Diablo III is the fastest-selling PC game of all time , picking up rave reviews from most respected media outlets, including a 9. But what is it about this game that makes it so damned fine?
Is it a work of art, or is it a devilish psychological trap? The game is a s-style top-down RPG with a shaky story-line and a bombastic mythos. Diablo III drags players into an endless quest for more stuff. The fulfilling factor is that every time you have a creative idea, you could test it out and get immediate feedback. He then thinks up a better skill combination and then successfully overcomes it, just to hit the next group of monsters and lose again.
This continuous process of solving problems, testing, improving and accomplishing is very fulfilling for each player, and it causes them to think about their strategies, research what others are doing through online forums, and analyze each move through Excel spreadsheets whenever they are NOT playing Diablo.
Sometimes the frustration, such as boundaries and limitations, is part of what makes a game good. Until recently, a Diablo 3 player could reach Level 60 by killing monsters and obtaining experience. However, after Level 60, the only progress that could be found is in finding better gear and finding better creative builds. With this, at least players will feel a continuous development in their characters even if everything else remains static.
However, the continuous development of a character highlights the next mistakes:. Now what? There are no more incentives to farm and get even better gear after this point.
Another big issue that Diablo 3 has, is that it has a relatively short storyline as well as smaller maps. In Diablo 2, a player could be playing for a much longer time and always feel lost in the big world with a huge variety of stages and places to explore.
For Diablo 3, each act feels much smaller and quicker to finish. This quickly makes farming monotonous and eventually people feel tired of doing the same routine over and over again. Are you creating appropriate Milestone Unlocks to motivate people to continue? How about spiffying things up with some Randomness and a well managed Reward Loop Structure? Every week I hop on a conference call to teach, answer questions, and give feedback to members of Octalysis Prime.
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Your Email required. Although often overlooked by many gamers and gaming reviewers alike, sound design in games is a long lost art that can truly make or break a games immersion. Diablo 2 features some of the greatest sound design in a game ever made in this authors humble opinion. Undoubtedly this involved hacking apart various day to day items including apart anything from a turkey carcass to a watermelon.
Composer Matt Uelman, who was also part of the sound design team above and was the composer for the original Diablo 1 soundtrack, should need no introduction to anyone familiar with the world of video game soundtracks. His iconic soundtracks for Diablo 2 and Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction were nothing short of a work of genius. His influences included legendary rock bands such as Led Zeppelin all the way through to Latin American music.
As an avid Diablo 2 fan I can attest to listening to the Diablo 2 soundtrack regularly and, over twenty year later, it is still brilliant enough to take me right back to the world of Sanctuary in a heartbeat. It would be impossible to leave this section be without pointing out the incredible voice acting throughout Diablo 2. Considering the small size of the studio at the time, it is a wonder that this was possible — how did a small team of somethings recruit the kind of talent that many triple AAA game titles today lack so sorely?
One of the first things that jumps out at you when you play Diablo 2 is the artistic style which is consistent from the cinematic videos, game menus and all the way through to the in-game user interface and graphical art style. There is no point in the game that for even one second the graphics give you any inkling of an idea that there is even a world that exists outside of the game itself. This is partly the reason why, even 20 years later, the game is still so immersive despite the insane leaps in graphics since.
It's genuinely gripping, and that hasn't changed. Some things are just timeless. But it's so much harder to enjoy now. Diablo 3 might have a completely forgettable yarn, but it's one I have a lot more fun playing through in I suspect hordes of former players are still going to love returning to Diablo 2. There are still people playing the classic version today.
And I get it. Modern isometric ARPGs for the most part don't have an adversarial relationship with the player. There are plenty of challenges to be found, certainly, but Diablo 2 really wants to kill you, and that holds a certain appeal. That's also why I was excited about the remaster. I want an isometric ARPG that can kick the shit out of me. But this time it wasn't tricky encounters murdering me—it was the creaky design and flaws that are so old they've become sacred.
Replaying Diablo 2 now makes it so clear how many of Diablo 3's streamlined additions—some of which I absolutely didn't approve of in —were direct responses to places where its predecessor felt stiff or obtuse. A lot of what I once considered 'hardcore', it turns out, is really just old, and existed because we didn't know any better.
Yes, videogame characters can run forever without getting out of breath, and now we know. This doesn't detract from the impact Diablo 2 had at the time, or how important it is in the history of ARPGs, but it is a reminder that time comes for every game. So I'm sorry, Diablo 3. For years I've failed to give you the respect you deserve. Or I can just go back to Path of Exile. Yeah, I think I'll do that. Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person.
With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1, words too long.
He thinks labradoodles are the best dogs but doesn't get to write about them much.
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