Game Review #1

Ok, I'm going to try to start a regular post plan of putting up game reviews of some of the video games that I like to play.  Hopefully this will help me keep my blog updated and keep you readers happy.  And for a rating system I have decided to go with a 5 Diamond rating (I don't know how to make a star on my keyboard).

Diablo II

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I actually have never played more than five minutes of the first Diablo game, so I can't really say much about what I think about it.  I guess by how much I like the second one, the first has to be fairly good.  Although I do have memories of when I was a lot younger playing Diablo at my house because my uncle brought it when he was visiting.  In those memories I also remember that I liked it, so my statement still stands that it has to be fairly good.  Ok, well onto the game that I am reviewing.

Diablo II is probably the best role-playing game that I have ever played . . . although thinking about it, my list of games is kind of low.   At first I never really got into playing Diablo, I never got through Act I (There are five acts in the game) and I would just keep replaying that part over and over again with the same character.  Because of that I just disowned the game because I bored of that first part.  And then both my brother and I pulled it out and started playing some co-op.  We didn't get much farther, only to the end of Act II, but then I realized that there was more to the game then I was seeing.  First off was the whole character personalization.  In Diablo II, not only are there 7 characters to choose from (5 without the expansion), but then there are a ton of different skills that each character can learn, with levels of each skill to increase the attributes of said skill (sorry if this is really confusing, I am really good at doing that).  Also all of the weapons and gear can be specialized in a couple ways.  The first way is that some come with special abilities when you find or buy them, which is the easiest way to get stuff, but more random and it is sometimes really hard to get what you want.  The second way is with items that are socketed, meaning that there are places in the items to put gems (which have specific abilities).  This can be more expensive, but if done right, more rewarding.

So other than the pretty awesome character personalization, there is a wide variety to monsters to kill as you go through the game (I don't actually even know of all of them).  You can also hire AI players to fight for you, which does help a lot, especially when you don't have a ton of spells to help you out.  So overall I give this game a 4 out of 5 Diamonds (it would actually be a 4.5, but I don't know how to make half of a diamond), and I plan on playing this game for quite a while.  Although Diablo III should be coming out sometime soon, and except for the fact that my computer is no where close to being good enough to play it, I'm looking forward to that.

-- CK