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Add more life - and death - to Diablo

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 25 / 26
Date: February 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

System on which this was tried out: Pentium III 733 MHz, nVidia TNT 2 Pro, 128 MB RAM, Win98, with a monitor with 1024 x 768 resolution. Hellfire must be installed on top of an existing Diablo install, and requires the Diablo disc rather than its own to actually play.

Being a Sierra product, the installer will install Sierra utilities in your startup menu if you don't already have it, with no option to skip them (although you can uninstall it separately); the utilities are the Sierra-typical uninstall/readme/support/auto-update. Auto-update, if invoked, asks you to connect to the net, searches your system for Sierra products, then queries Cendant Software's site to check for any patches or other updates, including updates to the Sierra utilities package itself. (The original Hellfire release must be patched for the town characters to properly interact with you, for instance - otherwise their Gossip mode will be stuck.) The Sierra utilities wind up under Program Files on drive C, no matter where the user asked the actual game to install, and the icon for the utilities is added to the start menu.

Once you have Hellfire installed and patched, you'll see some differences from (actually, additions to) baseline Diablo right away as you start your next new character. A few new character types have been added. (For a basic Hellfire install, only Monk has been added, but if you download and apply the Purgatory modification on top of Hellfire, you'll get Bard and Barbarian as well; their icons look like Warrior and Rogue, respectively, but they have a different mix of skills.) Also, a new game can be started at any of 3 difficulty levels - but a weak character has little chance against the higher levels, so prudence is recommended.

A nice bonus is that Hellfire gives you the option of *running* in town, regardless of your character.

You'll also see new types of items to pick up.
- Oils. Some allow you to repair your weapons without running to the blacksmith, while others improve their statistics, such as Oil of Accuracy and Oil of Fortitude.
-"Runes". These aren't related to Diablo II's runes; they're plain-looking gadgets that cast a single spell when set off, like crude grenades, such as Rune of Fire, or Rune of Stone.
- New types of scrolls, such as Search (*very* helpful for locating any loot in your vicinity; Search temporarily gives them an aura and marks them on your map).

Hellfire also adds 8 additional levels. A new farmer character has been added to the town of Tristram, and he has a problem that he won't discuss with you until he knows you fairly well - that is, your character must have a minimum expertise before he'll give you the explosives you need to break open the Hive south of town. The Hive is 4 levels deep, and contains 2 new quests that you'll always receive leading to two Level Bosses. Defeating the final Level Boss in the Hive will give you the key needed to enter the remaining four new levels, via a crypt in the cathedral's graveyard.

The Hive's monsters are mostly variants of giant insects covering several different physical types with different kinds of attacks. As well as scorpions, spiders, and boar-like monsters, there are monsters that spit poison or acid, and giant floating orbs with tentacles that shoot energy bolts at you - and hunt in packs, of course. The Hive's labyrinth generates random mazes, as does the original Diablo engine, so the replay value is very high, and its atmosphere is well done - the 'walls' look like a wasp's nest, and instead of breaking open barrels to hunt for goodies, the Hive offers pods.

The Vault has an even wider range of new and interesting beasts: lichs (undead beings with a ranged attack), satyrs, Anubis-like creatures that look like animated metal statues, firebats like those who appeared later in Diablo II. The final Vault level is something of a set piece because of the Level Boss' prison. The Vault also provides the Cornerstone of the World, a place that is the same in all worlds - that is, a mechanism for allowing different single player characters to exchange items.

Don't bother

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 28 / 34
Date: November 29, 1999
Author: Amazon User

If you loved Diablo like I did then you will probably be disappointed at the lack of invention that typifies this add-on. The "new" levels are quite unimpressive and the "new" spells don't do much for me (with the single exception of the search spell). The new character (the Monk) is nothing more than a composite of the three previous character types. Don't waste your money - save up for Diablo 2.

Lousy add-on to a great game.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 19 / 23
Date: February 03, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I really expected something special when I bought this and I was disappointed. It takes up more space on the hard drive than the original game, but adds little. Pluses: the ability to run in town saves time; search spell is useful; a few new weapons and spells.

Minuses: The first 4-level expansion dungeon, the Hive was really boring and incredibly annoying visually. Picture gold colored brains and that is what you get - piles of gold pieces blended in too closely with the background. Monsters in this level were boring and easy to kill, even the big boss at the end. The Crypt level was better but still lacking in excitement.

The monk character was uninteresting and unfortunately the other two characters are hidden and must be activated by codes. I do not feel comfortable with typing any key words into my computer's operating system or software and therefore did not access these extra character types.

When I upgraded my computer and needed to re-install Diablo on a newly formatted hard drive last summer, I did not bother installing Hellfire.

If you like Diablo 1, you'll like this add on pack

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 17
Date: March 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

First, if you are having troubles with games crashing or locking up on your computer, you probably need new video drivers. Go to the manufacture's web site and download them following the instructions carefully.

