Diablo II

The Good
New skill-system with new spells/skills. They kind of dumped the old "You are a sorceress, here are your spells" and instead allow you to pick what kind of sorceress you want to be (fire, ice, electric). Same with barbarians, necromancers, etc. Just the fact that they changed the classes was a good improvement.

Much of the game is above-ground. You get out of the dungeon often, and it's kind of nice to be able to roam about a sprawling land.

Interesting things to keep you looking (like sets of armor, socketed weapons and armor). Sometimes this gets annoying trying to figure out which belt works better or which sheild is better, but overall it's good.

The Bad
Graphics. What is this hard-coded 640x480 stuff in the post 20th century? It's technical requirements really were all that was required AND necessary. A better PC won't make the game much better visually. WarCraft 2 looks better on my 21" monitor than Diablo 2.

If you like story line, this is not your game. This is pure hack and slash. Your fingers will go numb after all the clicking.

I question the balance to this game. I felt like all the developers did was boost the HPs of everything towards the end of the game. I didn't see "ingenious" uses of the magic in the game, and sometimes I felt like the AI was cheating (like they all had one set of shared eyeballs). Other times they couldn't figure out how to walk around an obstacle.

The Bottom Line
Overall, it's still a good game, but I prefer the original to this one. It's probably worth the lower price it should be going for nowadays, and all the changes to the game should keep you playing for quite some time. Towards the end of the game you'll be more driven to "Finish the damn thing" than anything else.

I hear the multiplayer on-line is pretty good, too, but I don't have high speed internet, so... .

The Good
The game picks right up where the last one left off and takes on a higher degree of depth. There's more to it than simply fighting your way deeper into the same dungeon. This time you chase Diablo through four Acts, each one with it's own flavor and setting, and its own set of quests that must be completed to proceed. Each Act is preceded by a cinematic scene that drives the story forward.

There is much more variety in this game than in the first game. There are five different character classes, each with its own skill tree uinique to that class. This gives each class its own playing style; different from the first game which had three classes not much different from each other. The game also introduces the concept of set items, a group of items which give the character special abilities when put together, and socketed items, which can have gems placed in them and allow the player to customize the item's abilities. There is also a greater variety of items overall.

The game's best attribute is probably its simple interface. The game can be run entirely with the mouse, though there are hotkeys for many functions. The result is a very clean, efficient interface

The Bad
There isn't a lot of variety to the game itself. It's pretty much just hack-and-slash the whole way through. It can get kind of tiring fighting through the same monsters all the time.

Act III is particularly tedious with waypoints spaced too far apart and lots of little annoying monsters.

The Bottom Line
Despite its lack of variety, the game is quite addictive. With so many items to collect and skill paths to follow, there is a lot of replayability. The simplicity of the game makes it easy for anyone to get into. Who doesn't enjoy fighting evil incarnate?

The Good
You're probably wondering 'what the hell does that mean?', so allow me to explain. Quake and Doom, both 1st person shooters, have little in the way of strategy to complete any objectives. Simply choose your weapon, keep your heart in your mouth and blast whatever may come between you and the blue/red/green/yellow with purple spots key and, of course, the exit. Now the same can be said for Diablo, though perhaps not exactly the same. There is a small level of strategy to the game (mainly in the way of building up your selected character, from the chosen classes, to what you think will be the strongest to taken on the dens of evil) but other then that, it's fairly easy to call it a point and click shooter, for that's what you'll do ... for the most part.

Now that's, in no way, an indication of whether the game is good or not, but more an observation. As it is, Diablo is addictive, easy to get into yet hard to master and, more importantly, it's fun. You won't see any Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights between the lines, but as Blizzard have done so often in the past, Diablo II is a successful creation of a dungeon hack and slah like the good old days.

The key to the game is the creation of a compelling story. It's the kind of imaginative tale I've come to expect from the Warcraft clan. In its day, the FMV sequences were top notch, the characters were detailed and beautiful to watch in action and the orchestral score beautiful. By today's standards, visually at least, it doesn't hold a candle to the modern RPG or action title, but don't hold that against it. You'll still find more to do here, both single and multiplayer, and much more to see thanks to the wonderful design.

The Bad
Let's face it, after a certain amount of time, hacking and slashing your way through level after level, you may start to wonder whether it's worth carrying on. There are areas where it seems just like the last level completed, despite different characters to defeat. It comes down to how compelled you are to work your way through the game, trying each of the character classes and/or competing against others online through Battle.net. The online service is, in many ways, the saving grace for this and Blizzard's back catalogue. Players the world over will be fighting along side and against each other long after the third or fourth sequels are released.

The Bottom Line
While we wait with interest to see whether Blizzard will ever return to the world of Diablo (and I wait to edit this review once again when it does), the second title in the franchise still has what it takes to captivate an audience. If you, of the minority, haven't yet dived into the Diablo world, hunt this one down and give this little gem a shot.