Well, after a multitude of fans waited months for the Diablo II expansion to arrive, longtime fans of the game got their wish in June. Please note the wording of that sentence: longtime fans got their wish. Others might notice that this otherwise very solid expansion's key strengths further expose some disturbing shortcomings of the original product.

The game itself, is, obviously, the expansion pack to Blizzard Entertainment's best-selling action/RPG, Diablo II. Plotwise, the expansion picks up right where the original's plot left off, so those that have already played through Diablo II will be able to pick up the plot easily. As far as features go, the expansion incorporates many more-than-welcome features (both as an add-on to Diablo II and as new features unique to the expansion) that longtime fans will absolutely love.

The expansion itself offers two brand-new character classes, the druid and assassin (the latter of which made a brief appearance in Act III of the original game). The assassin is more or less a fighter-class who specializes in hand-to-hand combat (using katar-class blades) and traps. The druid is a mage-class who uses elements and summons creatures when dealing with foes. Both characters will be familiar to longtime players of the game, as the assassin is more or less an amazon with traps (vs. archery) and katar (vs. spears), and the druid is a cross between the sorceress (spells) and necromancer (summoning). However, both classes bring enough fresh play styles to the game so as not to feel derivative. The druid's shape-shifting ability is a nice addition, and the assassin's charge-up and finishing-move attack style and trap specials give enough to evenly balance the classes for familiarity and freshness.

The new act (Act V), plot and graphic-wise the heart of the expansion, is excellently done. The artwork is nothing short of stunning, the music is wonderful, the plot is intriguing, and the rock-solid action offers some new challenges not present in the original. The graphical feeling of depth given when climbing the mountain is excellent, and the new areas are spectacularly detailed in what amounts to Diablo II's best graphical efforts to date (clearly superior from the original's last two acts). The new music in the game is likewise excellent, perhaps surprisingly most welcome in the introduction screens, where you are immediately greeted with a dramatic flair that gives an immediate jolt of excitement to the player. Matt Uelmen's once-again masterful composition and Kirk Trevor's conducting of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra provide some of the finest classical music to come from the PC platform in some time. Dealing with perhaps a somewhat strained plot after the original, the expansion continues the existing storyline, and once finished, leaves the series wide open for a potential Diablo III- and would also do a nice job of ending the series, if Blizzard so desires (we can only hope for a D3). Act V's plot goes beyond mere story continuation, however, offering its own self-contained storyline that breathes some life into the game after the more or less mundane Act III, and the downright empty Act IV of the original.

For the most part, the voice acting is well-done. Fan-favorite Carrie Gordon gives the assassin all the vocal pizzazz enthusiasts were hoping for, while longtime voice actor Michael Bell is excellent as Nihlathak and the druid. Richard Barnes puts on a very good performance as Baal, but unfortunately only appears in the introduction and one other episode. Series graybeards will quickly recognize Lani Minella, the voice of Adria in Diablo I, in her role as Malah in the D2 expansion. Similarly familiar voices include Cain (Michael Gough), and the five original characters' voice actors.

Perhaps the best and most welcome features to the expansion pack are the additions to the original game itself. These tweaks (to the existing game) and new features give veterans much that will reward their continued play. Now, hirelings are more than the red-shirted members of the away team they were in Diablo II- they have their own attributes, experience points, can even be resurrected when killed, and most importantly, an inventory, so they can receive weapons and armor. All of this finally makes hirelings actually worth attention. Although it may seem minor, the ability to hot-swap sets of weapons with a single keypress- say between a two-handed sword and a crossbow- is another welcome strategic addition to the Diablo II world. There are new items, including jewels (socketable items with properties similar to rings), totems (ring-like items that grant bonuses merely for being in your inventory), and elite (much like exceptional items were items with the identical graphical set as normal items, only bulked up for nightmare difficulty, elite items are bulked up for hell difficulty) and unique items (that are actually strong enough to be useable beyond normal difficulty). The stash has likewise grown, as has the amount of gold you can keep in it. Gambling is now substantially less expensive, and is thus more accessible from the beginning. Another large addition is the ability to play in 800 x 600 resolution, another nice strategic and graphical bonus. People who play the game on an everyday basis will love these enhancements, and newcomers to the game will wonder how (or more importantly why) Diablo II ever got along without them.

That's an important point, because veterans should begin to ask questions as to why the original Diablo II didn't come with features similar to the expansion pack. Some things- such as different graphics for set items, sound tweaks and additions (such as a pleasing "success" noise upon quest completion), weapon-swapping, elite items (no new graphics required), new horadric cube recipes (how hard would it have been to add that?), the gambling tweaks (level adjustments and price tweaking), repairing all items at once at the repair shop (a single new button), and some important character balancing issues, are seemingly minor or even inconsequential additions (some even came as a patch) that it would not seem to make sense to wait a year to make. Other features, such as the stash, the minimap, 800 x 600 resolution, and perhaps most notably the usability of hirelings, were things that should have shipped with the original game. Hirelings in the original were really quite useless, the map was obtrusive, the stash was too small almost from the beginning, and 800 x 600 could have at least been an option for those with faster computers. Where were these features in the original?

In a nutshell, the expansion's largest negatives actually lie in its greatest strengths: the excellence and array of new features are both so well-done and in some cases, so badly needed that it almost completely paints the original Diablo II in a poor light. The added features to Diablo II itself are nice, however, most characters playing through Act V will find it quite short, especially veterans who spent quite some time in Act IV of the same difficulty level. In short, it is a traditional expansion pack- a (very nice) additional act and some (very nice) additional features. That will lead to inevitable questions about the expansion's non-traditional price tag: $35 to $40 in most places. Worse, newcomers will need to lay out cash for both the original and the expansion, as it's not a stand-alone product. Those who wish to compete on closed battle.net's ladder will likewise (continue to) be disappointed with the game's laggy performance- however in most other multiplay areas (open battle.net and TCP/IP), the game is playable if not outstanding.

Diablo II veterans, however- those that have been playing the game day in, day out for nearly a year- will find all of the last paragraph to be minor quibbles, and will find the array of features in the expansion to be so vital that they will quickly realize this to be an essential product for their Diablo II enjoyment, irrespective of whether or not some things should have been included with the original. Gaming-world newbies who already enjoy D2 will only revel in all of its excellence, largely ignorant of the problems the game reveals in its parent product. Newcomers to the Diablo II world will find this an all but mandatory (if somewhat expensive) purchase. Blizzard would go a long way in releasing this sticker shock by releasing a $40-$50 original-and-expansion bundle pack, perhaps marketed at low-end gamers (the game only requires a Pentium 1 running at 233 MHz and 64MB of RAM). The expansion will probably not get many players who have already abandoned the game back into it, but it's quite likely, based on how the game has shipped, that this was not its purpose.

Blizzard gives its loyal fan base the game they deserved with the Diablo II expansion pack (even if that game should have been the original). The meat-and-bones of the expansion, Act V, is an excellent piece of gaming, offering superior music, graphics, sound, plot and action, falling short only in length. The new features are both welcome and necessary, adding additional and needed dimensions to the game. Only the cash-impoverished should skip this title, and even then only temporarily; existing gamers need only wait for a price drop, and newcomers, a bundle. A clear choice for any fan of Diablo II or the action/RPG genre: highly recommended.

reviewed by Preston White