Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

"I would have liked a full-fledged sequel..."

OPENING STATEMENT
It has been a while since the release of Diablo II. One very, very long year. I may not know the exact release date of Diablo II off-hand, but it is somewhere in that ballpark. Blizzard is sure taking its sweet time with the release of a sequel to it. Well, then again, we still don't really have a full sequel to Star Craft. Luckily, albeit quite late, Blizzard Entertainment has released this expansion pack to hold us over on the ever-lengthening wait for a full-fledged Diablo III.

GAMEPLAY--9
I am guessing most of the people who are interested in purchasing Diablo II: Lords of Destruction have already played Diablo II, but just in case they have not, I shall give you the just of this monumental title. You need to take your character, whomever that may be, and raise their attributes through classic hack-and-slash battling, to the final confrontation to save the world. While many people call Diablo II an RPG, it is not. It is an RPG with varying strength and other attributes do to the acquiring of experience and gaining level-ups. You could call it an action game with role playing elements.

In Diablo II you could choose from one of five characters to play as: the Paladin, the Necromancer, the Amazon, the Sorceress, and the Barbarian. Now, Blizzard has added two new classes to your arsenal; the Druid and the Assassin. These two new classes are the most complex, and frankly the best, in the game. This makes getting this Diablo II: Lords of Destruction expansion set a must if you played the original Diablo II, especially if you play it online.

Each of these characters has their own best way to progress through the five acts of Diablo II: Lords of Destruction. Necromancers can raise the dead, while Druids hold power over nature and can shapeshift into Werewolves and Werebears, as well as command evil vines to poison their opponents. You should play for a while offline with each of these seven characters, to get a feel for each of them, and decide which one you are best with, before you even consider going online. There are people at insanely high levels online, and to compete with the big boys, you need to know exactly what you are good at, and you need to do that. My personal class of choice is the Druid. I mainly use the Druid because I find the summoning very helpful. Other people that I know find the summoning a bother, and they prefer the instant strength and gratification of mauling people with a Barbarian, or raising a dead corpse to be your minion skeleton as a Necromancer. It all really is a matter of opinion.

So what else is new in Diablo II: Lords of Destruction besides the two new character classes? Well, actually, quite a bit. That fifth act that I mentioned earlier? That is new, as there were only four acts in the original Diablo II. (Original Diablo II...hehe.) Anyway, you also can hold more items than before, one of the biggest problems with Diablo II. Also, hundreds upon hundreds of items are new. Which is good, because now you can hold more items than ever. So lots of stuff is new. Well worth the price of admission, even for those who did not play Diablo II all that much.

GRAPHICS--6
Diablo II: Lords of Destruction is not all that graphically impressive, but they get the job done just fine. The biggest problem with this game is the slowdown. There were some critical moments of slowdown, when there are a couple dozen opponents on screen, and you are not battling with any other human players online, something that you really should do. Then, the game slows down dramatically. If you cannot notice this slowdown, have your vision checked. It has to drop at least in to the teens for frames per second.

The other problem that I found graphically with Diablo II: Lords of Destruction is that the environments do not look real. They look almost like those little miniature train sets that people hook up for their train sets. Sure, they spend countless hours working on them, but they still do not look real. The water especially suffers from this. Not only does it look like an oil slick instead of water, it looks like an oil slick covered piece of Saran Wrap.

Other than these two problems, which admittedly are fairly major, you will at least get to notice that the buildings look fairly realistic, and the characters, all though hardly realistic, look great. Although I really would have picked a different costume for the Druid. I had always pictured Druids looking like monks from a hidden monastary in those brown cloaks and robes, not like some modern costume from a Las Vegas magic revue. Where is Blizzard based again? (That was a rhetorical question. Please do not e-mail me answering it. I do not want an answer. The question was posed to prove a point.)

MUSIC--7
SOUND--9
The music in Diablo II: Lords of Destruction is not bad. I just did not notice it. I mean, when you play games with engaging soundtracks like Suikoden and Final Fantasy VII, you hear it constantly, and you rarely miss a note. In Diablo II: Lords of Destruction it took me at least an hour to even realize that there was music playing. It is just not as visible, or in this case as audible, but I am trying to use a simile or whatever here, as tunes from most other games. So, after a while, I ended up listening to some songs that went well with Diablo II: Lords of Destruction, such as Your Disease, by Saliva, Schism, by Tool, and Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm. If you are looking for some songs to listen to while playing this title, these songs work quite well, and I would recommend using them, or any other songs similar to them. But long musical ballads by Celine Dion and Whitney Houston I just cannot see working well with a hack-and-slash action game like this. Even if it was a more traditional role playing game I could not picture those working, but my musical tastes are another story altogether.

