Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

The Good
The original Diablo 2 was all about depth of gameplay. Lord of Destruction increases the depth of gameplay and playability of the game in a lot of expected (and unexpected) ways. The most noticeable changes are the new classes, the 800x600 mode (which works great even on my lowly P2 266), the increased stash size, and the addition of more hotkeys for skills.

But Blizzard didn't stop at simple gameplay tweaks. The new Act V is my new favorite Act in the game. It has the neatest quest rewards (+10 permanent resist all is a huge quest reward!) and the most varied monsters of any act. The improved mercenaries add a whole new dimension to the game -- choosing the right mercenary for your party/character class can now make your character a lot more effective in combat, and best of all, except vs. the end of Act bosses, the Mercenaries actually survive long enough to do you some good, especially since you can equip them with items to make them even more powerful.

Finally, the addition of hundreds of new types of items, set items, unique items, and runes make gathering treasure a lot more fun. Since you actually have enough space to store complete sets in your stash, it is much easier to complete sets with one character rather than having to create "mule" characters to hold items for you. Item sets have become a lot more powerful because now there are hidden bonuses for partially completing a set that are cumulative with the bonuses for completing the entire set. This is especially fun on the larger sets like Sigon's Complete Steel, which gives you a page full of modifiers if you are patient and lucky enough to complete the set. There are also new uses for socketed items -- you can now find jewels (gems with better and multiple modifiers) and runes to put in item sockets. Find the right combination of runes, and you can create very powerful Runeword items that can be even better than some of the best set items and uniques in the game.

Finally, Blizzard tweaked a lot of little things in the game to improve game balance and reduce lag which, while taking a little time to get used to, improve the overall gameplay experience. I mention this because Blizzard is one of the few game companies that still fix problems in their games one, two, or three years after release. With some game companies, you are lucky to get patches six months after the game release.

The Bad
The expansion is about $10 too expensive for what it adds to the original game. I experienced consistent crashes in network play when playing an Assassin with my friend's Druid, but to be fair, Blizzard was very responsive to my bug reports.

The Bottom Line
Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction fixes most of the gameplay problems of the original Diablo 2 while adding a lot of depth to the game as well.

The Good
Baal, Lord of Destruction, in a body of Tal'rasha, a powerful mage, was the only one who escaped his doom. As 'we' know from "Diablo II", Mephisto and Diablo were destroyed at Hell's Forge, and there's no coming back from them. And after Ball seized himself, a yellow crystal, he was ready to alter the world as we know it, forever. He set himself on a journey to find that which will make him whole again, a Worldstone, where the balance of power between the good and the evil is stored. That, and the lust for revenge of his brothers' deaths is setting his course for destruction.

Now, for those who had saved games from the ending of "Diablo II", they can easily continue from the point they killed Diablo, the Lord of Terror, as archangel Tyrael will open a new portal that will lead you into barbarian's highlands, a territory with a pretty cold climate. Frankly, I dunno how my Amazon warrior-ess didn't froze to death. Must be from all those slaying and running, adrenaline was high and blood was boiling, so there was no time for being cold ;))

The best thing about this add-on is that it fixes all the bugs I've ever encountered in original game. First, and probably most annoying thing in "Diablo II" was unequal running. Your character was facing north when (s)he was running north-east, or facing south when (s)he was walking south-west. Naaw, there is no such thing in here. And from what I've witnessed by playing the game, they really got a hold onto details in the game. I dunno if there are 8 or 16 sides that character can face now, but it looks pretty darn good, no matter when walking, running, talking or fighting.

