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Since the beginning of time, the forces of order and chaos have been engaged in an eternal struggle to decide the fate of all creation. That struggle has now come to the mortal realm, and neither man, demon, nor angel will be left unscathed.
Diablo, lord of terror, and youngest of the three prime evils, awoke from his long sleep beneath the dark earth. Setting in motion a grand scheme to free his exiled brothers, Mephisto and Baal, Diablo took control of the small western kingdom of Khanduras. Working from deep within the ancient catacombs beneath the town of Tristram, Diablo gripped the entire populace in a blanket of fear and paranoia.
Ultimately, as even Khanduras's good King Leoric fell under Diablo's wicked power, a lone hero arose to challenge the darkness that had engulfed the land. After plumbing the hellish depths of the labyrinth under Tristram, the nameless hero finally confronted the lord of terror himself. Knowing full well that Diablo's spirit could never be truly destroyed, the hero made the noblest sacrifice of all: casting his soul and his very sanity aside, the hero took the spirit of Diablo into himself, hoping that his own strength of will could contain the demon within. The hero could never have known that his selfless act would not only ensure Diablo's victory, but would also irrevocably damn his soul for all time.
Another new addition is the stamina bar. One big gameplay change is the ability to run. Now, you can run, but only for limited durations. When you do run, the stamina bar slowly depletes. When it runs out, you need to rest until it starts to fill up again. There will be items and spells that increase your stamina, but running will always be a limited ability. Although running obviously allows you to travel faster, it will leave you more vulnerable to attack, although you can go from run to attack seamlessly, as there is no pause between the two actions.
Moving around in Diablo has been improved in other ways as well. To cut down on the tediousness of walking back and forth between cleared-out areas and town, Blizzard North has added waypoints to the game.
However, these aren't waypoints in the real-time strategy sense. These waypoints are more like teleportation spots, quick portals between two or more locations in the same act. Each town has a waypoint, and various locations around the wilderness also have waypoints. You won't be able to use a waypoint until you've actually visited it once, and you won't be able to jump through it until you have touched at least two, since this is not a one-way travel system to explore the map. Instead, it's a convenience for moving about already explored areas.
The actual development of your character is also different. You now purchase skills via skill points each time you advance a level. In addition, the skill sets of each character are really differentiated, so that the abilities of the characters do not overlap. One other note about character development is that dying causes you to lose experience points. The designers wanted to make death something you would want to avoid even more , so they added experience loss in addition to equipment loss. However, you'll never lose enough experience to drop a level.
Not only is development different, but the classes are different as well. There are now five characters to choose from when you play: amazon, barbarian, necromancer, paladin, and sorceress. Each has his or her own strengths and weaknesses, although all should be very different and enjoyable to play. One of the key reasons why Diablo II looks like it will have immense replay value is because of the great differences between classes.
Amazon: A good all-around class with some spell use and special physical attacks. She is best with the bow, but also good with the spear and javelin, excelling in long-range attacks.
Barbarian: A powerful brute bereft of magic but possessed of potent combat skills. He is the only character that can wield two weapons at once; and this ability is available from level one!
Necromancer: A weak character who can command undead minions to aid him. His spells let him animate the dead and enhance their strength. He has some offensive magic.
Paladin: This warrior is second in physical strength and the best defensive fighter. He has healing and defensive spells to go with his powerful melee attacks.
Sorceress: She is also a weak fighter but possesses the most powerful magic arsenal, complete with fire, cold, and lightning spells.
The new trading menu is a big improvement over Diablo, where you had to dump your items on the ground and hope the other player paid you. Now, when you click on another player, you are requesting a trade. If he agrees, a trading window pops up, where you can place your items for trade and he can place his compensation. You both click when you are ready to finalize the transaction. It is not unlike the trading window for EverQuest.
Another new feature we noticed but that took us a while to comprehend was the socket items. You'll find weapons, shields, and helms in the game that have sockets in them. You'll also find gems in rare instances in caves and off of dead monsters' bodies. These gems can be placed in the sockets to convey special powers in the items, like the Materia system in Final Fantasy VII. A topaz, for instance, adds lightning damage if you place it in a weapon, but adds lightning resistance if you put it in armor. In our short time playing, we've already seen several different gems, including sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, and jeweled skulls. This adds yet another element to the already rich plethora of items you can find in the game.
--Copyright ©2000 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Take it from a beta tester...,
This review is from: Diablo 2 Collector's Edition (CD-ROM)
You need this game! As one of Blizzard's closed beta testers, I have been playing an online beta version of the first Act for about a month now and the game is incredible.Despite being in 640 by 480 resolution, Diablo II is graphically astounding even on a larger monitor. The light sourcing, environmental effects, and spell effects are nothing short of stunning. The gameplay is addictive. Once you've played online, you'll find yourself losing hours of sleep as you play "Just one more game..." with your internet pals. With 5 characters to choose from, there's something here to suit everybody's tastes. With rare, collectable items involved in the game; trading between players online will prove to be a very interesting aspect in Diablo 2. These special classes of weapons/armor coupled with randomly generated Wilderness/Dungeon areas and 3 difficulty levels will make for hours of gameplay beyond your initial trip through the world of D2. On top of all this, the 'Hardcore' option allows daring gamers to create special characters who only live once online. (As opposed to standard characters who can die, but are revived in town.) Hardcore characters play exactly the same as standard characters, but once you're killed you stay that way. In the beta test, it has been proven that the death of a well known high level Hardcore character sends ripples through the online community as people begin to realize they too are mortal... As far as buying the Collector's Edition over the regular version of Diablo 2, I'd say it's worth the extra cash for the included Soundtrack CD alone. Blizzard's composers have proved with each successive game that they make some of the best music in the industry. The music from this game is no exception to that rule. Obviously, the small space allowed to me for this review cannot possibly do this game justice so for more information you might want to drop by the unofficial homepage . . .
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All that, and TWO bags of chips,
By Merlin J Reynolds III (Beaverton, Oregon) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Diablo 2 Collector's Edition (CD-ROM)
I was one of the lucky few to recieve this product back when it was first offered. The soundtrack was excellent, as was the DVD. Even though the DVD only showed the 5 movies of each act [Including Epilogue], it also has several trailers, including Warcraft III, Starcraft and Brood Wars, and a few others.Unfortunately, the add-in "build your own dungeon" was not to my liking. Fine for its own spinoff, but Dungeons and Dragons is not all about just killing. I feel a lot of roleplaying may be lost... but maybe that's just me. All in all, an excellent purchase.
22 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well worth the wait,
By "themandgman" (Minneapolis, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Diablo 2 Collector's Edition (CD-ROM)
Everything Blizzard makees turns into gold. Whether it be Warcraft, Starcraft or the original Diablo, every game is amazing.The same holds true for Daiblo 2. The 3 years it took to develop is well worth it. The game is engrossing and amazingly fun to play. It spans an epic 4 disks and will take you forever to beat. Add to that the best multiplayer in a game I have seen yet and you have an automatic game of the year. The extra features of the speacial edition are cool, but it really comes down to if you want the programers autorapphs and a dvd movie. I dont, but its up to you. I know one thing, and thats that this masterpeice of a game is well worth your time and money with a great story, amazing graphics and hours of gameplay. This badboy will be a force to be reckoned with.
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