Diablo

"This was tru-ly an incredible game. Non-believer's click here."

Dia-blo blew me away. NEVER have I seen such a well thought out con-cept so skill-fully exe-cuted. The game's fun fac-tor, its music, (OK, maybe not so much the music) and its over-all playability, and replayability, all de-serve a little brag-time. So, with no further ado, here is the Great and Powerful Jack Frost, Himself's, re-view of Dia-blo.


I'll begin with graphics.

GRAPHICS-8
This game did not sport the world's all-time greatest display of technological prowess in this department. The graphics are good enough to give the basic idea, and then some. Monsters explode into satisfying gobbets of blood and gore, and spells, well, look like they should. When you cast Fire-ball, don't expect to see an enormous inferno bearing down on the enemy. Expect to see a ball of fire.

SOUND-8
The sound is, well, pretty good. Clangs and explosions in battle, fair voice-overs, (Gris-wold might end up driving you fair-ly in-sane) the general things you might expect from a com-puter to PSX port. This is not it's strong suit, anyway.

GAMEPLAY-10
This is where the game shines. I have played this game for over two hun-dred hours and it barely palled. The main thrust of this game is , well, delving into the bowels of a cor-rupt church behind the village where you begin. To engage in said explor-ation, you will:
A) Fight mon-sters. Killing mon-sters is what you will do for eighty-five per-cent of the game. Luckily it's an incredibly gratifying thing to do. The sound of a Fire-ball impacting on a defense-less Fallen One brings tears of joy to my weary eyes just imagining it. The controls are excellent and very customizable, so if you don't appreciate the way things are you can change them.

Originality-10
This is the department where I get to talk about my absolute favorite aspect of the game; mainly, the fact that no one has ever done any-thing like it before. The one thing that sets this game apart from the crowd of hack-n-slashers, though, is the fact that you can pick up ran-dom wea-pons and armor at any time during the game, and they can either be the best new equip-ment you have, or something the shop-keepers are embarassed to be seen with. But as your character gains levels, it's far more likely to see the former than the latter.

REPLAYABILITY-11
Remember that random wea-pon generation thing I talked about? That wonderful little fac-tor will have die-hard gamers (like myself)searching hours upon hours just to com-plete their characters en-semble. And the fact that there are three classes to play through the game as does nothing to stunt the replayability issue.

OVERALL-10
To make a long story short, I would give this game the highest rat-ing possible on any scoring plat-form. If you listen to me, and you like what I've said, take my O-so-humble ad-vice and go buy it before Peter gets back. This is Jack Frost, signing ''I'm Audi 5000, G.''


''Do it, Doug!'' - The Great and Venerable J

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/09/00, Updated 08/09/00