User Reviews (121 - 131 of 456)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Lord of the hack-n-slash RPGs

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Diablo 2 is a huge imrovement over the first Diablo. Its nice knowing that you can customize your character in more ways than just assigning points to attributes. The graphics are quite good, and i dont mind the automap at all. It helps me get to where im heading just fine. i also like the gems, its like having a build your own weapon and armor feature! this game also seems to follow much more of a storyline than the first one did-you have more of a reason to do this than just kill bad guys. Getting to face the other evil lords besides Diablo is cool too. Although there are other, better RPGs out there(Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate), this is definitely a fun, awesome game that is worth your time to check out.

Learned some lessons from DIABLO, but quests more restricted

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

DIABLO 2 can be summarized as "like DIABLO, but more so." DIABLO 2 has more locales, more varied scenery, more (and more elaborate) AIs, more control over developing your character's skills, more types of characters to play, better play balance, and so on.

Like the original, DIABLO 2's settings are (mostly) randomly generated, so that with the exception of some set-piece areas (like the Skeleton King's lair in the original), no two games follow exactly the same map. DIABLO 2 has four acts covering 5 locales (including Tristram, the setting of DIABLO). Each act has very different climate/geography and monsters differing accordingly.

You're following the trail of the Wanderer (the hero of the first game) as he locates the other Prime Evils, Diablo's brothers, before leading you into Hell and the final confrontation with Diablo himself. The settings in general have much greater variety and eye candy, and include outdoor segments as well as dungeon crawls.

Act I is a generic-Europe setting, with a lesser-demon Level Boss rather than a Prime Evil. Act I most closely resembles the earlier stages of the original DIABLO, and contains references back to the original, as the player's task is to help the Sisters of the Sightless Eye. (The Rogue from DIABLO was a member of the order; your closest-equivalent player character in DIABLO 2 is the Amazon, who has a different backstory.)

Act II is a desert scenario, with a sort of Egyptian flavor to the tombs, and a different, more formidable type of undead. Act III, by contrast, is a rainforest, emphasis on poisonous insects, water monsters, and fast-moving little AIs with blowpipe attacks. Act IV's revamped version of Hell is much more larger and elaborate than that in the original, with an assortment of demons and new attacks. The succubae weren't retained, but as a tradeoff Act I has hordes of renegade Rogues.

Many of the AIs have been revamped to make them tougher and to give them more distinctive appearances. While the distinct colour schemes were retained, the details are more elaborate and they're tougher opponents. The carver-type AIs now include shamans, who in addition to their own magical attacks can raise the fallen. Animated skeletons on higher difficulty levels may now have mages as well as archers with them.

That's one of the biggest changes from the original. Monsters not only regenerate after you've cleaned out a level (even lesser "unique" monsters, though not Level Bosses that have to be killed to end an Act), but many monster types can raise the dead or harvest energy from corpses. There are also delayed-action attacks, as poisons and antidotes have been added.

Other changes from original:
- Multiplayer and single player now use the same limited set of quests, rather than single player having a random selection of a larger set of quests.
- Play balance on character abilities now includes active and passive skills, differing by character type. Not just any character can learn spells.
- In addition to mana and life, player has stamina. While you don't have to eat or sleep as in, e.g. DARKSTONE, you either have to pace your character, stock up on stamina potions, or be content to move slowly.
- In addition to Town Portal spells, each Act contains a set of fixed waypoints, and the player can return to earlier Acts if desired.
- Towns are more elaborate. Apothecaries selling potions are now separate from magic sellers, and at least one NPC per Act can "gamble" with you. You can hire and equip NPCs who will follow you and fight what you fight. If they're with you, your experience points are divided with them, but they level up and become more formidable over time.

Some lessons learned by the designers:
- Local smiths can upgrade weapons, e.g. installing runes or gems in them. Partway through Act II, a quest item allows you to combine multiple gems of the same type to get a single gem of a better grade, so strategy is a factor.
- In town/camp you have a chest in addition to the inventory on your character's person. Items in the chest are safe, but if you're killed and resurrected, anything you were carrying has to be retrieved from the body. Since you're fined a large amount of your total gold when you're resurrected, you're motivated to scavenge your own body anyway just to get some of it back.
- Partway through Act I, you revisit Tristram and rescue Deckard Cain, who now has enough gratitude to identify items for free instead of gouging you.
- Some unique items now come in sets (e.g. helmet, breastplate, gauntlets) that are stronger together than apart, and mostly effective for specific character types (e.g. bonuses apply only to a paladin). Strategy comes into play: is it worth saving an item in the hopes of acquiring the rest of the set?

In summary: the thing I miss most from the original is the randomized quest mix on single player. The active/passive skill system is interesting enough to make up for restricting the player's ability to create super-powerful spell-casting Rogues and the like.

As in the original, even in single-player a game can't be saved in multiple states; you can only have multiple characters working through different scenarios. In multi-player, items can be transferred between characters by drop-and-switch, but that's about it.