Also, they added 800x600 resolution in which you can see more of a map, and everything is a bit smaller (corresponding to that very resolution), but looks more detailed that way, and you can spot monster from afar. Also, I was amazed by the details in original game (that took them long to make, though), but "Lord of Destruction" has something you would never expect to find in a simple add-on. Not only the story is prolongued with really nice touch and dialogues (even in animations), but the music score by Matt Uelmen is now by far more brilliant than in "Diablo II" (still, Town Theme from first "Diablo" is irreplacible), this time, music isn't just to emphasize the atmosphere, this time it's to bring you an experience of a completely self-standing independent new game. And that's not all they improved... the detail level is amazing, trees, catapults, explosions (and I am mostly playing in 256 color mode, because it looks so good as when I use Direct3D or OpenGL, and works a bit faster that way), background images (for example when you reach the end of cliff, you can see background image of a valley covered in snow they probably just sticked to the background texture), fog effects, lighting effects, lightning effects, fire effects and a helluva lot more!

In original "Diablo II" there were five classes to choose, now they added two more, the Assassins, and Druids, but if you plan on playing with any of them, you'll have to start from the scratch. From very own start of first finishing "Diablo II" and then being able to continue with "Lord of Destruction". Hah, lucky I had save-games kept stored ;))

From the intro of "Lord of Destruction" you become engulfed in the game's atmosphere and surrounding almost immediately. It's hard to avoid that (unless you didn't manage to install the game because it required 1.2GB the least, hehe). Through the entire game I didn't encounter not a single creature and/or beast from the original "Diablo II" (except when reaching the throne of Baal), and not a single place that would point as being taken or even slightly copied from the original. Everything's new, and the feeling of playing another game is complete, so in case you never played "Diablo II", but started with this one, you won't miss a thing. Towns, fortresses, caves, cliffs, everything's new. And when I said there is only new set of bestiary included, I didn't mean you'll have to constantly fight only 3 new creatures through the entire game.. a-a-a, no way. There are at least 10 different ones, and that's not including bosses. Believe me, this game is literally enhanced "Diablo II" for everything it lacked.

For those animaniacs like me, there are two animations only, intro and ending one, about 7-8 minutes altogether. But it's the first one that has a role to surprise/amaze you, last one is merely the conclusion, because everything's solved through the game, so don't expect seeing your character against Baal in the final animation, or anything of such potential, but it's beautiful, nonetheless.

The Bad
Hmm, you got something wrong here. What I mentioned above wasn't describing of a game... it was describing of the game's good sides ;)) Sure you don't expect me to put anything under here, do you? :)

The Bottom Line
When I first tried "Diablo II", its CDs ended as my cup-holders. A year later, I semed to've gotten smart... or not, hehe, depending on who's debutting upon this standpoint. However, I learned to appreciate the very game of "Diablo II" even more than I hated it at first. Difference with this one is that I loved it from the start... because I loved the ending of "Diablo II" too much not to eagerly anticipate this sequel. This is a worthy sequel to the game, and I'm pretty sure everyone who enjoyed "Diablo II" will love this one. Maybe they'll think it's short, but that's only because they put their efforts into extending differences between places, creatures and effects, instead of making it look constant but with bigger maps. The did the game alright, that's for sure... except that small catch in final fight... it's too darn hard comparing to any fight with Diablo do far.

Looking this way -- this game is made for the followers or Horadrim and the warriors who wish to test their mettle in the known world of Sanctuary. For those who didn't yet entered the Diablo universe at all, they should better start from the scratch, then getting this add-on. This is a masterpiece, but not in a way of straying away from "Diablo II".

The Good
Can't say that I liked anything about the game really. I finished Diablo a few times so at first I viewed this as a much improved Diablo which kept me playing for a while.

The Bad
A few points:

-- The game is simply boring to anyone who has played any decent RPG. The story is only an excuse to killing monsters.

• Which leads me to the second point: You will be killing so many monsters that after a while you will not care what you are killing,

• The biggest fault of the game is the No Save feature that somehow people fail to mention. You have one slot for saving. If you save exit and restore all the monsters that you have killed are back to life. Worse, you always return back to town when you restore. So for example, if you killed all those monsters and about to face a big boss, if you face it and die, guess what? You are back in town and have to fight your way through to that boss all over again. I would like to know who came up with such a dumb idea?
  
  The Bottom Line
  Avoid, Abort, Ignore. There is so much better content out there if you are just into plain Hack & Slash.