items must still be identified, but this is simply done by right clicking the item and waiting a moment for your character to identify the item in question. Pointless feature, I know. If identifying no longer costs money or requires Deckard Cain, why even have it in there? The cost of identifying items has become three wasted seconds of your time.

I want those precious seconds back too, Hans.

I’ve also noticed that Diablo III is very light on randomization. Outdoor areas are no longer random at all (though they do contain random dungeons and events) and are entirely static. As for quest dungeons, they all seem to feel the same to me each time I visit them. I’ve seen people claiming that the game does randomize their layouts, but I can’t help but feel like I’m running the exact same path through the Tristram cathedral each time I play, which I attribute to the fact that there are very few set pieces used in randomization. Expect to find the same rooms and hallway layouts almost constantly in this game. There’s very little in the game world that is any bit interesting to look at or explore and, since nothing appears to ever change, I can’t think of any reason to thoroughly explore any given area on additional characters. Unlike the world of Diablo II, Sanctuary is a very static place in the newest installment.

Gameplay thankfully feels a lot like Diablo II. The AI has been improved significantly and the newer game engine allows a lot of interesting things to occur during important boss fights. The only part about the gameplay that feels a little off is the graphical presentation. Diablo used to be a dark, gothic 2D adventure. It’s now a semi colourful 3D experience, so a bit of the game’s personality has been lost and it is felt during gameplay to an extent. Everything else in the gameplay is pretty much the same as before, right down to spell properties and how certain monsters behave in battle. Fallen shamans still resurrect the dead and the barbarian’s whirlwind still annihilates everything in sight. This is the same ol’ Diablo experience that we’re used to but, as I said at the start of the review, Blizzard played things too safely. This is pretty much just a colourful Diablo II with new classes.

I mentioned elective mode a few paragraphs back. This is a feature that you can enable in the game’s options menu which allows you to place any skill into any slot on your hotbar. Without enabling elective mode, you are stuck putting certain skills of one category into a sole slot on your hotbar. So, if you have two offensive abilities that fall under the same category which you really like and don’t have elective mode turned on, you can’t use them together. Elective mode makes things a lot nicer and allows users to fully customize their hotbar, but I still have one beef with it. You have to unlock slots on your hotbar, and you won’t have them all unlocked until around level 20. This is because certain slots on the hotbar were designed to be used by certain skill types only by users without elective mode on. I can understand the reasoning for this, but it really gives users of elective mode the shaft. If you have four skills that you want to use early in the game but only have three hotbar slots unlocked, you’re screwed and have to deal with it until you unlock the next slot.

I’ll also take a stance against the bosses in this game. While they are all very well designed and are loads of fun to fight, they’re simply far too easy. Players are extremely unlikely to be challenged by any of the game’s major bosses on normal difficulty, and even on nightmare they’re still relative pushovers in comparison to what you’ll face in the wilderness. The unfortunate truth with Diablo III is that random monsters can pose as greater threats to you then the leaders of Hell itself. This isn’t terribly evident in normal difficulty, but once you move onto the harder difficulties you will encounter champion and unique monsters that have pretty terrifying affixes that are designed to make them more challenging than they would normally be. These affixes give monsters some pretty scary passive abilities such as poison clouds, molten magma trails, and magical arcane beams. Every single one of these affixes is designed to either harm you severely or lock you in place. On nightmare and above, the combinations that some monsters are given are just downright frightening. They provide great challenge and are fun to fight, but I really do take issue with them being more challenging than the big boss fights of the game. For example, I’m yet to die on the game’s final boss, but I died to an amped up champion or two on normal difficulty. The contrast between bosses and lowly champions grows even larger once you hit nightmare difficulty. It’s a pretty strange anomaly, and I hope Blizzard buffs the bosses considerably. They should be evoking apprehension and fear into the players but, at the moment, they’re just not doing that at all.

I don’t recall ever saying “I want to be a witch doctor” as a little boy.

