Diablo II

The Good
There were a number of things to like about this game.

• The number of items and skills was vast. With the random nature of the items, there were a seemingly endless number of ways to equip your character.

• The different classes. Unlike the first Diablo, each class was quite different from the other classes. As well, Blizzard put enough time into this game to allow each class to have a wide range of different ways to develop.

• The music and sound, overall, were of very high quality.
  
  The Bad
  Now to the bad part. In any game, after enough playing (say, a week or two of playing off and on), the merit of the game ultimately comes down to the basic gameplay elements. Does the gameplay intrigue you, and make you want to keep playing? In Diablo II, I found the answer was a definite no.

As even the game's champions say, the game is essentially clicking. With the vast range of skills, nearly all players eventually focus down on, at most, two or three skills that they use repeatedly. So, the combat becomes "Skill 1 Skill 1 Skill 1 Skill 2 Skill 3 Skill 1 Skill 1 Skill 3, etc, etc, etc....." This really did not keep me interested for long.

The other part of the gamplay, the "roleplaying", is where you decide how to best outfit your character. This kept me amused for a while, but eventually becomes tedious. After one gets a character to a fairly high level, there tend to be only one or two particular weapons or pieces of armor that one is looking for.

So, after a while, the game simply becomes, "Go out into this area, kill hundreds of little critters with repeated clicking, and hope you get the item you are looking for". Well, quite frankly, this did not sustain my interest.

The Bottom Line
As everyone says, it's a hack-and-slash game. So whether you like it or not comes down to what other hack-and-slash games you have played. Personally, I enjoyed the first Diablo; but that was before I started playing NetHack.

For those of you who don't know it, nethack is a hack-and-slash game with ASCII graphics. But it has such depth of gameplay that it keeps you interested. Unfortunately, three weeks after I started playing NetHack, I got Diablo II. Now, even though Diablo II was far better than the original Diablo, because I had played NetHack, and knew how good hack-and-slash gameplay could be, Diablo II was deathly boring by comparison.

So, if you played games like Nethack, ADOM, or Angband, don't bother with Diablo or Diablo II. If you haven't played these games, you'll probably enjoy Diablo II - until you see how good games like Nethack are.

The Good
Every now and then, you like to relax you brain with a "stupid" game. Kill everything, collect gold, get better equipment... that kind of stuff. Diablo II provides such a gameplay.
Graphics are not stunning, but more than decent
Sound effects and music are as spooky as they should
The pre-rendered movies are cool
The environment is random... which adds replayability (but only in the unlikely event you want to actually go through the game again)

The Bad
Diablo II is long, and that's good, but every part of the game is the same with different graphics. The gameplay is just too repetitive to entertain you until it ends. I gave up just before reaching the middle of the game.
Some character classes suck when they should be great. Take the necromancer : it sounds cool : command an army of squeletons and golems. Yeah, but either your "army" is too weak and will be of absolutely no use, or it is strong enough and then the game is just about walking and watching your squeletons kill the enemies, which is such a dull experience.
The environment is random, which means... that no-one puts any design in them. So some parts of the game will end up being too easy, while others will be frustratingly impossible to venture through.


The Bottom Line
Diablo II sounds fun, and at first, it is great fun.
But it fails to be an entertaining experience in the long run because of its repetitive gameplay and lack of balance.

The Good
This is one of the greatest games ever made! Sound effects are great. Cinematics are outstanding. Very addictive. Easy to learn and play. Great spells. Huge variety of weapons, spells, armor, etc. Mutliplayer has an awesome concept involving a party to play the game together and for players to show off their characters. Multiplayer trading is very cool. The five main characters are unique with their strengths and weaknesses. This game almost has no limits!

The Bad
The game puts a big footprint of your hard drive at full install (1.8 GB). Multiplayer has some major problems involving lag, not being able to connect, being kicked of or losing connection for no apparent reason, and many other problems. Blizzard promises to fix this, but I'm still skeptical and pissed! Graphics are way dated. The AI of the enemies is pretty bad (they run to you for you to slaughter them). Gameplay can get old after a while.

The Bottom Line
Even with it's many flaws it makes it on my top 10 list and should be conidered an instant classic. This is the best game to appear in years!

Overall Rating: 95%