Second, I worked on this game so yes those "hacks/cheats" were put in there. We thought you folks who liked Diablo would like to have a litte more fun with the game. We couldn't get an artist to do the character work at the time. Sorry, so it reuses the character art for the Barbarian and the Bard. Oh well, use your imagination, the character class data is all there. There is art for the cow quest and the "theoquest" The later was pulled by the game design team after we had all the work done. So we left it in for you to judge and play with.

Yeah that cow quest has people laughing out loud. You will too. It's probably not as good as the Diablo 2 cow level, but we had a limit to the amount of stuff we could hide on the CD.

Ok, So you've got my interest, how does it work?
Well create a text file called "command.txt" in the same directory as the hellfire.exe file, using your favorite editor, in it put the following line
cowquest;theoquest;bardtest;multitest;barbariantest

You only get the barbarian with the patch to 1.01. (you'll have to hunt elsewhere for it. It's probably on the Sierra site, but if not, its still on a lot of the fan boards.) It doesn't hurt to have extra stuff in the file. It's only a text file for pete's sake.

Each of the names between the ";" enables a different feature. If you don't like them, just remove them from the command.txt file. Pretty simple huh? Well that's 'cause we designed it for you to be able to do this.

Oh, these are SINGLE PLAYER characters. And if you want real art, and full multiplayer support for these characters buy Diablo 2. It has a more fully developed Barbarian.

So have fun,.....Your game developers at Sierra......

Exciting New Challenges!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: December 21, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I really enjoyed this expansion. The new "ring" spells were great. Just sit in the middle and shoot arrows at your opponents. The Monk character was also a great addition. He's a little wimpy at first, but can do some serious damage as he goes up levels.

Some of the new monsters are quite challenging. There's a new "dungeon" that pops up in the field outside of town filled with some seriously nasty bugs. I did a lot of saving and reloading.

If you're a big fan of the game, I think this addition is worth every penny.

Good Considering the Space They Worked With

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: September 28, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Many people comment on how Hellfire isn't worth it because of the shear lack of attention and detail they put into the expansion, but there's a perfectly good reason for this: much of the expansion (including the Monk character class) was ALREADY in the original Diablo. Why can't you use them in the normal game? Simple: Blizzard decided to surpress these elements, probably to give them something to release for an expansion. This is also the reason that people have been able to hack the multiplayer game to include the Monk, because he was already in the game. There is still a lot more to the expansion, however. And personally, I think that it breathes a LOT of live into the single player game, which I play a lot more often than Battle.net since I don't have unlimited phone line access in a multi person household. I would recomend this to any hard core Diablo fan out there.

Good and Bad at once

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: January 11, 2000
Author: Amazon User

How do I start? The monk is a nice addition but the fact that the 2 better characters are hidden in the game WITHOUT 'skins' to make them visually appealing was a drag. Network play is also available via using a text file with specific wording. The Barbarian was probably the most useful out of all 3 of the characters available in this expansion pack. I was very diappointed by the terrible levels added on to this. They did not fit in with Diablo at all. The new weapons and spells however ROCKED. ANd well.....Running in town ...that was worth the 20 bucks alone!

Nice addition if Sierra would offer better support.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: November 26, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Before Diablo II came out I played Diablo quite often. I thought HellFire would be a great addition, but after installing it the game would crash or lock up my system. I tried installing HellFire on a different computer with the same results, and Sierra's patch was no help. I'm not suprized since I've had similar problems with Caesar III and Pharaoh.

Sierra has great ideas, but falls short on support after the sale is made.

A Bust as big as they come

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: July 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This has to be one of the worst expansion pack's to one of the greatest games of all time. How do I know, because neither Blizzard or Sierra ever mention the expansion pack on their website--a means to distance themselves away from it.

For example the graphics on the hive level for some of the monsters are absolutely terrible. You have small toad/pumpkin like creatures that attack you WTF? Large Spiders? It doesn't fit the Gothic essence of the game. Not to mention Diablo can again be easily killed, so easy that you don't have to do it, just summon a golem-the same can be said about Nal'krul. The new spells are not attractive either, you have spells that help you search (umm okay), you have spells that you can summon to take you back to the entrance (how is that suppose to help), and such spells as "beserk" only work for the barbarian, which can only found by hacking the command file.

Secondly lester the farmer is a joke...beyond retarded...In order to get to the Cow Quest, or unlock the barbarian (looks exactly like the warrior) you have to hack the command file. And by updating from 1.00 to 1.01 you loose the ability to play multi-player. And I don't understand the point in creating the monk--his best skill is hand to hand combat with the staff....a degenerate version of the Sorcerer.

And the promise of great items, such the King's Swords and the Godly plates are extremely hard to find. Unfortunately to get them you have to use a trainer. I can't believe that the expansion pack now runs for almost $50, what a rip! If I had a thousand I'd sell it all for free.

If Diablo then Hellfire!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: December 21, 1999
Author: Amazon User

If you love Diablo then why not add to it! There are two dungeons with an extra four levels. This gives you the ability to gain power and weapons before you get to the big guy! The Monk character is weak but interesting if you can make it work. If you know some of the codes for the command file you can get the rogue character to wield two weapons and watch the double damage fly! There are tons of new weapons and armor as well. This is worthy of your hard earned cash, especially at the current price!

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