September 2000 || Volume 01, Issue 02
Review by Erica J. Marceau

4.5 Smileys - 1 Smiley Poor, 5 Smileys Excellent

Title: Diablo II
Version: 1.03
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Price: $59.95
Contact Info: http://www.blizzard.com/
Genre: Action/Adventure
ESRB Rating: Mature
System Requirements:

• Single-Player requirements: Mac OS 8.1 or higher, G3 Processor or equivalent, 64 MB RAM plus virtual memory, 650 MB available hard drive space, 4X CD-ROM drive, Video support for 256 color display at 800x600 Resolution.
• Multiplayer requirements: 950 MB available hard drive space, 28.8 Kbps or faster modem, Up to 8 Players over TCP/IP Network or Battle.net® (Requires low-latency Internet connection with support for 32-bit applications).
• If you want to install both single-player and multiplayer then you will need to have approximately 1.2 GB of hard drive space.
• Optional 3d Acceleration supports Glide, OpenGL (v.1.1.2 or higher) or RAVE.

Platforms: Mac OS, Windows 95/98/NT 4.0/2000

Forward

I want to make it clear that I can't come close to talking about all of the skills and quests that are present in Diablo II in this review. For more specific information I direct you to IGN's Diablo II free guide which is available in a handy PDF file. I've been using it as I plan where to use my sorceress's skill points and I recommend it to anyone who wants to do the same thing. The guide also has lots of information about the monsters you'll face and how to beat the quests if you're having trouble.

The Beginnings of Evil

The story starts a few months after the original Diablo game ended. As you may remember, after killing Diablo, a nameless hero took a stone out of Diablo's head and plunged it into his own forehead hoping to contain the evil forever. However, Diablo has now taken control over the hero's body and is now heading east for a reason that is unknown to you. In Diablo II by Blizzard Entertainment, your job is to follow Diablo and to find out what he wants and, of course, to stop him at all costs. Along the way you will solve many quests, kill many hundreds of powerful monsters, vanquish minor demons of Hell, speak to many knowledgeable people, and adapt your character to the scenarios before you.

Getting Started

Diablo II is designed much like its predecessor, controlling your character through towns, cemeteries, fields, and underground structures. However, in Diablo II there are more areas to explore, more varied creatures, and 5 different characters to choose from:

• The Amazon - regard the destruction of the Three Prime Evils as their destiny. Most adept at bow and missile weapons, with strong hand to hand and spear combat.
• The Paladin - "Protectors of the Word," a rebellious sect of the Zakarum brethren who have chosen to protect the innocent and fight the Prime Evils. They use holy magic and are extremely skillful at fighting the undead.
• The Necromancer - from the deep within the far Eastern jungles. An isolated group devoted to magic and the balance of live and death, they've developed the ability to reanimate corpses, a skill that only the minions of hell also possess.
• The Sorceress - on a quest for purity and the perfect magic, they have studied in secret as they await the Emergence of Evil. They consider normal combat vulgar and utilize their Elemental magic almost exclusively to fight their enemies.
• The Barbarian - given the sacred charge to protect a source of great power hidden deep within the mountain, Arreat. Known for their great physical feats, combat prowess, and ability to harness primal energies from the world around them.

This gives you much more variety in skills and ways to fight your enemies. It also gives you more options for equipment.

Being All You Can Be

Before you go out to destroy evil and bring peace to the land, you have to make sure you're wardrobe is properly equipped - not for making a fashion statement, but for the benefits that they provide. The screenshot to the left shows both the Character Information screen and the Inventory screen. There is a much larger variety of equipment available than in the original Diablo and a surprising bonus is that you can actually buy useful clothes and weapons from the merchants in the towns. In the original Diablo you found almost all of the really good items during your quests. After a while you would have tens of thousands of coins with nothing good to buy. Being able to buy good quality items suddenly makes coins worth something. In addition, Diablo II has a way for characters to safely trade items and gold. Auction boards have been set up for people to sell and trade rare and unique items that they've found in their journeys. Head on over to dbay and DiabloII.Net if you want to see how much your items are worth. There are even items that belong to a group, so when you get all of the items and wear them all at the same time, you get an additional bonus. So go online and collect the whole set.

The Character Information screen details the vital statistics about your character. For every skill level you reach, you receive five points to assign between strength, dexterity, vitality, and energy; all of which affect other statistics. For example, putting points into vitality not only gives you more life but also more stamina. The more life you have means that you can take more damage before dying, and the more stamina you have means that you can run for a longer time before having to walk. Which area you concentrate on depends on which of the five classes you belong to. A Sorceress will want to put more of her points into energy because more energy equals more mana and more mana equals more spell castings. On the other hand, a Barbarian will want to put more of his points into strength because then his attacks will be stronger. There are also many items of clothing that increase these statistics above your native ability (that number is in blue for easy identification). To find out which item is giving me the bonus, I'll have to look at each item's description by moving my cursor over it. In this case, my clothes are improving my dexterity, life, mana, and resistances.

