Review of Diablo 2

OK so its been like 4 years or something since our first glimpse of Diablo when they released the beta/sharware and lots of people have sacrificed sleep, personal hygine, and social lives to play it in one form or another.

At some point Blizzard said they were gonna milk us for a sequel but they promised it would kick. To sum it up; they succeeded in creating one of the best, most playable games that will come out in the next year I predict.

Diablo 2 is an absolute must have if you enjoyed the original. It makes its prequel look its age and it makes outher game out there look ludicrous. OK a lot of people have complained about the 640x320 resolution and that the game isnt 3D and such. I applaud Blizzard for going their own way. They produced a game with better looking graphics than most 3D stuff out there with incredible colored lighting, paralax effects (when moving around closer objects more more than one further away), and smooth flawless movement of creatures. All in a game that can be played on a computer that didn't just cost you your college tuition.

The game is immense to say the least. BIG BIG BIG! There are 4 acts that are each roughly a good day's worth of play if you have nothing better to do. The game has taken about a week on the first difficulty level with one character. Mind you there are 2 other difficulty levels that are much harder plus 4 other character classes to explore. Needless to say replay is huge. Speaking of replay each character class has 30 unique skills of its own and each level up you get a skill point to put to a skill of your choice (level requirements and prerequisits not withstanding) the maximum skill points one could ever attain is 110 (character level of 99) this would not only take monthes of play but is only enough skill points to cover 1/6th of a classes skills, so replay within each class is also very possible.

Lastly is the gameplay. Addictive. To say the least. Its simple point and kill with spells melee or ranged click on an enemy and you'll cast a spell, toss a spear, slice with a sword or bash with a maul or whatever. Its nice and simple interface makes it easy to jump right in. There are quests in each act varying from "KILL him" to "bring this over there and do this with it" style. There are even "collect the peices of a cool thing and put it together" quests. Plently of talking to characters for information is available but not required. The character interaction is not on the level of Fallout or similar RPGs for the PC though so some may be dissapointed.

To sum up. Buy this game. Play it. Then jump on to Battle.net to play it online. Then jump onto Battle.net again and play it hardcore where your character can only die once. It will offer to entertain you for months easily, years possibly, and if you have any doubts just look at the 2 million presales and the fact that every game Blizzard has published has won game of the year.