I don’t want to knock on the game’s visuals too much because I know that Blizzard designed the game to be able to run on a wide variety of systems (a feat that is easier in 2D than 3D without sacrificing visual style), I can’t help but shake that the WoW influence in the visuals is extremely worrying. Diablo never used to look like this at all. Models all have jagged, pointy edges along with very colourful but simplistic textures. At times, this game seriously looks a lot like WoW from an isometric angle with slightly better graphics. Looking like WoW isn’t really a bad thing, but it’s not the visual style that a Diablo game should possess at all. It just doesn’t fit and it makes the game feel like an imposter parading around in Diablo’s skin, which is a bit of a role reversal since that is usually Diablo’s specialty.

It’s also worth noting that there is some visual inconsistency in the game. Characters and NPCs look fine for the most part, but the are several varying styles in Diablo III’s monster designs. For example, the two Lesser Evils looks pretty Diablo-esque while other models, such as the Butcher or Maghda, give off serious “designed for WoW” vibes. Other monsters don’t look like they belong in Diablo or even Warcraft, such as the huge exploding zombies and the suicidal fallen demons that blow themselves up. There is also one enemy type appearing in the third act that I can’t immediately recall the name which looks downright cartoon-like in nature. This visual inconsistency in the game’s monster models is very disappointing and unfortunate when you take into consideration how consistent and detailed the game world itself is. One last note on the visuals. The cinematics in this game reminded me that Blizzard really needs to make a movie. They have the talent to do so, and it would certainly be a gorgeous film to watch… but the story would probably be something worth worrying about for sure.

That was a pretty good segue so, next up, the story. It’s pretty bad. Without spoiling anything, Blizzard can only rehash the same formula so many times before people know what’s going to happen to every character in their games. There are twists and turns in Diablo III, but they are all very predictable and anyone who has played Starcraft or Warcraft will know what to expect. There’s nothing groundbreaking in this game, but the actions of one character did bother me slightly at one point in the game. Also, as if a poorly crafted story wasn’t bad enough, the writing is pretty lousy as well. Outside of Cain, Leah, and Tyrael, I cannot think of a single character with good lines. To make matters even worse, the games two big baddies Belial and Azmodan, frequently appear and taunt you in a manner I’d expect from a high school jock. It’s just so juvenile and silly. It’s beyond evident that Blizzard North’s writers were in a league of their own when compared to the current crop of writers employed by Blizzard.

What to say for the sound effects and music? Very generic, really. None of the sound effects are particularly satisfying and the music is entirely forgettable. I don’t even have the music on anymore when I play because I never notice it anyway. I just play my own tunes now or put Diablo II music on loop instead. The voice work isn’t any better. I love a few of the voices for the playable characters (the male monk is just awesome) and a few well known talents such as Dominic Keating and Jennifer Hale do a good job in the game. Other characters (mostly NPCs) sound absolutely dreadful, and don’t even get me started on the voices of the antagonists. Are demons supposed to sound like Saturday morning cartoon villains? Azmodan, buddy, I can’t take you seriously with that voice!

Jennifer Hale’s awesome voice brings Leah to life.

I didn’t even touch upon the fact that you have to be online to play at all times and that everything occurs server-side. This is a pretty terrible system that prevents you from playing the game whenever you want and it makes progressing through the game a real challenge when you have to log out of the game before you can complete an objective that you’ve been on for a good amount of time. It will all reset unless you hit a checkpoint. There’s also the issue with inevitable lag spikes which are completely out of the player’s control. This can make playing a hardcore character extremely risky. Would you be okay with permanently losing a hardcore character to a lack of skill or a lapse in judgement on your part? Sure you would, it’s to be expected. Now, how does it sound to have your character die for good due to an unexpected increase in latency that results in you being unable to respond to monster attacks in a timely manner while also being hit by melee creatures standing halfway across screen? Not very good, right? Not at all, and I learned that the hard way with my own hardcore character that I lost due to a random lag spike. Hardcore characters are now very risky to play. Given how you can now lose your character due to factors that are out of your control, it definitely does raise the question as to just how good of an idea it is to play a hard core character, especially for those who may already have existing connection issues.

