"Another great game by Blizzard that will last forever."

When I first heard of this game and how good it was, I didn't know if I should get it. Why you ask? Because I had never played the original Diablo, and I didn't really know to much about the game. But I kept hearing pretty good things about it, so I decided to trade in 3 old N64 games for it plus 7 bucks. Before I had bought it, I had never really thought that it was that good of a game. Boy was I wrong.


Graphics: 8/10

Well, I must admit that this game isn't really kickin' in the graphics department. I mean, it looks pretty good for the kind of camera angle that the game uses, but it isn't exactly 3D virtual reality. The characters are very detailed, and you can see everything that your character is equipped with. So if you are wearing a horned helm, you will see the horns on the helm. People have told me that this is different then the original where your character always looks the same. Anyway, I'm not sure how the graphics look with a 3D effects card, but the regular ones are alright, but not that great.


Sound/Music: 7/10

There isn't really that much music in the game, and usually you don't really notice it because it is soft and blends in with the game. There are pretty good sound effects though, like the sound of your weapon clashing against the enemies or the sound of when some monsters die. There are also some built in audio that you can trigger when you hit 0-6 on the numeral keypad. So if I hit 0, my character would yell out ''Help!'' or ''Help me!''. This is useful when you are playing multiplayer and don't have the time to type something in and hit enter. But, the best part about the sound category is the voice. There is lots of talking while you are in town, and the voices sound very detailed and full of emotion. They should have added more music to this game though.

Gameplay: 10/10

Now this is where the game truly shines. There are 5 character classes: The Amazon, she is skilled with the bow and arrow and javelin. The Barbarian, the strongest character who can use all kinds of weapons and can equip two onehanded weapons at a time. The Necromancer, who can summon the dead to do the work for him and curse his enemies. The Paladin, who is a holy knight that has abilities to cure his allies. The Sorceress, who is not too skilled in melee combat, and attacks from a distance with her fire, cold, and lightning magical skills. The gameplay doesn't take too long to figure out. You pick a class of character, name him/her, and start off in a town. you left click on a place to move there. Click on an NPC(non-playable character, the people in town) to bring up the interaction menu where you can talk to them or for certain NPCs, sell and trade with them. When you left click on an enemy, you will attack them with whatever is assigned to the left mouse button. If you hold it down you will contiue to attack them until you either let go of the mouse button or they die. You can also assign a skill the to the right mouse button. I'll explain that later. What do you do in this game, you ask? This game is an Action RPG, so you have to kill enemies and go on quests and stuff. To get a quest, you should talk to the NPCs in town and sooner or later one of them will have an explanation point above their head which means you should talk to them. When you do, you should get a quest. When you bring up the quest menu, it tells you what you have to do. So you must do that and kill all the monsters that are in your way of doing it. When you venture through the wilderness, you will find equipment and gold that you can put in your inventory or equip. You use gold to buy things. Also, when you get enough experience points(you get them by killing monsters), you will level up. When you level up, you get 5 attribute points that you can put into 4 different categories. Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Magic. All have different purposes. You also get a skill choice. Each character each has 30 different skills that you can learn with different levels. Of course, there will be some point in the game where you will be outnumbered by monsters and you will be killed. So what happens when you die? When you die, your will hear a screen and a message will come up prompting you to hit the Esc key. You might lose some or all of the gold that you are carrying with you. When you hit Esc, you reappear in town without the equipment that was equipped when you died. You must find your corpse to get back your equipment. I think I have pretty much covered everything...


Storyline/Plot: 10/10

This game has a very good storyline, which is pretty easy to catch onto if you have never played the first(like me). I don't want to ruin the whole plot of the story, so you'll just have to play it yourself. I will mention something thought that doesn't really fit in the gameplay category. There are four acts in Diablo 2. Each act contains 6 quests, except Act 4 which has 3(that's what people have told me). The quests get very, very hard as you progress, so be prepared.


Replay Value: 11/10

The replay value of this game is absolutely amazing. There is so much equipment it is mind boggling. And with 5 different character classes, you will absolutely NEVER get bored of this game. ESPECIALLY the multiplayer. The multiplayer is just sweet. You can play on open Battle.net, which I don't really reccomened because that uses single player characters so people can hack characters and use them on here to kill you. Or you can play on a closed realm. There are 4 realms. USEast, USWest, Europe, and Asia. You pick the one that is closest to where you live. The characters that are used on here are stored on b.net, so you don't have to worry about any hacked characters ruining things. You can also trade with people which makes it all the more fun. Lots of times some people that are like level 40 and you are about level 10 will give you some really cool equipment for free. Anyways, back on topic. I promise you that this game will never get old, and you will be playing it forever. It is also strangely addicting ;).


Overall: 10/10

Any gamer should have this game in his library. It is another excellent game by none other than Blizzard. If you don't own this game, go out and buy it immediately. I promise you that you will enjoy it. Even if you are not a big fan of RPG/action you will most likely get addicted to it. I promise. :)




Till Next Time,
Tyrant007

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/00, Updated 08/31/00