Diablo

"Action RPG + Blizzard + Cool plot = FUN"

Diablo is not all that new anymore, in fact Diablo II has been on the shelves for some time. And after playing the sequeli felt quite motivated to conjure up this review of the thing that started it all.

GRAPHICS: 8/10

Well the first thing is that there is a LOT of stuff on screen, so the characters and stuff aren't exactly gigantic. But if you press Z it magnifies the display tons so that your character is a lot bigger.
The game is played from an isometric 3/4 view, similar to Crusader: No Regret and No Remorse. It works quite well, you can attack in something like 8 different directions.
There are good points and bad points. Your character's face is yellow (at least the warrior's is) to begin with and he/she wears normal adventurer clothes. You either buy or find better quality (and better looking) armour and you can see the new armour on your character, it looks good.
The enemies look good and they all differ from each other, some tower over you so you can't even see you character if you were to be surrounded by them.
And the different places all look nice, with dead bodies in the dungeons and lotsa lava in the caves.

SOUND: 10/10

Very good. Blizzard gave all the characters and enemies voices, but some are really bad, like Gillian, who trys to hide her American accent while trying to sound Irish or something. But Cain and Griswold, they're so cool. Cain is like a virtual Sean Connery.
The bosses' voices are very well done, especially King Leoric the Skeleton King. Very evil and cold.
You can hear enemies letting out piercing cries or moans as they are slain as well as your sword swishing when you don't hit anything.
In the caves you get to listen to joyful sounds of screams and howls in the background which is very atmospheric.
Not much music except in the town which is a very corny score played on a banjo or something.

STORY: 8.5/10

Your standard 'evil Lord of Terror coming forth to destroy the world and the doomed town that resides next to the place where he lies' scenario, but carried out really well. Little side stories are all part of the main one, which is Diablo the Lord of Terror destroying everything. You get to find and read ancient tomes which give the background plot.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

The theme here is Click go the Shears. The mouse is the main control. You move around, attack, and do basically everything with the left mouse button and perform spells with the right one. It'd be quite queer if you had a single-button mouse.
What you basically do is roam about the dungeons and catacombs and caves and eventually Hell, hacking away at the enemies, picking up gold and weapons and items. Quite simple, yet fun.
There are 3 character classes: warrior, rogue, sorceror. It's quite obvious what their respective strengths and weaknesses are. Warrior: strength, vitality; rogue: dexterity; sorceror: magic. I like warrior the best though.
You gain experience points by killing things and at a set amount of exp. you gain a level.
There are special and unique weapons, shields etc. that have special effects like +23 strength, +11 vitality and +20% resistance to magic.

REPLAY: 8/10

The areas are randomly generated, so you can get different quests and level layouts each time you restart (btw you keep your inventory). There are tons of items to collect to keep you going.

OVERALL: 9/10

A good, solid RPG. It has multiplayer options but you can get hacked and many ppl do that so i didn't use it much. But it cost like $19.95 now cos it's like a 'Blizzard Classic' so pick it up. Plus you've got Hellfire the expansion and Diablo 2.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/21/00, Updated 09/21/00