Diablo III is a good game, but it is littered with many flaws and minor issues that hold it back from true greatness. There were just too many questionable design choices made during the development of this game and they really do harm the overall quality of the product. Fortunately Diablo III excels where it matters, and that’s hacking up dozens up dozens of monsters while fighting for your life. The combat-heavy dungeon diving is a sheer blast in this game and serves as a nice counter to all of Diablo III’s surprising shortcomings. Make no mistake, this is a very good game. Diablo III simply isn’t the masterpiece many people expected due to Blizzard’s hesitance to raise the bar and push the boundaries of the action RPG genre. This game is light on new features and some aspects of the game fall short, but the overall gameplay is certainly right on the money.

Final Score

8.1/10

Pros:
+ Cinematics are absolutely amazing to watch and are satisfying conclusions to each act.
+ Classes are quite varied and there’s at least one here for everyone.
+ Gameplay is still fast paced and a lot of fun for those who enjoy action RPGs.

Cons:
– Requirement to always be online to play means you will not be able to play whenever you wish.
– Story almost feels like it is over before it even begins due to the four acts being very short.
– Very little innovation in the game, if any at all.

Can Torchlight 2 Beat Diablo 3?

DISCLAIMER:I’m not against Diablo 3. I intend on buying it and loving it and anything that appears to be anti-Diablo below is simply done in an attempt to highlight what Torchlight has to offer as an alternative to Diablo 3 (or as a game that can peacefully sit beside Diablo on your desktop). Both will be great! So take anything that appears negative with a grain of salt.

Blizzard Entertainment. Diablo. These two names have become legendary in the gaming industry. Blizzard rose to fame by churning out RPG and RTS titles during the mid to late 1990s that were literally unmatched in quality, and it garnered them a lot of respect. If gamers were to be polled several years ago and asked who they thought were the best video game developers in terms of integrity and game quality, you can bet that the top three would’ve been Blizzard, Valve, and perhaps Bioware. If the same gamers were asked to name some of their favourite games of all time, quite a few of them surely would have said Diablo or Diablo II.

Oh, how times have changed…

Diablo III is rumoured to be on the way to store shelves as early as this November or December, but something interesting is happening… People are turning their backs on the game, but why? Aside from Blizzard throwing in some questionable new features and gameplay mechanics, the answer to the question lies in the year 2009 when a little known company known as Runic Games released an action RPG called Torchlight. It was quickly labelled a Diablo clone by many angry Blizzard fans until they realized that, hey, Runic Games WERE Blizzard! Well, maybe not by name, but Runic is made up of former Blizzard North employees who left Blizzard a few years back. What is Blizzard North, you ask? It is the division of Blizzard Entertainment that planned, designed, and developed Diablo and Diablo II. That’s right, the guys at Blizzard who brought us two of the absolute best action RPG games of all time founded Runic Games and decided to stick it to Blizzard by releasing Torchlight.

So what was so good about Torchlight aside from the fact that the developers of Diablo and Diablo II made it? Well, it was pretty much a carbon copy of the original Diablo with the main overworld town and lengthy monster-infested dungeon that keeps descending lower and lower into the bowels of the underworld. It had three classes (a warrior, ranged fighter, and magician), scrolls of identify and town portal, and… Well, face it, Torchlight was just Diablo. Runic knew that they wouldn’t be able to sell a fifteen year old game all over again though, so they essentially made Torchlight into a vastly superior version of the original Diablo. Overall gameplay was better and the game was very user-friendly. It also introduced a few neat concepts like having a permanent pet companion that can transform into monsters and take your items back to town to sell, and you could even relax and go fishing in the same style as World of Warcraft.

