Akratus
Bleep bloop.
Diablo II
Released in the year 2000.
Developed by Blizzard North
For PC and Mac.
Purcahasable by retail and http://us.blizzard.com/store/ or http://eu.blizzard.com/store/
Of demons and angels.
"And the evil that was once vanquished shall rise anew. Wrapped in the ‘guise of man shall He walk amongst the innocent; and Terror shall consume thee who dwell upon the Earth. Behold! The war amongst the heavens shall not be contained; and the sons of man shall be engulfed in the flood of conflict, and all hope shall be lost unto them. And He shall make war upon the heavens, and the heavens shall gird themselves as for battle. The righteous shall fall upon the wicked... and lay siege to the very gates of Hell. And He shall take peace from mankind and loose great destruction upon the earth. The Lord of Hatred shall ascend his throne; and the fires of Hell shall devour all.
And He shall mete out his vengeance upon all flesh. And the blood of innocents shall run as great torrents.
... Who then shall be saved? ..."
The diablo games are one of the few directly based on christian mythology. Pentagrams, crosses, other religious symbols and churches make many appearances. And it conjures images of the crusades and medieval times with it's dark art style. The twist on the christian tale, is that humanity takes a back seat in the grand scheme of things, rather than being a large part.
Originally there was simply heaven and hell, doing battle for all eternity. Hell ruled by the Prime evils, Diablo, Mephisto and Baal. On the other hand, Heaven, ruled by the Angiris Council containing many an archangel, representative of facets of life such as death, war, justice, love. There was nought but a struggle for one to overcome the other. Untill a certain angel and demon wished to no longer take part in the war. They created Sanctuary, a new world where any being could live in peace. An ideal quickly destroyed, obviously. The beings that resulted from their relationship were named the Nephalem. Humans. Beings with the power of both of their ancestors.
The prime evils wish to convert Sanctuary in to a permanent outpost of hell and use the powerful Nephalem for their own malevolent purposes. But the Angiris council has had more mixed reactions. Imperius, the angel of war, called for it's imminent destruction for he sees the Nephalem as an abomination. A vote was called. Tyrael, archangel of justice, made the decisive vote to spare Sactuary from certain doom. Instead, the power of the Nephalem was constrained by the creation of the world stone. It's fate has hung in the balance ever since.
Hacking and slashing.
Since it's creation and onward, it was seen as the epitome of isometric combat based RPG's. Even so far that similar games afterwards were called Diablo Clones. And it was well received upon release, resulting in an expansion pack being developed later on.
Gameplay is quite simple, one chooses 1 of 5 (or 7 with expansion.) and travels through 4 (or 5 w. exp.) acts full of monsters, ending in a boss battle. The fun in the game is mostly derived from it's cooperative element, visceral combat, and online play. Up to 8 players can join together in a single game resulting in a barrage of possible sounds, effects and enemies on screen. Combat is satisfying because the player character has seemingly no limit on it's ever increasing power (until the maximum level is reached, that is.) and enemies have many unique animations to be played upon their death. Blood sprays, magical effects, and frantic movement make up the Diablo Experience.
Not to mention, it's dazzling array of useless, magical and legendary loot. It was one of the first to utilize a system to randomly assign qualities to found equipment. This was one of it's main features upon release and a large part of the reason the game is still played today.
Faults and frustrations.
Although online multiplayer has kept the game alive, it was everything but well thought out. Bots, hacks, dupes, bots and scams infest it's battle.net servers. Playing in a completely open game is a bold move indeed. Blizzard North has never been able to get the amount of cheating and griefing down to an acceptable level. Every patch seemed to cause more problems than it solved. Anyone looking for a fun, carefree game was to stay away from Diablo 2's battle.net.
And character balance is the other element of the game causing untold anger amongst fans. The majority of players played certain character builds often called overpowered, and rightly so. Hammerdins being the most notorious. But some players say that this is all part of the fun. Diablo 2 is seemingly the most idiotically designed game to be so succesfull.
The story is also not the deepest part of the game, and it almost never involves the character(s) you play. There's a cutscene per act and much text per npc and quest, so story is optional and choice-less. It is however, not simply a dull attachment. It expands on the first game's backstory, and tells a tale with a clear structure. It is a mysterious story at first, and it never shows the full picture untill the latter parts of the game.
The game is focused on combat, has no character creation and doesn't involve the player in the story. But it is a formula no one has recreated as succesfully since.
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But I posted this only because Demon's Soul's was posted. That one not ok too or. . . ?
