Review - Diablo 3

If you had told me that a new Diablo game would be getting a merely so-so score (at least for a Blizzard game) from me, I would have laughed at you. But here I am, 30-40 hours into this mess, and I can't help but think that Blizzard is very quickly becoming a shadow of its former self.

Evil has been reawakened in Sanctuary. The forces of Hell are mounting again, and our good old friend Deckard Cain is back in action - briefly, anyway. A star falls from the sky, setting the game's events in motion - essentially a conspiracy to re-unite the evils from the previous games and resurrect Diablo himself.

It's important to note that I've been a huge fan of Diablo since I was a kid, so I had pretty high expectations for this. Who wouldn't? Nearly every Blizzard game has been a polished, beautiful gem, going all the way back to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans back in the 90s.

But something in the notoriously long development cycle of Diablo 3 went horribly wrong.

I'd like to address everyone's main grievance and the thing that I honestly feel that Blizzard should be ashamed of themselves for - the "always on" DRM. Much like Starcraft II, Blizzard made the decision to only allow players into the game by signing into Battle.net, even if they have no desire to play multiplayer. It was a decision reviled among most gaming forums and the B.net forum itself, which is why it's mind boggling that Blizzard went with a DRM system that was even more restrictive.

Unlike Starcraft II, the singleplayer portion of D3 is handled not unlike a typical multiplayer server. Thing is, given that there are millions of players online at a time and Blizzard's servers are repeatedly taxed, I ran into absolutely absurd amounts of lag and latency issues. Typically, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but lag in an action RPG like this can be deadly, as enemies swarm around you character, as you swing your sword and deal non-existent damage, only to barely realize in time that nothing is happening, giving you an unknown amount of time before the game catches up to heal or drink a potion. Which, of course, is followed by another lag spike and, likely, a complete disconnection from the game. Meaning you're starting over from a checkpoint.

For Hardcore players, this should have come with the subtitle "Legend of the Broken Keyboards." In Hardcore mode, once you die, you die for good. No revives, no checkpoints, nothing. You're character is gone for good, and it's actually a lot of fun for that reason.

Take the above scenario with the completely unreliable server connection and you can see how situations with mobs of stronger enemies can potentially end up. What's supposed to be fun and challenging turns into cheap deaths and frequent disconnects during important fights and stupid setbacks.

On top of this, Blizzard has completely dumbed down character progression. Part of the appeal of Diablo 1 and 2 was creating character builds with ridiculous combinations of stats and abilities (Poisonmancers, making tanks out of odd classes, etc.) and finding new ways to deal with the ever-changing PVP and co-op metagame.

All of this has been thrown out of the window in favor of a simplified leveling system. Gone are the days of assigning points to your many attributes (it's done automatically). Gone are the days of choosing specific skills from skill trees (you're set on a predetermined path). Hope you don't like using projectile weapons outside of the Demon Hunter class, because, for the most part, you can't use them at all. Enjoy picking up awesome looking weapons and armor and seeing "Barbarian Only" in bold, red letters. (Not that this didn't happen in the original games, but for the most part you could mix and match how the player saw fit.)

Of course to even level up you'll have to deal with the game's horrendous story and terrible narrative that is shoehorned into the gameplay, slowing things down repeatedly with boss introductions, character dialog, and cutscenes with inexcusably dry acting and bad writing. I think the importance here is tone, which is something that the writers for this don't really understand.

In the first two games, the game's rather extensive lore was there for players who wanted it, but for the action junkies who just wanted to slay beasts and demons they could do so without any major interruption. Here, however, you're constantly having to talk with other characters who have nothing interesting, important, or otherwise relevant to say. Characters accompanying you never seem to stop talking. I've lost track of how many times I've heard Leah tell me how she missed travelling and wanted to open an inn, and you know what? Who cares? Seriously, did anyone at Blizzard understand what has made the Diablo series so appealing to so many players is that you weren't bombarded with needless dialogue and terrible, hamfisted attempts at character interaction while taking in a pretty enjoyable story? Who made these decisions?

Even the opening of the game is absolutely weak. Picture this - Cain and Leah are in the ruins of a church near New Tristram, with Cain recounting the war between Heaven and Hell. Leah doubts his words, but as the sky begins to rain fire, Cain looks to the sky, utters that "it" has begun, and a falling star crashes into the church. Cain falls down the hole where it lands, and Leah cries out for him. And then the logo - DIABLO III.

