Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

The Good
I loved Diablo II. And I think Lord of Destruction (LoD) is a good expansion.

First off, I love the new Mini-Map option. Blizzard must have take a page out of the Nox playbook, and made a bright mini-map that get tucked in the corner. I found it much easier to navigate with that on the screen.

The graphics got a facelift as well, now displaying in 800x600. But to honest, I didn't see any difference.

The new charms, jewels are runes are a great touch.

Charms sit in your inventory and give you bonus to your stats/resistances/attack rating etc. I like the fact that you have a ton of them and they are cumulative as well. The runes are nice to have as well. Outfitting a helm with a couple of Ort runes will increase your Lightning resistance by 60%, and that comes in handy when your up against the many Lightning enhanced enemies.

And I like the fact the size of the stash has doubled, and the amount of gold you can stash has increased dramatically. I've got a bunch of gems sitting in there waiting to be transmuted in the Horadric Cube. Speaking of the Cube, there are more recipes to be found as well.

The Bad
It was short. I expected at least 6 hours of gameplay (on normal mode), but I finished it in about 4. The 6 quests you got through are decent, but I was expecting that since this was the 5th act, it would be more difficult than Act 4. I sailed thorugh Act 5, and I though Baal was fairly easy to beat. I had a more difficult time beating Diablo than I had Baal.

The Bottom Line
Asides of the fact that it's short and a bit easy (on Normal difficulty), it's a great expansion. Lots of new stuff to try, lots of bad guys to kill, and some nice gameplay.

Bottom Line: Buy it for the extras not the Fifth Act. You'll have more fun finding out what the Charms and other things do than defeat Baal. :)

The Good
Diablo II grabbed me at the time because I saw a friend playing it and just loved the atmosphere it gave off. I'd felt lukewarm about the first Diablo but I knew this one was a keeper.

When I first played Diablo II, I was totally into the quests. Many grizzled veterans of the game complain about the repeated quests over difficulty levels, but I found it very fun. I also began to love the item-collecting side of the game, and was constantly comparing what crazy new items friends and I had found.

Things only got better when the expansion was released, which was also when I got into playing the game networking and over the net. The multiplayer is, in my opinion, what really makes this game. Once you have spent a few hours playing together with another 1-7 people, the game really opens up to you. Finding the absolute optimal combination of items really became a fun challenge.

This expansion really got me back into the game after about a 6 month hiatus. The 800x600 resolution and my then upgraded PC completely amplified the atmosphere I enjoyed so much. Taking characters to ridiculous levels of power and replaying the game from scratch with friends at LANs was never boring.

I fell into a pattern of playing a bit of Lord of Destruction between other games I'd play and then discard. I always ended up playing Lord of Destruction again to try another class or push my older characters further.

Once one becomes more adept at the game, replaying from the beginning gives one the chance to choose skills and items much better than they might have the first time round. However lame it may seems, making a very well-built character from scratch is very satisfying.

The Bad
The expansion's new chapter was an unfortunate thing for older characters at the time, as they could just breeze right through it without a problem. But I suppose creating new characters and playing from the beginning made up for that.

The third act was always a sore point for me. My characters always struggled there and I didn't enjoy the levels and quests there. Anywhere else was fun to wander about, but I always wanted the third act to end as quickly as possible. I don't know whether that was the fault of my characters or Blizzard's design, but I didn't like it.

Otherwise, I can't really complain. I only wish Blizzard had created more chapters and quests or perhaps expanded the level cap beyond 99 (not that I was dedicated enough to get any of my characters that high, but anyway). I think I can wait for a Diablo III.

The Bottom Line
This game is simple, straightforward and seemingly shallow at first. But if you really get into this, being a higher level character is a totally different experience. The way the game is engineered, it remains a challenge because the game adjusts to your skill level. The areas you play in are always randomly generated and this keeps it interesting too.

Perhaps this game worked best because of the social aspect and the multiplayer, so perhaps it would hard for a new player to get into it at this stage. However, I can still imagine that die-hard fans still give this game a bash from time to time.

The Good
The expansion's selling point is its new act, Act IV, set in the Barbarian Highlands, where you must work your way to defeat Baal. It adds a whole new level of gameplay to Diablo, not by graphics or interface, but more fun.

Getting bored with the current characters? Then take a looksie at the two new people to enter the game; the Assassin and Druid. Both have their unique advantages and disadvantages, and both are a blast to play.

The stash has been expanded big time, with triple the capacity. You can now hold tons of items and a huge wad of gold.

There are over 1000 new items, ranging from shields, armor, weapons, gems, and sets. This encourages the player to keep playing so that he/she can get as much stuff as they can.

The Bad
The inclusion of only ONE new act isn't enough. The original Diablo II came with three acts, so I was expecting two acts at a minimum.

The fundamentals of the game hasn't changed. It's the same "target critter, click, click, click, click, dead, loot" throughout the game, with the occasional spell thrown in. A better combat system would've improved things dramatically.

The addition of a 800x600 resolution mode does make the game look nicer, but apart from the new spells for the two new characters, the game looks exactly like D2. The only noticeable difference is the characters look a little nicer and some of the jaggies (pixelated edges) are gone.

The Bottom Line
Lord of Destruction is a great game and should be picked up by all hardcore D2 fanatics. If you are a casual gamer who plays a couple times a week, doesn't really care about what happens to his online persona, then this expansion is not worth your money.