"Fun and ADDICTIVE action RPG, but with some disappointing features."

Diablo II should be approached first and foremost as an action game. In terms of the style of gameplay, it harks back to the days of Super Smash TV (SNES) or Loaded (Playstation) - a top-down viewpoint and endless streams of enemies that you mow down with your weapon of choice, with an RPG element bolted on. The general premise of the game is thus: An enemy appears on the screen. You then point the mouse at it, having equipped your hero with some kind of bludgeoning device, click on the little critter and wait until he is dead. Then move onto the next enemy and do exactly the same thing.

However, this game is ADDICTIVE. You WILL find yourself unable to stop playing, in the attempt to just to clear one more quest or to level-up just one more time. Also, the almost infinite user customisation of the game means that it is what you make of it - you mould your chosen character as you progress through the levels.

To start off with, you choose the class that your character will take. You can choose from:
The Amazon: A warrior whose main weapons are the bow and missile weapons.
The Barbarian: My personal favourite, a fighter through and through who is very strong and can become proficient in 6 different weapon categories. However, the opportunities for using magic are limited if you choose this character.
The Necromancer: Possibly the most fun of all of the characters, the necromancer can reanimate and control the corpses of recently slain monsters and has some really impressive skills.
The Paladin: A Holy Warrior. The Paladin is the character to choose if you want a compromise between out-and-out fighting and more subtle tactics of magic.
The Sorceress: Uses magic to combat the forces of evil, and therefore is somewhat fragile, especially at the start of the game.

After the RPG formality of choosing a class, we are treated to an awe-inspiring (and lengthy) introductory cinematic that really sets the mood as a whole. The movement and detail of the people in this cut-scene (and throughout the cut-scenes between the Acts) is absolutely first class.

GAMEPLAY

You are then set loose in town, where you are safe to explore. It is at this point where the first disappointment occurred for me. The towns have no character or identity, and the NPCs that inhabit them seem merely perfunctory. For example, in each town there is a NPC where you can repair your weapons, and NPC you will hire mercenaries, and an NPC where you can buy potions. Although the voices assigned to the characters are interesting, the characters themselves are largely forgettable and are merely a glorified menu system for replenishing your health and acquiring weapons. This is in contrast to a game like Baldurs Gate, where each town had its own personality, and it was exciting to discover what could be acquired in each unique location. Diablo II is a lot more ''on rails'', and the thrill of discovery that is the mainstay of the RPG genre is hardly present at all. It is also worth mentioning about the inventory system here. You are given a grid in the form of a rectangle that is split into smaller squares and every item that you pick up occupies a certain number of squares. You are therefore forced into making decisions about which items to carry back from the battle ground to the town, where it can then be added to your immediate armoury, or sold for hard cash, or stashed away for future use. Although the small amount of space available can be a tad irritating at times, this does mean that the game requires an element of strategic thinking, which is ultimately welcome. Also, your so-called ''stash'' is actually an area that is smaller that the personal inventory (despite being pictured as a huge trunk... strange).

As you progress through the game, the bulk of your time will be spent completing tasks that are generally set for you by the NPCs in the town. They are mostly generic RPG style quests, i.e. ''Go to the evil tomb of Harklsplork and retrieve the True Sword of Destiny'' etc. There are six quests per Act and disappointingly, no side-quests apart from the odd random dungeon to conquer. This also highlights another feature of the game: outside of the town areas, the whole map is randomly generated. This includes all of the outside areas and all of the dungeons. Whilst this ensures massive replayability (in every game the key locations are in different places), it seems to remove all the ''soul'' from the game. After a while, the game becomes an endless barrage of randomly placed enemies and randomly placed chests containing random items - and it just gets a little dull. Personally, when I am playing a game of any genre, I find the most enjoyable part of the game is the fact that you are exploring another world that is REAL (well, at least in the mind of the developer!). The RPG genre can normally capitalise on this more than most, but in this game it is sadly lacking. When I bought the game, I told myself that I would get used to the randomness and eventually learn to like it, but I can tell you after many, many hours of playing that I'm still not convinced that it is the way forward for RPGs.

However, there are many positive things to be said about Diablo II. Firstly, the developers have done a very good job of distilling down the somewhat tired RPG formula of endless number wrestling. They have achieved a point where the player can make intuitive decisions about where to assign points every time a new level is reached or what weapons to equip, whilst still being aware that a complex engine is whirring away in the background calculating the effects of these decisions on the combat scenario.

Another really fun part of the game is in advancing your own character through assigning skill points and attribute points. One feature of the game is that because the unique and magical items are randomly assigned to a large extent, you are not guaranteed to acquire every different item on one run through the game, or even have a chance of doing so. This adds the excitement of finding a super-rare item that hardly anybody else knows about, and ensures that the game is still fun to play even after you have completed it once.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

The graphics in Diablo II are low-res, and quite frankly a bit rubbish when compared to recent releases on the PC. The player-character and the enemies appear pixellated and not very detailed, but the animations used for them occasionally show inspiration and realism. The backgrounds are nicer, but still nothing amazing. Act I is especially drab but the graphics do seem to get better as the game proceeds. This is partially redeemed by the absolutely stunning cut scenes, but in my opinion, I would much rather have no cut scenes at all in favour of better in-game visuals. After all, you are going to spend much more time playing the game than looking at the cinematics.

The sound goes much further towards enhancing the feel of the game than the graphics do. Whilst the in game music is a rather standard affair, the sound effects are absolutely first class. My primary character, a Barbarian, has a giant two-handed sword which creates an incredibly satisfying SWOOSH as it cuts through the air as it makes its way towards the head of a very unfortunate Vulture Demon. Further experimentation reveals a plethora of realistic and bone-crunching sounds that add to the whole experience.

REPLAYABILITY

After you complete the game, there are two more difficulty levels, Nightmare and Hell to conquer in which you start from the beginning again but the monsters are even tougher. They pay-off it that some really nice artefacts can be picked up, with stats that seem astronomical compared to the items available in the normal difficulty. Also, the random nature of the game means that you will not be able to go straight to a certain tomb or dungeon because it will not be in the same place as your first game. So you are again forced to seek out these locations by clearing out hordes and hordes of evil creatures. I will also include the battle.net play mode here, in which you can develop you chosen character in a multiplayer setting which adds hours and hours of replay value.


SUMMARY

As I noted at the start, Diablo II is all about action. It's fast paced and fun. It's also terribly addictive. However, this is at the cost of incorporating tactics and strategy. If you have no qualms with the randomness of the game, then I recommend that you buy it - it will provide you with hours of fun. If you prefer games with a bit more character and memorability, I'd try before you buy. Either way, Diablo II is certainly an interesting RPG experience...

SCORE:

7 / 10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/16/00, Updated 08/16/00