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CMorrison's Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction (PC)

[March 5, 2014 11:01:58 PM]

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). However, for this game review, I chose to play the single player mode so that I was not required to patch the game up to the latest version. For this game, you create a character and choose between seven different classes. You must use this character to fight through the various quests in a linear storyline, leveling up and gaining new skills and stats along the way. There is pretty much no end to this game. If you die, you are resurrected back at town. If you beat all of the quests, you can continue to play at any point of the game to kill monsters to get better equipment. Each class of character has three different skilltrees that a player may put points into. Upon leveling up, the character must choose which skilltree to spend the point in and choose which skill to spend the point on. For example, the Sorceress class has Lightning Skills, Ice Skills, and Fire Skills.

Game Mechanics: This game is played with mouse and keyboard. You must click on the screen to move the character, and hotkeys exist on the keyboard which will bring up various menus or use certain items within the game. You have a health bar, which means if it is emptied, you will die. After you die, you drop your items, but you are revived in town and can go pick up your body wherever you died at and regain all of your items. This allows you to keep on questing. There is also a mana bar that keeps track of how many mana points you have to cast spells. Diablo II has alot of replayability because of the different classes you can pick and because of the fact that you are always looking for better equipment. The type of MMORPG that this is referring to, which is also the type that Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is, is a Dungeon Crawler.

First Play: For my first playthrough, I decided to play as a sorceress. I named my sorceress Sorceress because you can give your character any name you want. I began in the main town and talked to the NPCs to get my first quest. After that, I went out into the wilderness to begin fighting. I fought my way into the den that contained my first quest. After killing everything in the den and leveling up a few times, I put a skill into each one of my skill trees. I gained a fire bolt attack, a lightning bolt attack, and an ice bolt attack. Each of these skills became level one. Upon working my way through the den and turning in my first quest, I decided to fight my way to the next area. My skills were doing an okay amount of damage, killing the enemies in a few hits. I also put all of my gained stat points into Energy to allow me to cast more spells. I found a few pieces of equipment, but I did not equip them because I did not have enough Strength. This playthrough took me about 10 - 15 minutes.

Second Play: For my second playthrough, I chose to create a Druid, one of the classes added in the expansion pack for Diablo II. I set out with my Druid to complete the first quest in the same way I did with my Sorceress. However, when I gained a few levels on my Druid, I put my skill points into the same skill on the same skilltree. After completing my first quest, I had my fire skill at level 4. This skill was doing a decent amount of damage for the place I was at. After I traveled to the next area, I used my level 4 skill on the enemies there, and it killed them in one hit. This strategy of putting skills all into one skill to get a stronger skill worked better than spreading out my skill points into different skilltrees. Also, I conserved my stat points until I needed them. I was able to add in any Strength that I needed to equip any armor I found before I put the rest of my stats in Vitality for more health and Energy for more mana. This playthrough took me about 10 - 15 minutes.

Overall review: Overall, I would say that I cannot think of any weaknesses that this game has. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is a very addicting and very well-designed game. This game went on to be played by many for many, many years after its release, all the way into the 2010s. The amount of customization to your character allow for a fun experience every time a new character is created. You can choose the order of your skills differently and your stats each time you make a new character. Also, the maps for the game are randomly created, allowing for a different experience each time you play. These are major strengths of the game. Of course, the multiplayer aspect of the game is also a major strength, as that allowed you to fight alongside people and trade gear with them. The multiplayer also allowed for player versus player play. However, I did not play the multiplayer for this review. The dungeon crawler aspect of this game allows it for tons of replayability. The game does not end simply when you beat the game. There is always fun in loading a new game (where all enemies are brought back to life) and rekilling old boss enemies to get their loot. There is definitely strategy to how you play this game, and that makes it successful as well. I would give this game a perfect rating because it did everything perfectly, and it has the highest replayability factor out of any game I have ever played.