Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

The Good
Note: This review is based on v1.10, which was released in October 2003, after years in the making. v1.10 changed pretty much everything, so it would be pointless to review the old versions.

After three years of playing Diablo II LoD, you can imagine that I don't have many complaints about it. It's easy accessible for any gamer - casual or hardcore - and it's incredible replay value bases on one simple thing built into any human: hunting and collecting. You'll get to hunt down more monsters than you've ever imagined, and what's the point? Yes, leveling up your character (which is now quite difficult since on high levels, you get only about 0.6% of the experience, meaning that you'll take ages to achieve level 99), but most important: collect all the godly items and runes! Build runewords from extremely rare runes to make your character even more godly, get the uber uniques like Tyraels Might (unique armor without any requirements besides of level 85) or Stormlash (unique scourge with really impressive stats) - collect, collect, collect. That's the secret behind D2, it always was. The game itself may be pretty much the same every time you play it, but well, who cares if you can collect stuff? There are hundreds of unique items, and the extremely upgraded rare items which can be even better than uniques (but are even harder to obtain).

Also, 1.10 made the game more fun. All characters' skills now have "synergies" (except for the Amazon, they virtually killed the poor girl and made her unplayable, at least when using bows), making the skills even more powerful (and sometimes too powerful). This means: characters from v1.09 are worth crap, since they are obviously badly skilled now. Skills like Blessed Hammer, Meteor or Bone Spirit were almost laughable in 1.09, but now, they are the best you can use (Blessed Hammer now does over 10k damage per hit with all synergies maximized - and it's pure magical damage hurting ANY enemy, there are almost no resistances against it! Meteor can easily go up to 26k damage... go figure).

There are new items, and a new play mode - the ladder mode, where even more new items are available. Also, you get to upgrade runes (only in ladder mode) up to the infamous ZOD rune, meaning that expensive runewords are not likely obtainable, but at least it's possible at all now. New rune words? Yeah. All powerful, many totally uber - like Enigma, giving you teleport skills regardless of the char you use, or Breath of the Dying, which includes a ZOD but makes everything not only indestructible, but also gives up to 400% damage and extreme weapon speeds. Try this in an ethereal colossus blade or berserker axe ;)

So you see - tons of changes, most of them absolutely great, adding more fun to the already 5 years old game (yes, except for rune words and items, this applies to classic Diablo II too!).

Ah, I forgot the Battle.net service. Still free, still thousands of gamers online, still reliable - nuff said.

The Bad
Well, since 1.10, it has some imbalances - Sorceress with fire skills and Hammerdin (Paladin with Blessed Hammer skill) are simply too godly, the Barbarian and bow-using Amazons are no longer really powerful. Also, some of the best items were toned down, like the Windforce for example. But if you simply go "by the rules" (and play a Hammerdin ;), you won't have any complaints.

Oh, one thing: Blizzard randomized the monsters in Act 5 and put up some guest monsters from Act 1-4, which is very annoying for almost every character. Also, archer monsters are too strong, and the bosses are still too weak.

The Bottom Line
Well, if you have Diablo II (LoD), get v1.10 if you didn't already - experience almost a new game. If you don't have D2, get it - it's cheap now, bundled with the expansion and the v1.10 update is free. You'll get the best action RPG ever, and maybe you'll be as crazy as me and play it for years!

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 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
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
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.

The Good
It's a good, solid expansion. Many of the original requests for the game were filled, especially the need for higher resolution and more powerful items. The two classes add a lot of neat possibilities for the game, and there are enough tweaks for the old ones to promote completely new gameplay style.
The new acts deserves a mention. Unlike the later acts of the original game, it doesn't require hours of traveling in open spaces in order to complete it, but is rather very straight forward. If you liked the first act of the original game, you'll like that one too.

The Bad
It's the same old Diablo II, nothing out of the ordinary here. You go around the place, smack critters around, hope for good items, on and on for more and more addictive hours.
Another problem is with the game's economy system. As time moved on, powerful items became more and more common, and so Blizzard had to release the expansion with better items. Soon those items will become average on the hardcore gaming scene, and another expansion will have to be released- this is an endless cycle, and other than completely resetting the ladders the only solution is even more expansions.

The Bottom Line
If you're an avid Diablo II gamer, purchase the expansion; if you're going for the most powerful on-line character, purchase the expansion; if you're just having fun with the game, get the expansion.

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
Nice graphics , music, and artwork on a simple to understand and play platform. The point is to hunt and kill monsters and collect cool items with which to hunt and kill more monsters. If you are tired of getting lost in the mazes or stomach churning perspective of the many first person shooters.. This is a trip back to old school dungeon crawl.

The Bad
The multiplayer aspect is just not set up for the casual gamer. Like all online multiplayer RPGs it is dominated by 99th level obsessed 14-20 yr old single male gamers with nothing better to do. While the designers have done alot to keep out those who want to hack and spoil the game by breaking the rules.. it just isn't enough to make the casual gamer want to join the online multiplayer part.

The Bottom Line
Moria, Zangband, any of those old school dungeon crawls as you imagined they would be if brought to life with cool graphics.

Note: If you are looking for plot, extreme first person perspective, or creative roleplay..This is NOT your game. Strictly a dungeon crawl done well with great attention to playability and goreomatic sound effects.

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.