Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

"If this is as good as it gets, I fear the future."

Blizzard has done it again, yet another game with no real awarding feel. The first time they did this was with the first Diablo. Diablo was not only disappointing in gameplay but was mirrored and plagued with various hacks and bots and spam and uncontrolled cheating which ultimately caused its downfall.

Then came Diablo II. When the game was first released it was fun enough but eventually became very problematic and featured some of the very things that caused the original Diablo to be so disappointing. People figured out how to expose things way too quickly and soon players (myself included) felt abused and left without support. Exploits such as corpse popping, duping, game crashing, etc. flawed the gaming world and Blizzard surely wasn't going to offer any suitable solutions to make the players feel comfortable again.

And so it went, thousands and thousands of addicted players... Ultimately meeting their end to some 13 year old who figured out how to corpse pop. Poof, all their items gone, all those months of hard work out the window, nothing left to show for it. And then we quit. Or so it seemed... Enter the expansion pack.

Gameplay:

On first glance, Diablo II (and LoD or Lord of Destruction) seems to offer a ton of gameplay. You log on and feel yourself surrounded by endless possibilities and countless paths and quests around you to take up your time.

The game features 7 different playable classes. Each of these classes have somewhere near 60 skills they can level up (well, usually it's more like 50 or so). These skills are, of course, based on their natural abilities. Each character also gains various stats. With each level up you'll get to add 5 additional stat points to the stat of your choice.

Then there's the huge item database. There are weapons and armor and jewelery that add on to your stats and skills and what not. There are literally thousands of different items in the game that you can find through one means or another. The armor requires you to have certain strength to wear and some weapons require you to have certain dexterity to use as well as strength.

On top of all this, there's a wide range of quests you can complete to give you various items and special stuff along your journey to finishing the game. You'll go through five different towns and they each have their own type of world to explore. You'll fight five big bosses as well in your search for ultimate victory.

Each town holds a wide cast of NPCs and shops at which you can buy generic weapons, potions, and even gamble for rare and unique weapons. Of course, you have to have loads of cash for that last one.

Being a PC game, of course it offers various hotkeys and stuff to make your journey easier. You can assign spells to the "F" keys (F1, F2, F3, etc.) to make selection fast-paced and easy. Other noteable gameplay features are the weapon switch (you can hold two sets of weapons) and the minimap. They also made good use of the mouse's scrolling button(if you have one that is). The mouse scroll allows you to scroll through your available skills.

Now, despite all of this, despite ALL of this stuff that makes this gameplay stand out, the game is still extremely disappointing. And why? Because, chances of you becoming addicted to it are 99.5%. Why's that bad? Because, once you come off your addiction, you're going to feel VERY unsatisfied, VERY unfulfilled, and generally VERY disgusted with yourself.

The game feels like you're coming off a bad drug habit (well, from what I've heard of drug habits anyway...) It's a terrible experience when you're finally done with it. I've talked to more people that have explained this feeling to me than I care to count. Almost all of my gamer friends have gone through this, I went through it (3 times actually), and even the people who usually don't game that decided to give D2: LoD a try told me that's what they felt.

Now, how can that be? How can a game that gets you so addicted, that gets you so into it, that has so much to offer... How can it possibly make you feel so sick once it's all said and done? The answer, my little friend, is a real lack of gameplay hidden amongst all this fancy decoration.

This game is supposed to be mostly focused on multiplayer, as that's one of the major deals that was packaged with the game. Free online play! And, sure, it's fun for a while. But soon it just becomes a part of your everyday life and nothing you can think of can even begin to explain why you continue to do it. You log on, do a bunch of "magic find" runs, level up a bit, maybe go kill some people, and log off. And you can't explain to yourself why you're doing it. That's why it's a bad game. Usually you can say to yourself, "Well, I play this game because it's fun!" But not with D2: LoD and not with any of the Diablo games of the past.

While this "magic find" is important to the single player game, it's basically 100000000x more important online. It's actually the ONLY thing the game has going for it. "Magic find" is a stat add-on to items in the game that offer you more chances of finding unique, rare, and set items when you kill an enemy. Think of it as a "luck" stat.

So why's that so important to online play? Because, you want to get all these items to trade for other items to upgrade your characters and be the best on Battle.net(Blizzard's official online server). But why? If the "magic find" stat and the item finding is ALL D2: LoD has to offer as far as "fun" goes, what happens when you finally max out all your characters?

The answer is... Nothing! Nothing happens! The PVP in this game is completely boring. With each patch they release, everyone uses the same one or two characters to PVP with and they spam the same skills over and over again, and nothing ever changes. Maybe I was just spoiled by Ultima Online (which had a MUCH better PVP system than D2: LoD).

Now, I've played Diablo II: LoD off and on since its conception. Not because I found it fun, but because I was tricked into believing I'd eventually have something to justify all those years of time and dedication. The end result was pure nothing. I kept trying to justify the reasons why I was playing in my head, and I couldn't offer anything reasonable.

Once you figure out the few tricks this game has to offer, you're going to find yourself in nothing but an endless loop of leveling at the SAME 2 places, rushing your characters through the acts, "magic finding" at the SAME 2 bosses, etc. Nothing will change, and if it does it'll be with a new patch...

