What is Diablo III?

Diablo III occurs 20 years after Diablo, Mephisto and Baal devastated Sanctuary, turning humanity into slaves as their evil pervaded the world.

As evil seems to stir anew, Deckard Cain returns to the ruins of Tristram Cathedral to find clues that might solve the riddle of what is causing these stirrings. A comet falls from the sky landing where Diablo first entered the world slowly ancient evil awakes as heroes are once again required to defend Sanctuary from the very minions of hell that once were defeated, but now are stronger than ever.

Blizzard are being very coy about the release date of Diablo 3, however if you go over to Best Buy you'll now see that the release date for Diablo 3 is February 1, 2012.

Whether this is accurate remains to be seen, but I'm on my way to pre-order Diablo III now!

Diablo III is an action role-playing game following on from the hugely successful Diablo I and Diablo II. AS players roam through a fantastic world they’ll uncover a plot that is evil and threatens the whole world of Sanctuary.Diablo III has many of the elements that made the original games so good; fast paced action, real time game play and lots of powerful weapons and items.  Many new features are promised that will elevate the game above any other action RPG and make this a true classic.

With Multiplayer modes and random scripted events, Diablo III promises to be a great game.

It’s amazing that it’s been almost 10 years since Diablo 2 came out – I have fond memories of playing this game in the early hours of the morning, finishing one more level before going to work! At the time it was one of the best games around and even though it looks dated now in comparison to some of the modern games, it still is a fun game to play.

Graphically Diablo II wasn’t that great; it used the same engine as the original game and even ten years ago it looked dated. There are some good details in the levels, but for a new game it really didn’t add much to the original.

Sound was a little better; the acting was good, the sound effects for the monsters was varied and often well done, and overall the little sound bites made the game a little more atmospheric.  The music is also pretty good, again adding to the overall feel of the game.

The cinematics between each levels were excellent and really what you have come to expect from Blizzard – the animation, sound and effects are perfect and while the main graphics are not superb, the cinematics really make up for this.

However, all this doesn’t really matter; what is important is the game play. What made the original game so good was the pace and action that never really gave you a chance to take a break – one minute you thought you’d killed all the enemies, and voila, a dozen of the little buggers re-appeared.

The fast pace is important as if you actually realized that the game play would be the same all the way through, then you might not be interested – but somehow, with the multitude of enemies charging at you from every angle, and the variety of bad guys to chop up, the game had a sordid pleasure that made it one of my favorite games of the time.

Despite the poor graphics, and the repetitive game play it was addictive and I found myself playing just one more level, trying to get to the final and ultimate battle for victory.

What was interesting about this game is that even though there were options to have different classes, and to tweak a lot of the characteristics, it didn’t really matter – you could jump straight in and not worry about the mechanics and still have a good chance of completing the game!

If you can find this on the discount isle, and can get it to work on your high powered PC, then BUY IT!

Back in the late 90s there weren’t that many games that changed the world of video games. A lot of games such as Simcity, Doom etc had been regurgitated that the gaming industry was becoming a little staid and boring. That was until Blizzard introduced Diablo to the world.

Diablo had a simple concept. Take a hero, place him in a dungeon or two and let him/her hack and slay to their hearts content. Oh sure, there is a very good plot underlying this, and the game does give you some role playing elements, but all in all it was the sheer fun of hacking and slaying a multitude of bad guys that made this game so addictive and fun.

Graphically the game was good for the time; it wasn’t exceptional, but that didn’t matter as it was the game-play that elevated it to a different level. The game had a huge amount of variety in it; weapons, magic, monsters etc  were all varied and interesting and it was the element of finding the next weapon, or the next monster that added to the addictiveness.

By today’s standards this game is dated, but it is definitely worth getting it on discount, or buying the ‘Diablo packs’ that contain all versions – it’s a great bit of nostalgia to keep you busy while you wait for Diablo 3.