Diablo 3

Preview from Matt and Barry - Thursday, 29 September 2011 @ 2:50am

Barry's Say

As a big fan of the previous diablo games I was pretty keen to click my way into the beta, so when I got an emailed titled “Diablo III Beta Test Invitation” I was the happiest girl at the dance, so to speak.

Straight up you will notice the installer is pretty similar to that which Blizzard uses for their other very popular game World of Warcraft (shit they probably also use it for Star Craft 2). Im not going to do into describing how the installer looks and feels because none of you care about that - you want to click your way right into the blackened cavity where Diablo’s heart used to reside.

Shoot giant lasers from your hands!

As a massive fan of the barbarian I was greatly pleased to see he was the only original character returning from Diablo 2. Hes big, bearded and can handle two weapons like nobodies business. For returning players, D3’s UI wont hold many secrets that you aren’t well familiar with, left click and right click both move your character as well as casting a spell when moused over a enemy.

But if you are worried about going through a few mice while you battle with the forces of hell, fret not friend because you can simply hold down the mouse button and move the mouse, couple this with holding down the shift key to keep your character standing on the one spot and your a attacking machine without needing to release the mouse click.

As you level up you will unlock new skills and abilities but as you will soon realise, you can only have two active skills at one time (until you reach level 6 and unlock another active skill slot) I picked this up fairly quickly but others have had a hard time figuring this out. (its also not explained at all, so that doesn’t help)

Fan of knives otherwise known as IWIN

I can only speak for the barbarian at this point as he is the only character I have played though at this point - But he plays well, use abilities to generate rage and then use finisher / AoE abilities to spend your generated rage. Its a simple system but it works quite well. Especially one you unlock the Cleave ability which lets you attack anything withing a 160degree arc in front of you.

Couple this with holding down the shift key and pointing your mouse in whatever direction Diablo’s horde is approaching you and you will become an unstoppable meat grinder.

Other new features to D3 can help extend your time adventuring without needing to run back to town with a backpack laden full of vendor crap. You can either convert the tiem to gold, or (for lack of a better term) Disenchant the item. Disenchanting the item will break it down into raw materials, which is what you use for crafting.

Set your zombie dogs on children as a Witch Doctor

Wait a second Barry did you say crafting? What is this World of Warcraft? Well just settle down a second and let me explain. As you adventure across the world that Diablo is so intent on destroying you will meet a blacksmith, a mystic & a jeweler. No prizes for working out what each of the artisans craft, but if you are a bit slow - the blacksmith makes armor and weapons, the mystic makes wands and other magical stuff & the jeweler makes jewelry.

What I find interesting about the inclusions of these artisans is that onus on on you the player to upgrade their skills. This is done by finding them recipes as well as tomes of learning, which when coupled with some gold upgrade their list of recipes and craftable items.

The pied piper gets rid of all your zombies

The only think that I can say against the beta is that its god damn easy. Like seriously, its cake. I only died once as my precious barbarian and that’s because I leaped into the middle of a giant group of lightning enchanted enemies and threw down some AoE which made the lightning come out of their bodies and into mine! It is the one thing I really hope they are tweaking before release.

There is a fair bit in Diablo 3 that we are yet to see in the beta and I for one are really hoping they roll out new content and features in the coming months before the game retails in early 2012.

Sick of giant lasers? How bout an electrical storm?

If you are lucky enough be in the beta as well, let us know what you like / dislike about it.

Matt's Say

I played Diablo II. I'm not saying that makes me king shit, but I've run through a dungeon or two in my time. Still, it's been a long time, and I wasn't really sure what to expect of Diablo III. To be honest I kind of expected an isometric single player World of Warcraft, and in a sense that's what I got.

But only in appearance. From a gameplay point of view this is all Diablo. It's a much more story based, much less open and all in all faster paced experience. And thank God.

Diablo III is polished and slick, but there is currently a bit of an issue of balance. It's actually really rather easy. I think something will probably need to be done about that, to make sure that there is at least SOME challenge.

Barry's said most of the things that need to be said, and everything he's said is pretty much spot-on. But one thing I will say is that there's a lot to offer for me personally here. I like playing world of warcraft well enough. I don't play anymore, but I would like to. But I just can't justify the time. Levelling, crafting, running dungeons in groups for hours on end, it's practically impossible to do in any way.

What I can do is pop on and have half an hour or an hour, pop through a dungeon and get some nice stuff. Maybe one day on the weekend I can put in two or three hours, and then wander off and do something more useful. I can play for an hour or two over the course of a week and actually get something done, levelling up a bit and progressing through the storyline.

There's something to be said for that. The experience itself is strong. A lot of people are going to buy it, and have a really good time with it. Blizzard are famously one of the top most consistent publishers for quality games. They don't make a lot, but it's all quality. Diablo III will be another example in that. Maybe it won't be the 7 year genre crushing powerhouse that World of Warcraft has been. But I'll certainly encourage anyone to give it a go on release.