And that's supposed to get the player in the mood to kill hellspawn.Right.

Compare that with the second game. We get to see two main characters interacting with some intense foreshadowing and (potentially) one of them is an angel, which is pretty new to the series. Marius, recounts the story of meeting the Dark Wanderer, the somewhat possessed Warrior from the original game who defeated Diablo and contained his soul within his own body. Marius describes dreams in which he sees someone not unlike the Wanderer surrounded by chaos and dark beings, and is shocked to seem him stumble into a tavern where he is. The Wanderer, seeking shelter from the cold outside, cannot contain the evil within him, and soon the tavern is flooded with hellspawn, skeletons, and demons that pour forth from within him that kill the patrons and set fire to the tavern. Marius follows the wanderer with one final line as he leaves the carnage:

"Why did I follow him? I don't know. Why do things happen as they do in dreams? All I know is that when he beckoned, I had to follow him. From that moment, we traveled together, East. Always to the East."

Getting the difference in tone yet? The second game sets the stage for what you can assume is going to be a grand RPG, spanning many locales and with a story that was at least entertaining, straightforward and decently written.

The actual gameplay itself is polished, to a certain extent. Combat is fast and immensely satisfying (when you can actually hit something) and the characters and monsters are all well-animated, if a little low on detail at times. Blizzard seemed to think that people absolutely loved the status effects that elite enemies had in the first several games, and cranked them up a ridiculous amount.

You haven't lived until you've met a Shielding Molten Vortex elite - they set up a shield for several seconds, pull you in close, and leave behind a trail of lava that drains your health unreasonably fast if you so much as look at it.

Encounters like these are unbelievably frustrating, with small insects that shoot smaller insects at you that deal stupidly high amounts of damage and are just able to get out of your reach as your character chases after them like an idiot (for the record, I played for several acts in each class, and used a Monk as my main). Elite units utilize status effects like knockback and fear, which do more to frustrate and slow down the game than keep the pace up like previous games. Instead of simply, you know, being knocked back, your character can literally fly across the screen in a different direction after a small hit, or just run away on his own for several yards because, hell, he's scared you know?

I understand there was stuff like this in the old games, but its done to such an unreasonable amount it becomes teeth-gnashing in its difficulty at times. The game is otherwise an absolute cakewalk on Normal, though, thanks in part to the shortsighted Auction House.

Yes, auctions. Instead of getting decent loot, it's far easier to simply jump into an auction and get better gear instead. Within the first act or two I already had a ridiculously overpowered sword and armor, and that was just to get a feel of how it worked. By the time I fought Diablo, I barely broke a sweat in any of the game's major bosses and had died a grand total of a single time due to a severe lag spike and subsequent disconnection.

Did I mention you can't access the auction house in-game? You have to exit to the menu to do it. Oh and you receive no in-game notifications if something has sold or if you've been outbid or won an auction.

If this game is trying to be like World of Warcraft, it's succeeding to some extent. D3 eschews the dark, gothic colors of all the previous games and embraces a blurry, colorful look that makes it seem like everyone on the development team never played a Diablo game before. Textures are relatively lifeless, the player models are low-poly, and (just to nit-pick) they no longer even use the same font for weapon and item descriptions as previous games. There is a mod available, DarkD3, which darkens and sharpens the game, and I recommend it to anyone who misses the old look. There's definitely a good looking game, but it's hidden behind a godawful screen filter and overly colorful visuals that just don't make it seem like it jives with the rest of the series.

The story's main "plot twist" is also so hilariously convoluted and stupid I had contemplated getting a refund at that point because, for $60, this game is simply not worth the trouble. It's an experience that is addictive, but for all the wrong reasons. You keep playing and trudging onward, hoping the experience is going to get better, but instead it just keeps throwing interruptions, stupid dialogue, disconnects, latency issues, bad loot, and irritating enemy types into your face. And when all is said and done, the length of the game is insultingly short and devoid of any real sense of accomplishment other than seeing a bunch of numbers increase exponentially.

Like Cain, I really do hope you've stayed a while and listened, because this game isn't worth the time, the energy, or the money at this point. Wait until the price drops and the lag and loot issues are ironed out. Otherwise this can be added to Stacraft II as the list of Blizzard disappointments that unfortunately continues to grow.

Rating: 6/10

1-participation point
5-average
10-perfect