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Diablo III

• By Arthur Orneck
• October 14, 2008 12:23 PM PST
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GamePro travels to Anaheim, California to attend Blizzard's third semi-annual games convention, BlizzCon 2008. Read on for hands-on impressions of Diablo III!

It's been a very long time since we've last set foot in a new Diablo game. Diablo II shipped way back in 2000, and its expansion pack Lord of Destruction followed it only a year later. In the eight years that have passed, gaming technology has come an incredibly long way, and with so much time between sequels, we couldn't help but wonder how the franchise stands up in its latest iteration? After playing the game during Blizzard's two-day convention we answer: beautifully, that's how.

Stay awhile, and listen

Upon entering Diablo III's character selection screen, you are greeted with the scene of adventurers standing around a campfire that has come to be a trademark of the franchise. Immediately, however, you will notice a very important difference -- unlike in the previous games, each class has both male and female variations to choose from. In the build available to play at BlizzCon, the Barbarian and Witchdoctor classes each had both genders available, while the Wizard's male counterpart was faded out and currently unselectable.

After selecting and naming a character (in my case, a Witchdoctor named "VoodooDaddy") I entered the game and approached the first person I found, only to discover another first for the franchise -- NPCs have different dialogue depending on what class you are playing. While I had previously watched a Barbarian get respectfully hailed by this very same soldier, my Witchdoctor was addressed as a freak and admonished for his choice of attire. My curiosity instantly began to burn as I pondered how the other classes will be treated, but I managed to suppress the urge to reroll another character in order to make progress in to the dungeon ahead of me.

Welcome, Outlander, to our glorious hovel

The most obvious change since Diablo II is also the first one you will forget about - the jump to a 3D rendering engine. Previous Diablo games have all stuck to two dimensional, pre-rendered sprite work for players, monsters and terrain. And while the new engine is fully three dimensional, with lavish colored lighting and high resolution textures, the hand painted style and fixed isometric camera angle immediately draw you back to the franchise's roots.

Make no bones about it, this is truly a Diablo game. The conversation from 2D to 3D has not hindered or broken the game play experience in any way. With the new engine, however, comes some immediately noticeable new features and the most satisfying of those are the destructible environments. Every smash of a weapon or blast of a spell seems to send chunks of stonework crumbling or wooden planks splintering in every direction. Most doors you come across yield to a few quick blows, and there are often opportunities to drop large sections of scenery on throngs of unsuspecting foes.

Grrr... Fresh Meat

Speaking of foes, there sure were a lot of them, and they were crawling out of every nook, cranny, and crevice to get a piece of my Witchdoctor. While Diablo II's monsters all seemed to congregate aimlessly, standing around waiting for the next adventurer to come along and free them of all the phat lewt they were burdened with, the monsters in Diablo III actually swarm in from various places, climbing up architecture or dropped down from higher passageways to get at the player. This helps tie the experience together and actually gives a feeling of... dare I say, terror? Or perhaps a panic-tainted tension, at the very least.

Fortunately, each class is more than equipped to deal with a few pesky monsters, and my Witchdoctor was no exception. Combat in Diablo III is purposely designed to make the player feel powerful, and even the lowest level spells had some impressive graphical effects. With a few clicks of the mouse, I was throwing flaming skulls and sending out hordes of exploding frogs to disease my enemies. The control scheme was similar to the old Diablo games, with the left click and right click each bound to a different kind of attack, but in addition there is now an action bar (reminiscent of World of Warcraft) where you can set other attack abilities, plus hitting the Tab key provides a quick switch secondary right click ability. While that may sound complicated to those used to the old control scheme, it quickly became second nature, and I was decimating my adversaries with wild abandon.

I sense a soul in search of answers

In a way, I envy you, dear readers. You haven't yet been tainted by Diablo III's touch. Since walking away from the demo station, I have literally craved being back at the controls. Even now as I sit at my keyboard typing this, my mouse hand quivers ever so slightly as I think about my few minutes with the game. I don't know how I'm going to survive the months (or perhaps years? This is Blizzard, after all) of development time ahead for the title before I can get my hands on the final version.

Be sure to check out OMGRPG.com for more details on BlizzCon 2008 and Diablo III.

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