Diablo PC Review

I first played Diablo ten or so years ago, not too long after it was first released. I greatly enjoyed the game then not only for single player but the free multi player that was available. With the recent announcement of Diablo III, I decided to go back and play the first two games.

Diablo starts with you, the hero, in a dimly lit town. As you talk to the towns folk you learn this town is named Tristram and has recently come under attack of demons and has been cut off from the rest of the world. As a hero you investigate what is occurring and come to realize Diablo: The Lord of Terror, has been resurrected under the town. It is your job, and your job alone to ride the town of this evil.

Diablo is an action RPG from creators Blizzard. The game is heavily action driven with only character stats, equipment and spells to actively control. While this game was released in 1997, it is still a great amount of fun to play today. The Battle.net servers allow you to play online with friends (for free) as well as in single player. There is a personal chest to store items not being used in multiplayer. This chest and it's contents are saved and travel to any game the player goes to.

Pros

• Superb Balance. The game offers unrivaled balance where the game is challenging no matter what point in the game you are in.
• Graphics. The game uses an isometric, top down perspecive where there is no need for a draw distance to show off scenery in the distance.
• Frame Rate. The computer the game was played on is six years old and was an average computer in its day. There was never a slow down during combat no matter how many demons, skeleton, etc. were on screen at the same time.

Cons

• Limited Storage Space. The amount of storage space is fairly limited. This was done in part to make the player choose certain items over others. This works well in multiplayer where more than one person can open a portal back to town, but this slows down the gameplay drastically. In single player it is a must to sell back as many items as possible so that the player has gold to buy certain items. This means on the lower levels traveling back to town several times merely to sell goods to the towns people.
• Cheating. The host of multiplayer games is the person who created the game. This allowed for rampant cheating as it was difficult for blizzard to check what was going on in the multiplayer games. There are also ways to take items and create them in the game.

Overall this was a great game and the first time I beat the game in single player. Diablo was as much fun as I remember and I enjoyed the entire play through. I give this game a 9/10.