Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

"Great game.......for a while"

Diablo II is a truly unique game. It's only similar game is it's predecessor, Diablo. It's overall objective is pretty much the same as the first Diablo game: Destroy Diablo to prevent him from taking over the mortal world. However, unlike it's predecessor, Diablo II has more than one ''level'', which are known as Acts. There are 4 Acts in the Diablo II, all with 6 quests (except for Act 4, which only has 3). With the expansion pack, another act is added, for a grand total of 5 Acts.
Character development has substantially changed between Diablo and Diablo II. Now, instead of choosing between 3 character classes, there are 5 from which to choose. With the Expansion, another 2 are added. The unique thing about characters is that, while each character obviously has their specialties and ''best weapons'', you can ''cross-breed'' character types. For example, if you want to make a Paladin to use the auras, and an Amazon to use the bow, there's nothing wrong with making a bow-wielding Paladin. Although it obviously doesn't work as well, it works nonetheless.

Gameplay-8/10
Blizzard has made it very simple to play this complex game. Click to go, click to attack, right-click to use a skill, Shift to run.....the simplicity of the control scheme is awesome. If it's not the control scheme you're concerned about, then let's turn to the actual gameplay. You are given the option to proceed to the next Act as soon as you defeat the Act Boss, but are not required to. Waypoints make for easy transportation to areas you've already been. Previous areas can be returned to to obtain a special item, complete a quest you skipped, or to level-up with less difficult monsters.
It may seem like the use of a quest system makes you follow a direct storyline, but au contraire! Quests are not mandatory, except for the final quest of the Act. Although Quest rewards, such as skills and items, are usually enough incentive to complete them, quests may be skipped. However, unless you know the game well enough, or have someone else who knows the game well, you will not know what to do without completing the quests in order.
Once you've beat the final Act, that's it, game's over....not so!!! There has been unlocked a new difficulty level: Nightmare. Here, the monsters have immensely more health and do significantly more damage. And no, you cannot start out a new character on any difficulty besides normal, you wouldn't survive one minute anyway. Once you've beaten Nightmare, another difficulty becomes available: Hell. It's pretty self-explanatory. It's the most difficult time you'll have had playing the game so far. Monsters are extremely difficult, and every monster is immune to either fire, cold, lightning, poison, or physical attacks. Sometimes monsters have a very annoying combination of special attributes. A barbarian's (melee character)worst nightmare happens quite often: Immune to physical (some weapons can add magical damage, so it may not be quite that hard....so far......) combined with Stone Skin (attacks do _significantly_ less damage, seems like their health got a x10 multiplier!). Occasionally, although not often, there will be a unique monster with many different immunities. There may only one or two different types of attacks that may even scratch that monster. The randomness of the game can sometimes be pure annoyance........

Story-4/10
Yes, there actually is a storyline to this game, and since it's and RPG, the story should be a large part of the game. Although it doesn't really start until the third Act, it is a storyline. And of course, what other storyline could there be except to destroy evil? One at a time, you are given quests to destroy the Three Prime Evils: Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal (Baal is the Act boss of Act 5, and thus is only in the Expansion). The only bad thing is that once you've gone through the story once in Normal difficulty, the exact same story must be re-completed in Nightmare and Hell difficulties.

Graphics-5/10
The graphics aren't too good, barely better than the first Diablo's graphics. Added graphical features are a more accurate perspective system, and a changeable screen resolution. Although the only two options for screen resolution are 640x480 and 800x600, there is a significant difference between the two.
Overall, there is immense graphical repetition in the game. If you find any chest, stash, etc., you're guaranteed to find something that looks exactly the same somewhere else. The case is the same with attack animations. Nearly every attack looks exactly the same. In fact I have only seen a variation of attack animation once, and that's with the Paladin. He sometimes swings high, and sometimes middle.
There are a few good graphical features, though. If you have full plate armor on, your character will look different than if you're wearing leather armor. You can almost tell what your character's wearing just by looking at it.If you want an example of awesome graphics, watch the videos....they're great!

Sound-4/10
As with graphics, sound is very repetitive. Every sword swing sounds the same, every arrow shot sounds the same, and spells sound the same every time their cast (although there may be variations in the sounds of swords and bows, it only occurs between two different types of the weapon, and only slightly differs).
Background music isn't that much better. It's the same throughout nearly the entire Act, only switching for special sequences or areas. Although it's tolerable for a while, it eventually gets annoying.

Replay Value-4/10
If you are the kind of person who plays a certain game for 6 months then switches, this game is for you. You can only replay it so much before it's almost boring. Once you become experienced, and know how to level up quick, it can be dome _very_ quickly. For example, my friend came over to my house one day. We both decided to start new characters at the time. By the time he left, our new characters were level 80. Once you get to the point where you can create a character better than 90% of the other characters out there in a single day, one of two things are true. Either you've been playing too much, or the game's too easy. In this case, both are true. The game does have replay value, but it is somewhat limited.
If you play online (which is all I ever do), it's more a competition for wealth than higher stats. Being wealthy all the time can sometimes be boring. You have all this extra junk worth a whole lot, and it's just lying around.

Overview-6/10
I do not recommend buying this game, but I don't recommend against it either. Instead of buying, find a friend who has it and ask to borrow it. Unless he is somehow still interested in playing, or is just stubborn, you will have your six months worth of gameplay. Most likely, you will return it to your friend before he asks for it back. If you get the game for free, play it and lend it out. Note that burning the game CDs will not work. If you have played for a long time and have been able to stick to it, there is some economic opportunity awaiting. You can actually sell your items for real cash. Some crazy people will actually pay $60 for a super-rare Unique item, even though they can get it for $5 elsewhere. Although you won't make much profit unless you have massive amounts of extremely valuable items, it can be surprising what people will do for good items.This game is extremely good for the first six months of gameplay, but becomes boring soon after. Although it is extremely addictive, the addiction will soon wear off, leaving you empty, and ready for the next good game to come out.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/06/03