Speaking of patches and items, etc. A problem with online play is that people exploit this game WAY too easily. In all of my time playing Ultima Online, I NEVER experienced such exploits as D2: LoD has to offer. Sure, there were a few, but nothing to make me feel like scum. Which D2: LoD fed me on a regular basis.

One major problem in the online gameplay is the exploit of "duping". This has been a famous term with the Diablo games since they started with the first Diablo. "Duping" is the process where people exploit a glitch, or use a cheat program, to copy an item they have and duplicate its stats. They copy rare and unique items and trade them off to poor unsuspecting people.

Now, you might ask yourself... "Why's it matter? Who cares if it's a dupe or an original?" Well, the problem is that Blizzard deletes dupes! They have some kind of program in their software these days that tracks dupes off your character and will delete them (a.k.a. "poofing") if it's found. Now, how fun does that sound?

Say you've been doing "magic find" runs for the past year and you FINALLY found an ultra unique item that you can make big money off of... You go trade it for what you assume to be a good deal and then you set out to trade those other items off for stuff you actually need. As soon as you enter the next game, you look in your inventory and bam... Items are no where to be found. Jee, thanks Blizzard! And thanks everyone for duping! Awesome!

They couldn't just patch the dupe methods, that isn't enough for them. They can't even properly track down the "dupers" and ban them. No, they have to delete the items instead. All that hard work down the drain. But will you care? Probably not, at least not the first 10 or so times it happens. But one day this has to change. One day you'll wake up and say, "What's the dang point?" Exactly.

Another problem that was recently contributed through duping is lag. See, one method involves a semi-complicated method of lagging the servers enough to where the game will kind of half-crash and your items will dupe themselves. As you might have guessed, this effects the WHOLE server. And when you have countless people doing it... Well, Blizzard's big fancy super servers really can't handle it. And then you lag, even when you shouldn't... Yeah, sound fun yet? We're just getting started!

Yet another big problem with online play is that trading is absolutely screwed. It's all done in the currency of "Stone of Jordans" (known as SoJs from now on). "SoJs" are special unique rings that are not only outstanding in the stat departments, but now open up an optional boss. Basically, people continue to sell "SoJs" to NPC vendors and eventually all the games running on that game's IP number will have a message displayed that says, "Diablo's clone walks the Earth!" Then, exactly that will happen. A huge new clone of the original Diablo boss will start running around in a random location, and you'll have to go kill it to get a special unique charm which boosts your stats incredibly.

Now, what's the problem with that you ask? I don't know about you... but when you have SO many items in the game that should be tradeable and all you EVER hear asked for is "SoJs" it kind of gets boring, wouldn't you think? The answer is yes. Extremely boring. But will that stop you from playing? Probably not... probably not for a long time.

I could probably come up with a bunch of more reasons why I hate this game. And the problem is, they could and probably will be all patched eventually. As with any PC game, it's hard to really determine that. But that doesn't mean I'm going to waste any more of my life playing the game.

Cosmetics:

For a 2000 game (D2: LoD doesn't look any different than the original D2) the graphics are all pretty good. Of course, as with any PC game, that also depends on your Video Card and other computer specs.

But, the game actually doesn't require much from a video card to look good. It's all pretty and won't really fail to impress you. It's not on par with games today, but it's still pretty good.

I've always been a fan of the music side of Diablo games. It fits rather well and you'll love what you hear. It's all pretty apocalyptic and demonish. There's even a track by Tool on the game... I think?

Storyline:

The storyline in D2: LoD involves a 5th demon by the name of Baal. He's trying to destroy the world much like Diablo was trying to do in the first Diablo and Diablo II.

You play the part of a warrior brought into this world to slay the five demons that are trying to rule it. You'll venture through five towns and solve various quests and fight your way through demons in order to eventually save the world from mass chaos.

I like the storyline well enough to not deduct points from it. It's above average and won't disappoint you if you're a fan of demon mythology and stuff such as that.

Overall/Explanation/Recommendation:

Unlike console games, PC games (even moreso today) are more focused on online play. And with that, you have to factor this in when reviewing a game like this as well. Half of it (actually more, but for the sake of being fair...) is based on playing online.

When you have so much focus online, and the game is complete trash in that department, it's hard to ignore it and just base it off the regular single player mode. And that's why this game ends of being mediocre. Take it from someone who has played the game for 5 years, you don't want to get yourself trapped in the constant circle of doom that this game is.

I probably forgot something in the gameplay section of the review that should have been said. Like I said, this game excels heavily at regular offline play. It has a lot to offer. So, excuse me if I forgot something, it has been a few months since I last played the game.

If you're just going to play the single player mode, then I absolutely recommend this game. I'd rate it a 9/10 at least off that aspect alone. But I warn you now, do not venture into the online mode. It'll be a road you do not want to go down. One day you'll wake up and wonder where the last 4 years of your life went... And then what?

You can't rent PC games, so if you want to play the single player version then you're going to have to buy the original game + the expansion pack. Like I said... If it's just for single player then I say go and get it. But God help you if you decide to log online one day. Don't say I didn't warn you. And don't come ask me to rehabilitate you when you can't seem to force yourself to log off but realize how terrible the whole deal can be.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/18/06