We're all Unique

The best part of Diablo II are the specific skills of each class. This makes each character completely different. One sorceress could concentrate totally in Fire Spells or in Cold Spells or in Lightning Spells while another could mix spells from all three specialties or Skill Trees as they are called. What's even better is that there are no wrong choices. Certainly there are some choices that are better than others, but if you plan what your character will be then you will have a character that's uniquely yours. While necromancers are widely known for their ability to raise the dead with their Summoning and Control Skills Tree, they also have a Poison and Bone Skills Tree that is powerful in its own right. One necromancer could concentrate totally in raising a large army of skeletons and a powerful golem to fight against creatures and another necromancer could concentrate in their bone skills and/or some skills from the Curses Tree. Which necromancer is the right one or the best one? None of them! That's the beauty of Diablo II: You can pick and match skills from any tree that you want to create the kind of character that you want. There are even some skills that are better for multiplayer games so if you're playing by yourself you could forget about that and utilize different skills for your game.

Unfortunately, all good things come with some fine print. You only get one skill point with every level you gain and some areas are off limits to you until you develop other abilities. You also can't save skill points and put them all in a spell after you have access to it. As you can see in the picture to the right, there are lines connecting the skills to each other which means that you can only get a skill if you have at least one point in all of the skills that lead into the one you want. In addition, you have to be a certain level to get some of skills. New skills become available to you at level 1, 6, 12, 18, 24, and 30. An example will make this clearer so I'll use the Fire Spells Tree from the sorceress. You can get the Fire Ball at level 12 but you also need at least one point in Fire Bolt which is available to you at level 1. To get the most powerful fire spell, Meteor, you not only have to have a point in Fire Ball but one in Inferno, Blaze, Fire Wall, and you have to be level 24. In some ways, this is really frustrating because you have to use a less powerful spell until a better one comes along and you have to waste a skill point in a skill that you're never going to use. However, this is just what makes Diablo II so interesting and challenging.

Quests 101

Just as in Diablo, there are quests that lead you through each of the four acts in Diablo II. Each act has 6 quests and as you can see to the right, you can have two or more active quests at any one time. The screenshot to the right is from the Quest screen, available and any poing in the game. If you ever forget about what a quest entails, you just click on the speech bubble and you will rehear what was told to you when you were first given the quest.

The quests that I've encountered thusfar are quite varied and interesting. From clearing out a cave of creatures, to rescuing Cain from Tristram, they all basically entail going to a location, killing lots of creatures and then killing a boss and then sometimes retrieving an item. While the quests are all fairly simplistic in concept, the creators did a wonderful job of using them to move the plot along.

You also get great rewards at the completion of the quests. When you clear out a cave of creatures in the first act you get a free skill point and when you free Cain he identifies your items for free throughout the game.

Graphics and Sound

After you complete all six quests in an act, the story advances with cool theatrical movies before you move on to the next act. When I call the cinematics cool, I mean it. The opening movie is breathtaking in its detail with incredible special effects and great voice acting. The cut scenes blend in well with the visual feel of the rest of the game, creating a great interface. Diablo II is designed with OpenGL, Glide, and RAVE in mind to take advantage of powerful graphics processors out their for some of the best lighting effects that I've seen in a real time game.

The voice acting in the game is also really great and don't sound as some part-time actors and actresses with a bad director. Kudos to Blizzard for hiring people who know what they're doing. The characters that you encounter really have a depth too them, partially because of the vocal effects, and the well written story around them. Diablo II also features non-obtrusive background music that keeps you in the spirit of the game.

The Bad News

Not all games are perfect and Diablo 2 is no exception. The biggest disappointment is battle.net, Blizzard's free online playing service. battle.net, or b.net as it is more commonly known, lets you play games with other players online to make facing the bosses an easier task. This is especially useful in the higher difficulty levels where even the lowliest of monsters becomes a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately b.net simply doesn't work for me and for the people I know on a regular basis. Since so many people want to use b.net at the same time, I have often not even been allowed to log in and/or use the server that I want. When I have been able to play a game, the lag is often so high that Diablo 2 becomes unplayable. In addition, there is often a queue for creating games so you have to wait even longer before you play. Fortunately there are alternatives such as playing over TCP/IP or using b.net over TCP/IP. This works even if b.net is down but constrains you to playing with your single-player character. The only solution to the b.net problems is to wait until the demand falls or Blizzard increases the performance.

Another dissapointment is the general appearance of your character. While it changes with what specific weapon, shield, hat, and armor you're wearing, it doesn't change with your gloves, belt, shoes, rings, and amulet. For example, my sorceress has just been able to wear light gauntlets instead of chain gloves but she looks the same no matter what gloves she wears. While not a stinging indictment of Diablo 2, I would have liked to see more changes to the character's appearance depending on everything that she can wear.

And finally, the erasure of the automap after playing a TCP/IP game is frustrating. Let's say I just spent a few hours mapping out the jungle in Act 3 and then join someone's TCP/IP game and run around in Act 2. When I play again, the map that I spent so long in making is totally wiped out and I have to start all over again. I really hate this, especially for the large areas in Act 3.

Erica's Opinion

Gaming Nostalgia! Read Marc Messer's review of the original Diablo - reprinted from the September 1998 issue of Apple Wizards.

I'm sure you gathered from this review that I think Diablo II is a great, fun, and terribly addicting game. Pretty soon you are spending time thinking about where to put the next skill point or whether to buy that great staff that you just couldn't live without or whether to just sell an item or put it on auction or how to defeat a certain monster or... well, you get the idea. Diablo II is a great game and has earned 4.5 smileys. There isn't a demo available, but Blizzard has made available Quicktime previews of the game on their site. While a playable demo would have been nice, I'm not sure how plausible it would be for a game of this magnitude. And lets hope that Blizzard is able to improve battle.net soon.

Erica J. Marceau - erica@macosjournal.com
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