Torchlight was the smash hit of 2009, and droves of Diablo fans urged all of their fellow action RPG loving friends to give Torchlight a try. Well, all of those friends did try Torchlight, and they loved it. Torchlight took the orginal Diablo and then not only modernized it but also perfected it. With the same guys working on Torchlight who made Diablo (heck, they even have the same music composer), it was indeniable that Torchlight would be the spiritual successor to the Diablo series. Runic’s little discount gem retailed for only $20, and it made a lot of folks happy as it looked like the wait for Diablo III wasn’t going to end any time soon.

Diablo III wins in the graphics department, but does this also reflect superior gameplay?

It is now 2011, and boy does it ever look like we’re in for one heck of an exciting final quarter of the year. Aside from about a dozen amazing games being released in October and November, we’re also getting Torchlight 2 and, supposedly, Diablo III. This truly will be clash of the titans. Allow me to explain why in a silly way.

In the red corner, weighing two hundred and ten pounds, we have the reigning heavy weight champion of the wooooorld… The Diablo franchise’s new contender, Diablo III! This title defending warrior is sure to sell millions of copies by sheer popularity alone even if the game does not meet expectations! But will the hype be met? With practically all of the former Diablo designers having left Blizzard, and with a whole slew of new faces working on Diablo who obviously worked on World of Warcraft (you’d be a dummy to not realize this), is the magic still there? Will fans love this fighter as much as past champions Diablo and Diablo II?

And in the blue corner, weighing one hundred and ninety four pounds, we have the challenger from Seattle, Washington! None other than Runic Games’ Torchlight 2! This ambitious young contender has the same faces, ideas, and voices behind it that orchestrated the creation of the original two Diablo games. There is more knowledge of the action RPG genre behind this game than there is behind Blizzard’s fierce title defender. Torchlight 2 is indeed the spiritual successor to the previous champions Diablo and Diablo II. Resembling Diablo more than Diablo III actually does, can Torchlight 2 topple the well financed giant and become champion of the genre?

Here are the facts which favour Torchlight 2.
1. Torchlight 2 is developed by the same people who made Diablo, Diablo II, and Torchlight. These people are NOT working on Diablo III.
2. Torchlight 2, despite being a high quality title, will sell for either $20 or $30. Diablo III will be available for the standard $60 before tax, but could run higher at some retailers (I’m looking at you Gamestop).
3. Torchlight 2 promises to be what Diablo II was, only improved and refined significantly. Diablo III is a huge unknown and has only maintained two series mainstays… The barbarian class and Deckard Cain. Yay?
4. Diablo III is not going to be moddable and will have many features that are being made to suck extra money from your pockets. Torchlight 2 will be fully moddable and, once you buy it, you will never have to give Runic any further cash except to buy the inevitable Torchlight 3.
5. Diablo III requires a constant and persistent internet connection to play on even singleplayer mode. If your internet dies, expect to be taken out of the game in an awful hurry. With Torchlight 2, no internet connection will be required except to play multiplayer.
6. Torchlight 2 promises to give us all of the features we are used to and enjoy while Diablo III is wiping the slate clean and throwing questionable features at us that are intimidating many long time fans.
7. Torchlight 2 will allow players to select faces and hairstyles for each individual class as well as choosing the gender they wish to play as. In Diablo III, players will only be able to select the gender of their chosen class.

Torchlight 2, made by guys who created the Diablo franchise, will cost $20.
Diablo III, made by a bunch of folks who had to step into a vacant void at Blizzard to create the game, will market for $60 or more.

The choice is yours, guys! I’m excited for both games myself, so please don’t paint me as having a bias or anything of the sort. I will definitely be buying both games and will surely love them both! Anyway, to finish things off, here are some pictures of Torchlight 2. Since a lot of folks are still unsure of what Torchlight is since it is still a relatively new series and is living in Diablo’s shadow, these pictures may help a little.