The sound effects in Diablo II: Lords of Destruction are quite superb though. I think their greatness may have been some of the reason that I was essentially ignoring the music in the game. They are not flashy sound effects, like those you will find in some action games. They are just there, always solid, always seemingly the base of the sound. The morbid voice acting, which melds with the theme of the story perfectly, is the best that I have had the privilage of listening to in any video game or computer game ever. The clank of the sword, yell of a beast, moan of the dying, are all surprisingly solid effects, and they were more than I expected from a title whose focus was quite obviously on gameplay.

CONTROL--7
To be perfectly honest, the actual battling I have trouble doing with a mouse. I really am not accustomed to using a mouse in action games like this, so I had trouble. If I was playing this game on a PlayStation 2 Dual Shock Controller, I certainly would have fared better. Plus, rapidly clicking the mouse to take care of an entire hoard of enemies really is difficult. I mean, your need to click your mouse sometimes for a minute sometimes, especially with the Barbarian, since he is not exactly known for using magic or spells, especially when compared with the Sorceress, Paladin, Necromancer, and Druid. Or essentially, everyone. The menu navigating was flawless, though, something I have come to expect from PC games. Being able to use a mouse always and all.

FUN--9
The only way to play Diablo II: Lords of Destruction and receive the maximum fun possible is to play the game online. I mean, you obviously have the internet if you are reading this review, so then you really have no excuse not to. Blizzard.net is free for all who wish to play Diablo II: Lords of Destruction online, so go buy this expansion pack as soon as you can, and sign on to play this game online. Find a group of people around the level of you, and that are in the same act. Then, progress together, and have a blast. Also, to prevent cheating, you cannot load characters from the single-player offline game into the online servers, so if you were only going to play offline to raise your online character's statistics, like I was, do not even bother starting up the online game. Just go find some other newbies and battle along with them to raise your statistics. And when you are facing a boss, do everything that you can to get them to take out the minions, and let you concentrate on the big kahuna yourself.

CHALLENGE--MEDIUM TO HIGH
If you are playing alone, or with some people on the internet at the same level and same stage in the game as you, you will not find progression impossible, but it will not be as easy as pie. If you try playing on the internet with people at a far higher level than you, do not even bother. The enemies in the online play of Diablo II: Lords of Destruction, become exponentially more difficult with each player logged into the game. So the more people that there are, stay as many of them as possible at all times, to maximize progression, and experience. But, once you hit Act V, no matter how many people you have partnered with, you will have a great deal of difficulty. Also, you have to deal with the added problem of dozens of new enemies that you have never seen before to battle, so your strategies against them cannot be drawn from any amount of hours of play in the original Diablo II. You will actually have to develop new ones. Oh no.

REPLAY VALUE--HIGH
If Diablo II: Lords of Destruction was not an online title, this rating would be substantially lower. Just the fun of communing with other people, and helping out those that you can, forms a sense of community while playing Diablo II: Lords of Destruction online that is emotionally hard to break. When you have battled with these people for countless hours, it is hard to let go sometimes. So you grab a new character, make it blatantly obvious who you once were, unless of course everyone hated you, and delve into the adventure again, as a new class, with new strategies and mission partners, of course going on to the older one every now and then to get a level up or two, and to preserve your legacy as masters of the five acts. Diablo II: Lords of Destruction is a far more rewarding online experience than games like Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete, or Star Craft: Battle.net Edition. That is the magic of the role-playing game. It is why games like Diablo II: Lords of Destruction and EverQuest are so popular, and it is why Final Fantasy XI may be the most important Final Fantasy release. The sense of community is simply that strong between players.

PROS
*Two new character classes, who entirely change the game for the better.
*An entire new Act V for playing, with new monsters to destroy.
*Sound effects are excellent.

CONS
*Music lacks personality.
*Graphically unimpressive.
*No way to maximize fun without playing on the Blizzard.net servers, which means, for most of us, tying up our precious phone lines.

CLOSING STATEMENT
Diablo II: Lords of Destruction has everything an expansion pack should. It has new missions, new characters, and new items. However, after paying fifty bucks for an expansion pack, I would have liked to have seen an archer class, or a warlock/witch class or something. The new classes are really the reason I played this expansion pack. And remember: If you run into a druid named Matt-Newsradio while you are playing Diablo II: Lords of Destruction, give me stuff. Stupid Blizzard would not let me use numbers in my name. Oh well.

OVERALL--8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/01, Updated 07/18/01