Diablo III

It has been a while since the demon Diablo has been loose upon the world, but finally Blizzard has decided that not only is the demon Diablo making his presence known but so is his brethren. It is now time for what seems to be the final battle to take place. You'll have to take up arms, learn skills, cast spells, and hope that you have what it takes to save all of human kind.

Graphically this game is a step up from the previous addition, but that comes as no surprise since Diablo II was released in 2000. One thing that I really did enjoy was the differences between zones. You really got to see what the artists were able to do with the game. You had the desert, a snowy mountain area, sewers, crypts, and more. The enemy designs were also impressive they came in all shapes and sizes from small spiders to large demons. Graphically this game drew the player in with its polish.

The music in the game is basically the soundtrack you've been hearing throughout the series with some slight updating. The voices provided in the game were well done. I did get tired of some of the repeated phrases you'd get to hear over and over again, but it wasn't enough to stop me from wanting to play the game.

As in all the previous Diablos the main controls that you're going to want to keep any eye on can be found on your hot key bar. As the game goes along you'll find that you'll have a lot of attacks and effects that you're going to want to chain together for devastating results. You'll also be heavily reliant on your mouse (so make sure you have a really good mouse that can stand up to many hours of punishing clicks of both left and right).

So here you are again having to deal with demons roaming the world, and it is you, and only you who can save this world from total destruction, and for Diablo and complete victory over all. This time you'll get to do some co-oping at the drop of a hat, though I warn you the enemies do ramp up in difficulty when another player joins your game. This is also one of the issues I have with the game. The ability for anyone on your friends list to just jump into your already in progress game. Lets say you're taking on a boss and someone decides they want to join you. Well they get put into the base town for the area, and then they could go window shopping for the next 10 minutes. During this time you're probably going to die a horrible death because the fight you were barely surviving during is now impossible for you to win. There's also the wonderful issue of needing to have a constant internet connection, even when you're playing single player. I really don't understand why Blizzard didn't just give an up front option of "would you like to have a single player only game, or would you like to have a game capable of co-op". I understand that they were trying to stop cheating in the game, but don't allow the single player only players access to the Auction house. I do understand that they don't want people to clone weapons and then sell them for real money, but you can't penalize or limit the abilities of playing a single player game.

This is a great game when you have a strong internet connection, if you don't your going to lag out and perhaps get disconnected. This is no longer a game where you can save a lot and try different things, this is now a game where you're going to run into check points, and have to replay from there when you die (of course there is a penalty for dying, but at the same time it does allow for faster times of getting back into the action). I really do like the fact that you can have henchmen by your side, so you're not having to face an enemy alone, but there are times where I wish the AI for those guys was a bit better. There are times where they're not doing anything, have the ability to heal my character, and then decide to just stand there like nothing's wrong. Which reminds me of the new health bubbles. No longer are you self reliant on potions to heal you, if you kill the right enemy they will drop a red orb that you can pick up and regain some health. This becomes huge in boss battles, and also causes a cool down timer for using potions, which definitely makes things a bit more interesting.

Would I recommend this game to PC gamers, sure if they are Diablo III fans, or if they are looking for an internet required co-op RPG, but if you're looking for something to get yourself lost into and spend hours on in no matter the outside world's conditions, you might become very depressed when you lose your internet connection. This is a good game, but there are some flaws, and with those flaws this game does not live up to my expectations as well as other gamers. Once you've beaten this game the playability is minimal, and that really hurts this game. I have to give this game, as hard as it is to say this, a 7.4 out of 10.