By Jason Van Horn

My time with the Diablo franchise consists solely of an excursion into the depths of hell with my brother playing the Playstation version of the original game, which we never did manage to finish. I've found myself since drawn to dungeon crawler games that spawned because of its influence and I've learned deep down that I'm a loot whore. I will search every nook and cranny and pick every item up, looking for that one better piece of equipment, even if it is just slightly improved by a small percentile. After playing the beta of Diablo 3, I found myself hooked, but held off on delving too far so that the experience would be fresh when the game actually released. Diablo 3 is here now and I'm happy to report that it's a fantastic game and with updates to come, it can only get better.

Diablo 3 starts with a star falling from the heavens and crashing into New Tristam - a village built over what was once the setting for the original Diablo. As one of several adventurers, you're perplexed by the ominous presence of the star, and so you begin your quest to learn more about it. Everything is not as it seems and soon the world is in peril as great evils seek to invade Earth and rule. I enjoyed the story of Diablo 3 quite a bit actually, as it's set in a mythology that is already intriguing on its own, but expands and grows with this latest installment. Past characters will return, new pawns will arrive, and in the end a lot of creatures are going to die. The story is told primarily through the missions and in-game dialogue that happens as monologues or quick discussions between you and one of the three NPC companions you can have fighting beside yourself. You can also talk to special star NPCs to get more info on the world around you and the events happening, minor act segments are broken up by quick narration scenes, and each Act is accompanied by some truly epic CG work that advance the story in emotional and horrendous ways.



The game features five distinct classes: Barbarian, Monk, Wizard, Demon Hunter, and the Witch Doctor (it was my favorite class in the beta so it's been my main character with the retail release). The Barbarian is all about getting into the face of the marauding demons and pounding them at close-range. The Monk is somewhat like a Barbarian in that they need to be close for many of their attacks, but they have some extra defensive abilities and buffs. The Wizard is a glass cannon that can deal a lot of magical damage, but can't survive an onslaught. The Demon Hunter uses various bows and crossbow techniques to kill enemies at a distance and then using traps to slow whenever something comes too close. The Witch Doctor is like the Wizard in many ways, but could be considered a pet class as they have many minions that can be called to fight at their side. Each class has their own special resource pool, which allows them to perform abilities in battle. The Wizard and Witch Doctor's magic pools replenish on their own, while the Barbarian, Monk, and Demon Hunter feature resource pools that need to be built up through charge moves before more devastating attacks can be utilized.

Each class has a nice selection of skills, but you can't equip them all at once and must instead choose from them and help shape how your character performs in battle. Unlike a MMORPG where choices you make are permanent, Diablo 3's system allows you to freely swap between "builds" whenever a move is on cooldown. You only get so many skills, but as you reach certain levels you earn runes that modify a skill. The Witch Doctor, for instance, can throw toads that hop at people, grab a run that turns them into inferno toads, and then another that summons one large one (instead of the small three) that will use its tongue to suck one up and do damage. You're never forced to choose and keep one, as you can try one rune out, decide you don't like it, and then switch it to something else. It's fun experimenting with different powers and how they work together as you move through the game and learn new ones, so it always feels like your character is constantly changing. Plus, an ability that might not seem useful at one point, might find itself a welcomed addition once the proper group of powers is found for it.

One annoying issue when it comes to skill selection is the game tries to be user friendly for new players by initially limiting what you think is possible when it comes to skill selection. Skills are placed into groups of like-minded abilities, which are often associated with one particular key (left-mouse, right-mouse, 1, 2, etc.) - once you start digging into the options, however, you find an option that lets you turn on additional tooltips to get more damage info on abilities, but most important you can unlock the skill limit and freely choose any ability you wish and place it anywhere on the designated keys. So where once it looked like (and actually was the case) you could only ever have one ability from one group, now you could use all the abilities from that group if you wished or just one or two.



Part of the fun of Diablo 3 is the easy controls and yet the complex intricacies that go with them. In order to fight an enemy, you simply click on them and that's it. If you want to destroy an item you click on it. Pick an item up? Click. Interact with someone? Click. Move between areas? Click. And yet combining abilities, as mentioned, and tweaking them until you find that right combo is thrilling to me. Besides getting abilities, you also unlock passives. I thought my Witch Doctor and his zombie dogs needed some extra defense, but once I unlocked a passive that modified my poisons, I ended up shaping my Witch Doctor into being a poison using machine and the zombie dogs aren't even in the picture anymore. As an example of the complexity and depth, I can combine a move that poisons an area, drop a slow on top of it, and suddenly enemies are stuck wading through muck constantly poisoning and killing them.

