After what seems like an eternity, Blizzard Entertainment has finally released Diablo 2, the sequel to the blockbuster hit Diablo.  First seen at the E3 tradeshow in 1998, Diablo 2 has gone through a couple of beta tests and a long development cycle.

For those of you that are not familiar with the Diablo (or Diablo 2), it is a Role Playing - Action type of game.  You first select the character you want to play as.  Diablo 2 has 5 total character classes to chose from: Barbarian, Paladin, Amazon, Sorceress, and Necromancer.  Having played as a fighter in the original Diablo, I wanted something unique, so I chose the Necromancer.   Keep this in mind when reading my review, as I have heard that playing as other character classes really changes the way you play the game.

I am pleased to say that my experience trekking through the game was fun and unique indeed.  My strategies evolved as the game progressed.  As a Necromancer, you are a dark type of magic user that raises the dead to join you in combat.  Sounds grim, yes, but it is actually very fun to do (as long as it is in a video game)!  As I gained experience and skills points in the game, I invested most of my abilities into raising skeletons, skeleton mages, and golems.  My combat was fought for me by my raised army, while I spent most of the time behind the front line, throwing an occasional punch or two at enemies and watching my forces, raising more skeletons when needed.  The larger my army became, the more fun I had.  The only problem was when I faced the heavy duty bosses at the end of each of the 4 Acts.  During these times I had to alter my strategy drastically, but in the end, I was successful.  I have heard that playing as a Necromancer is the most challenging way to play.  At points in the game it was a breeze, while others it was very difficult.  Sometimes it was tough to get an army raised.  When you start a game or get your forces wiped out, you can really only summon a golem to help you... you need to defeat enemies in order to raise skeletons.  Of course, if you play as a Necromancer you do not have to do what I did.  There are plenty of curses and offensive magic spells to invest in as well.

What is different from Diablo 1?  To be honest, not too much.  Diablo 2 is similar in scope with the original, except there is more to love.  For example, each character class is very unique and different from each other (5 instead of 3).  There are 3 massive towns to visit, each with large outdoor landscapes littered with caves and 'other' areas to explore.  Characters in the towns actually speak and offer incite on the game's plot.  There are excellent quality cinemas at the end of each Act, which by the way, has 4 Acts in total.  If you have played Diablo 1, then you will be able to pick this game up and know how to play almost immediately.  You now have the ability to run, and there are more items for you to find.  Now, there are rare items, which are high quality armor or weapons that contain magic properties.  There are also true unique items, which have there own artwork to accompany them.  After beating the game, I only came across 3 different true unique items, so they are definitely rare.  Luckily, money is now a separate item, not taking up valuable space in your inventory.  Inventory management is not a problem early in the game, but by the time you complete the game, you will have your inventory full of irreplaceable pieces of armor and weapons.

There are a couple of downsides I would like to mention.  The most obvious one is multi-player gaming.  My first attempt at playing online was via Battle.Net, Blizzard's free service famous for competitive gaming for StarCraft, Diablo, and WarCraft 2.  Put simply, the gaming experience was unplayable, with massive lag problems plaguing the game.  Later I would find out that the Realm characters we were using would be inaccessible for long periods of time, making online play impossible.  The other way to play is by creating a single player character, which is how I played, and  connecting to a friend's computer through TCPIP connection or through an open Battle.Net game.  While these methods were better, there was still enough latency to cause your friend's character to teleport around the screen.  This would often result in your eventual death by a challenging enemy, since you would die before you ever saw them approach you.  Other than this, my complaints are trivial.  The skeleton artificial intelligence was questionable at times.  Often they would get stuck in room or around corners while you walked away.  They would also block your path in narrow passages, which seemed to be about everywhere.

Overall, the single player experience was awesome and met my high expectations.  I figure that completing the game as a Necromancer took me around 40 - 45 hours.  The more I played the game, the more I wanted to play.  The spells you attain as you progress in the game become more and more powerful, making it more fun to play.  An indescribable desire to keep playing and hoping to find that magical piece of equipment will keep you playing for hours and hours.  I don't see this game having near the replay value that StarCraft had, but it may have an more intense first 40 hours.  Having already broken sales records speaks volumes for this game.  I think Diablo 2 is fantastic and I know that it will become another classic designed by the awesome programmers at Blizzard.  I just hope that I will be able to play online without lag problems soon!

reviewed by Todd Alexander