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Review: Diablo III

Diablo III had, in my books, ascended to the infamous levels of Duke Nukem Forever: a game many people anticipated heavily, but one we never really expected to come out.

Well, last week, Hell opened again. The minions of Diablo spilled forth throughout the lands, putting players in the boots of a wearied hero as he or she sets out to cleanse the lands.

The whole Diablo RPG experience has been heavily streamlined, refined, and ultimately tailored to suit the newer, more arcade inclined gaming audience. The majority of the action in Diablo III is now fast and in your face as opposed to the traditionally slow paced going that we saw in the previous trilogy entries.

Mana has seen its end of days, and has now been replaced by a class-specific resource. Five classes exist for players to delve in. The Monk and Barbarian for example, fighters by nature, use their powers by engaging in combat and building up their Spirit and Fury, respectively. The Monk can sit back slightly in combat and let fly a flurry of high speed attacks, while the Barbarian can literally leap into the fray and annihilate his foes.

Instead of consuming a ridiculous amount of health potions as we once did, Blizzard has instead opted to let random enemies drop health orbs which then almost become your exclusive healing method. The move to remove that bit of micromanagement is surely not missed by new players; however, I found myself missing the accessibility, micro, and control of downing potions.

Another victim to the simplification of Diablo III is the ability to manually assign your stat points upon gaining a new level. For the RPG unaware that may be reading this, when you leveled up in previous Diablo games, you would gain a finite amount of points that you could then assign into various sectors of your character’s development. Now, the points are automatically distributed for you.

While that might be fine for people who just want to smash monsters and grab loot, old-school players will be discouraged by the lack of depth and non-linear progression. There’s no real consequences to your character progression anymore, either, as you’re able to just respec your character for no cost. Characters and classes no longer feel unique, instead appearing to be simple copy and paste designs.

In lieu of the more minute control, you now have a huge pool of skills, abilities, and runes. The latter attach to skills and offer additional effects and often radically alter the final output of the skill. My Barbarian has an active skill called Frenzy that greatly reduces the time between melee strikes, which at the culmination of the skill allows him to hit with a flurry of instant blows.

It’s fun to play around with the various combinations and thanks to the Level 60 cap, you’ll literally be unlocking new runes right up until your final level. The addition of runes almost makes up for the absence of the more core character progression features, however only just.

Surrounded by much animosity and doubt is Blizzard’s controversial move to include DRM (Digital Rights Management) that demands players be connected to the internet at all times. Why? Because the game includes a real money Auction House (not live at the time of writing). Players can take the items and loot they find in the game and post it for sale online, which people can then buy for in-game gold or real life cash.

The execution of the Auction House leaves a lot to be desired, as players have to drop out of their game to enter a whole separate set of menus. In a game that is filled with many noticeable MMO traits, Blizzard could have learnt from another one of their well known titles and made the Auction House accessible from any town.

The problem with the required internet connection is the fact it’s prone to issues of lag and server side technical problems. Much of the initial launch was severely hampered by technical problems, and many fans were understandably angry, resulting in a low Metacritic user score and many complaints.

For those who waited for the errors to be resolved and worked up to level 10, the ability to play Hardcore is an unlockable bonus. Hardcore is a difficulty level where once your character dies once, they die forever. There’s no incentive to do this, knowing that one random hiccup can result in the loss of many hours of work, but the challenge is available to those who want it.

The single-player element is all that players have to indulge in right now, however multiplayer arenas will be launching between April and June of this year. Thankfully Battle.net makes joining your friends online incredibly easy, and drop-in-and-out functionality allows you to play whenever you want and leave without any repercussions.

Diablo III is a strange beast.

Long time fans of the Diablo series will no doubt feel as if the game they’ve always loved has disappeared, while others will heap praise onto the accessibility and action of the highly anticipated title. Blizzard has neglected to bring anything major to the table on this iteration, and the iconic series feels almost naked despite being adorned in core gameplay that we all know.

With that being said, Diablo III is a classic albeit lacking sequel, and while it’s devoid a lot of major features I expected it’s still engaging enough to be enjoyable.

 

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