Unsurprising Diablo III News

WARNING: You have stumbled upon one of my “rant” pages for a game(s). My rants are intentionally critical and contain foul language. If you are not comfortable with this, then please don’t read the material I have written.

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So Blizzard is showing off a bit of Diablo III at Gamescom. This is pretty cool, since new info on the game is always welcome. However, Blizzard decided that at Gamescom, they would do nothing more than just fuck with us.

Here is the “big info reveal” from Gamescom. This is taken from an IGN article. Click here for the full article.

Jay Wilson, game director on Blizzard’s highly anticipated action-RPG Diablo III gave a presentation at Gamescom 2010 to talk about a new feature for the game, the artisan system. These are NPCs that help you out during the game that craft and manipulate items for you. Wilson focused on the blacksmith for the duration of the presentation, but also touched on the jeweler and mystic. While you won’t start out your questing in Diablo III with these artisans, you are able to collect and maintain all three at the same time.

Initially you’ll need to do some tasks for the artisans when you first meet, earn their loyalty, and they’ll then join up and follow along from town to town throughout Sancturary. One of the goals with Diablo III was to add a crafting system, but the team didn’t want one where the player needs to spend a lot of time in towns and slow down the pace of the game.

The blacksmith, once recruited, will set up shop in town and is surrounded by anvils, a cart and item racks. He’ll act as a vendor where you can buy and sell items, and can also craft items. He tends to produce armor and heavy weapons more geared for melee characters, though there’ll be crafting options for every class. More interestingly, he can add sockets to items and can repair them as well. If an item doesn’t have sockets, then he can socket it so you can add gems to any item regardless of quality.
All three artisan types can be improved as the game progresses to enhance their crafting skill set. Once upgraded, you’ll also see the effects visually around the vendor areas in town. For example, in the blacksmith’s area the anvil and weapon racks and wagons surrounding him will be more ornate and elaborate, with pieces of armor attached to the wagon and fancy fires burning with chains wrapping around. Blizzard doesn’t want the items crafted to be entirely predictable.

When actually ordering the vendor to craft items, there’ll be a mix of predictable and unpredictable elements. A recipe for a dagger can have a set range of damage, but may also come along with two random properties. Some craftable have more predictable combinations than others, but Blizzard’s idea was to have a certain amount of randomness for every item. To gather the materials for crafting, you’ll need to salvage existing items. To get materials you’ll be able to put unwanted items you can drop them in a cube-like device (not the Horadric Cube, but similar) and break down the items, which you can do anywhere, to kick out materials. Higher level gear and quality items without high sell prices are generally the best to break down, and there’s some items that give you special drops.

For the other artisans, the mystic can enchant items, adding additional chance to crit or whatever you like, as well as identify items, craft wands, staves, and smaller armor items like bracers. The jeweler can pull gems off of items without destroying the item or the gem, and can also craft special items like amulets. Jeweler can also combine gems into better ones, replacing the function of the Horadric Cube from Diablo II, and in all there’ll be fourteen levels of quality for gems, though above level five the requirements for upgrading will be especially steep. All three artisans can follow you simultaneously and be fully upgraded, so there’s no need to pick one over the other.

Okay, so… Essentially the artisans are just characters from Diablo II but with new names. None of this is revolutionary. These are features that Blizzard introduced in Diablo II nearly a decade ago. It’s borderline hilarious that they’re chatting up the artisans as if they’re an exciting gameplay feature.

Sorry Blizzard, but everyone expected shit like this to be in the game. You’re not going to wow anybody with features that have become the norm in the PC RPG genre. Want to get people talking? Reveal the fifth fucking class already!

Hopefully this isn’t all Blizzard will mention at Gamescom, but… After giving a presentation about basic gameplay functions, I’m not going to hold my breath for Blizzard to reveal any sort of new and cool features in Diablo III.

Who thought that this would be a good idea? Show off something that will actually make people talk, Blizzard. Fuck!!

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