The big draw of dungeon crawlers is the loot whoring and there's plenty of it in Diablo 3. You'll be finding weapons, armor, gold, and more constantly throughout the game. Some of it will be junk, but then you find that piece that improves on the one you already have and suddenly you're more powerful and happier for it. With all the stats though, it can be challenging trying to discern between two pieces which is the best; if I lose this piece I lose this, but gain this stat increase instead. Once you unlock the blacksmith early on in the game, you can then use him to break magical weapons or higher down into components, which you can then use to craft items, and crafting the same items two times in a row won't give you the same results as they are random (the extra stats that is). You can further spend gold on your blacksmith to train him up so you can start making more powerful weapons and armor. There is a jewel crafter you'll unlock in a similar fashion, who can make gems for you (you can equip these into slot gear for bonus stats). The whole crafting process is simple and easy to use.

Besides breaking items down, you can also sell them to NPC merchants or take your chances on the auction house. The auction house works as it does in every other game, where you can put an item up and if someone wants it whoever wins the auction gets it. The thing I'm curious about and excited to see is the real money auction house, which will allow you to put items up for auction and the winner is whoever actually pays the most for the item using real money (money you actually earn). I have dreams of selling items and making money off them, but even if I don't strike it rich it's a cool idea I'm at least curious to try when it's patched in.



The thing Diablo 3 really has going for it is replayability. If you beat the game on the normal difficulty there are always harder difficulties that unlock and you can try. Plus, once you hit level ten in a normal game, you'll unlock Hardcore Mode, which is a game for people who want to play for keeps. Hardcore Mode is all about perma-death, so if you're playing and die, you're dead and dead for good. You're not going to be reviving at the last checkpoint like in the normal mode and only have to worry about repairing your armor. No, instead that character is gone. All the hours you might have spent on them. All the gold or real money you spent. All the cool items you had. In the blink of an eye they're just gone. Plus with five different classes to play and level plus the addition of achievements that unlock banner upgrades to represent your account as a whole, there is a lot to do and a lot of goals to shoot for. Besides, there's always more loot to potentially upgrade your character or sell for some money. The game features a pretty high level cap too, so it will take you a while to reach it as well.

I understand Blizzard's decision to make Diablo 3 an online necessary game, but it's one that hampers the game from time-to-time; getting slowdown and lagging so badly you die in Hardcore Mode for no fault of your own is an event that just shouldn't happen, but it is possible and can happen (wasn't a Hardcore character, but died once in normal by this very event). The good thing about the game being "always on" is that you can open your games to the public and have anyone come in, join you, and go fighting monsters and loot finding together, or you can get some friends together through Battle.net and party with people you know. Being able to communicate isn't a "necessity," but it certainly comes in handy, so you'll find many chat options for your party (plus there are even things such as all-purpose channels and class specific channels for you to use to interact with other players even when you are playing the game solo). If you're going to be playing Hardcore Mode, however, always be wary or only party with friends, as you never know if a griefer will come along, bring a bunch of monsters to you, and then laugh as you die and lose all that time you spent on them.



Diablo 3 is a technically superb game on all fronts. A lot of people claim the graphics are too cartoony, but they're far from the bright, magical colors of World of Warcraft. The graphics have a life too them and still maintain a dreary and depressing quality to them. Abandoned crypts, lonely country roads, desert sands - it all looks lovely to me. I also like how the game plays with depth, as you can see enemies in what appears to be a background plane, but finding the right path will take you down to them, or enemies come into the foreground, almost as if they were flying at you in 3D, as some powerful attacks can send enemies flying into the air. Meanwhile the sound effects are good, the voice acting is solid, and the game's score is beautiful and menacing when it needs to be.

Diablo 3 is a fantastic game and has been my gaming addiction since its release. I've got a few more games I need to put some time in with and play or either beat because I forgot about them, but Diablo 3 is such a great game I can't pull myself away from it long enough to complete or even want to play those other games. Once Diablo 3's real money auction house and PVP is introduced, I think then Diablo 3 becomes the perfect five out of five game that it's so close to being.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Diablo 3