Diablo II

Intro

It has been a while since I have reviewed something but I think that it's time to review one of my favourite games of all time, Diablo II by Blizzard Entertainment. Currently the game is 8 years old and rumors of a new Diablo game are floating around, so this is the perfect time to make a review.

Story

Diablo is about an Wanderer who you as hero follow, everywhere this Wanderer goes he leaves big evil monsters and destruction, for you to clean everything up and stop the Wanderer from completing his evil plan, what ever that is (no spoilers here)

The story in Diablo II is very epic. It's mostly told trough cutscenes, when you talk to NPC's and do quests. The speech of the NPC's can be very long and there all spoken in with real voice-actor, very different from World of Warcraft in that sense. I think the story of Diablo II is very good and I totality love it, even though it isn't very deep and a bit generic,

Gameplay

The gameplay in Diablo II can be best described as 'hack and slash'. it's very easy at base, you have 2 mouse buttons for 2 different actions and you can target enemies with your mouse. But the game at the end is quite deep, you will get many spells depending on who of the 5 characters you are and what skill tree you choose. You can also alter the way you play by changing you stats, like Strength, Dexterity, Vitality etc..

Apart from the combat system there is also a full fetched inventory system which let's you change the way you look but more importantly how much damage you do, how much defence you have and some magic effects can upgrade certain skills.

There also gems and chips you can put into your weapon to further upgrade them. There is also a cube that can upgrade the chips and gems again to make them more powerful. Like I said earlier there lots of types of items, ranging from 'cracked' to 'Unique' items all with there own special colour.

Presentation

To be fair, Diablo II runs on 8 year old graphics, back in the day it was stunning and now a days it still doesn't look that bad, the whole reason for this is that it is 2D which gives it the power to still look pretty, I would however prefer a better looking game or even an mod to make it look better, but hell it still doesn't look ugly

The music in Diablo II is totality amazing, it has been graved into my head and it will never leave. It's mostly Spanish guitars and drums but played in such an creepy and energetic way it scares the shit out of you but still gives you the thrill to keep playing.

Replay Value

There aren't a lot of quests in Diablo II. Even though every quest is fully worked out with Voices, Special Items, and Bosses. every act has only 6 quests and there 4 acts in total with Act 4 having only 3 quests. To make up for this there 3 difficulty levels, with the next level getting unlocked when you finished the first one. There is also a 'hardcore mode' which only gives you one live, so if you die it's game over. Than there is 'The Secret Cow Level' which has hundreds of cow enemies in it and an big end boss which you can do over and over. Maybe the biggest replay factor is the online play, which is still heavily populated, you can work together on quests, help each other out, grind bosses, PvP and trade.

There is only one thing I haven't touched on, the whole concept of Diablo II, every instance of the game, every map you play on, is randomly generated, so you will never come across the same encounter, ever. they do however have similar things in every same instance, like a boss or stairs that lead downwards, but there always on another spot. This gives Diablo and Diablo II endless replay value, making it (in my eyes) the best game that could ever be created and this is why I can not wait for Diablo III to show it's head at the Blizzard World Wide Invitational tomorrow (dated info*).

Verdict

Diablo II is the first game I played constantly, played thousands of hours in and the first game I have finished, it has the most solid replay value of all games I have ever played in my life, everyone should have at least played this game. There will however be one game that can top Diablo II and that would be number III.