"Diablo 2 is a VERY good game, however...."

Diablo 2.... ah, the wait was horrific, wasn't it? Well, we
got we wanted, for the most part. MORE KILLING!!! MORE QUESTS!!! MORE AREA TO EXPLORE!!! However, I have one niggling little problem with it. The save function. I'll explain more as I go... IN DEPTH!!

Gameplay - I'd give it about a 9 for gameplay, seeing as how there's so much room to explore, so much to kill, so much tresure to collect... <sigh> However, one little thing kills it for me: The (lack of a) save function. The power used in saving your character, or rather, reloading it, causes the monsters to rise from the dead? What's up with that? Now, it is nice to be able to go back and pump up, but its not nessicary, as far as I've seen, as I can do quite well with the one time through EXP. Also, the stash isn't big enough, IMHO. With all this in mind, I give gameplay a 6.

Story - Ooo... plot. Diablo had a so-so plot. Diablo 2 has a pretty awesome plot, considering the only contact you have with the NPCs is through listening to them blather on. The cinematics do a nice job of advancing the plot, too. I never liked how the Wanderer(the Hero from Diablo) stuck the soulstone in his head. That kinda sucked, since I *KNEW* he couldn't have controlled it. However, Diablo 2 capitalizes on it in a big way, enough to make me actually like the ending of Diablo 2. Story gets an 8.

Audio/Video - Graphics are good. Everyone says Act 1 sucks, and it does. But only compared to the rest of the game. My personal favorite is Act 2, because its graphics are the classiest and the most detailed, in my opinion. The sound is pretty darn good, too. The voice acting is excellent, and really helps the plot. Plus, many of the one-liners the charcters say are pretty funny. The music is nice, it evokes a feeling of familiarity in an unfamiliar realm, by mixing in alot of the Diablo 1 music. Audio/Video gets a 9.

Replayability - I haven't actually BEATEN the game yet, so this is just conjecture. However, I intend to beat it at least once with each character. It looks like it will be VERY replayable. Replayability gets an 8, until I get more data on it.

To buy or to rent? - Oh, definatly to buy. You can't get any where close to the whole experience if you can only have it for a few days.

Well, to wrap this up, I love the game, despite its few flaws. The patches aren't that big, so having to get the latest one isn't that bad. I have 1.02 currently, and am about to upgrade to 1.03, but I haven't had ANY problems, other than when my Horadric Cube ate my gems. Grr. Tip to ALL players, newbies and old, be careful with that thing, it can be quite annoying. The save function is what reallllllly brings down the score, at least for me. I just don't want to have to play an entire 20 or so hours at a time, just so I can get something accomplished. If Blizzard fixes it, I would upgrade it from a 6 to a 9, and from a ''You may like this'' to a ''YOU MUST GET THIS NOW, OR FEEL MY WRATH''. One thing, to do REALLY well, you need a beefy system, but I can run it reasonably well on my computer, which is an AMD 166 with 48 megs of RAM!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/00, Updated 09/26/00