Extremely Addictive Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

OK, so I'm about 3 or 4 years late in jumping on the bandwagon for Diablo 2 :). I remember the release of this game a number of years ago, but I never got around to playing it. So I was looking for something inexpensive to tide me over until Elder Scrolls IV comes out, and selected this game. Boy am I happy I did.

I expected to play this to its conclusion, then move on to something else. Little did I expect that I would actually purchase the expansion, and play through the game 3 times in single user mode (normal mode, nightmare, then hell), then move on to the online play in [...] (free service; no monthly fee!).

The game has a lot more combat than the typical RPG's I play. Normally this would put me off, but I find the combat in this involving and fun. They have done an excellent job of making the game challenging for both the beginner and the expert. They have a ton of items you run across ranging from simple non-magical items, to magical items, to rares, and once in a long while, the unique. They also have the concept of a "set" item, where if you possess more than 1 item in a set (say boots, and gloves), the items will become more powerful. Very cool.

There are so many pros regarding the game that I probably couldn't list them all. However, there's a couple of things that I would list as a con:

* You can only save at designated places. This can be fairly inconvenient, especially when playing late at night (and needing sleep :). I found myself leaving the computer on so I didn't have to do a large portion of an area the next day.

* There's a very rare bug where a character gets "stuck", and can't move. I found that gating out and coming back sometimes works to get out of this mode.

* I wish there were a way to command the NPC's which you can team with. Many of these over-anxious teammates have dragged me into battles I really didn't want.

* You will come across many runes in the game, which can be used to make uber weapons/armor. However, I found no clues in the game as to how to make these items. You can look at web pages for these recipes. In general, I found no clues in game for horadric cube recipes. Perhaps this is intended, but it feels like an oversight to me.

Don't let these minor anoyances steer you away from the game. It is very involving, and extremely fun to play. Plus since the game is a bit older, it should probably run on most PC's (check the requirements first of course).

One word of advice: fork out the extra 10 bucks and buy the battle chest edition. Not only does this give you an extra act (act V), you will also have a larger bank (to save loot), and come across more interesting items. Plus you can actually equip your NPC partner, which helps a bunch.

Great fun, the best game of it's kind.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 19, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is without a doubt, one of the most addictive games ever released. The enjoyment you get from developing your character and watching as he or she kills all of the evil creatures is indescribable. With this game you have more options availible for your character with five classes and thirty skills for each. Also, when you complete the game once you are given the option to play in nightmare mode which is harder, but much more powerful items are dropped. After that, there is Hell mode which is VERY hard and there is even better weapons and items. All of this on top of terrific multiplayer adds up to very good value for your gaming dollar. The only flaws in this game are the less than spectacular graphics, which aren't horrible, but they could have been better. Also, the hardcore RPG crowd might not like this game as it is more action oriented and doesn't have the intricate character customization that "true" RPG's have. If this was a review for that type of game it wouldn't have gotten five stars, but taken for what it is, which is action/rpg, you can't find a better game.

Bigger, badder, and better than the original!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 22, 2000
Author: Amazon User

There is enough action to keep you busy for several weeks! Several days if you play day and night :) Cinematic cut scenes are almost photorealistic, the story is actually part of the game. The game graphics and background give it a certain realism. Levels are more detailed and way bigger than the original, let's just say that it's three to four times bigger than Diablo 1. The music is awesome, especially in Jehrin's castle on Act III. If you've played Diablo 1, you'll appreciate the cameo Tristam quest; Let's just say that "it ain't what it used to be".

The best features of Diablo 2 are the ability to run (amount of running time is limited by your character's "stamina"), and the ability to travel between several pre-defined "waypoints". Together they save a large amount of time wasted going over areas already cleared.

The diversity of levels, characters, non-player characters, and items are Diablo 2's second best features. Different weapons/armor produce different graphics, and certain attributes can change the color of the weapons/armor. While all characters lose the ability to cast any spell, each has special capabilities called skills to which you can improve on. You have to fight your way through villages, temples, forests, jungles, dungeons, sewers, deserts, limbo, and Hell itself. You're up against mages, zombies, skeletons, shamans who ressurect their minions, corpse spitters, bugs which lay eggs that hatch to become more pests, cat people, goatmen, mummies that ressurect their minions, beetles, ghosts, walking tree-like creatures, and many more. Enemy boss characters have special abilities, and are actually challenging.

A 3-D accelerated graphics card is great for the lighting effects (you get colored lighting with 3D acceleration, otherwise you just get white lighting), but the perspective mode is not very impressive. Perspective mode scales down graphics at a distance, scales up the objects towards you, and everything in the middle is drawn at normal size. Instead of achieving a 3-D effect, it looks like a weird lens has been placed over your monitor.

If you like the original, you'll love Diablo 2, so stop reading and hit the order button!

Repetitive ClickFest

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

At first, I thought this game was good. The graphics are not very visually pleasing but the lighting affects were very nice. There were several different characters each with their own abilities and such. But with each waking moment I grew more and more bored, and my mouse grew more and more worn out as all I basically had to do was point at something and click like crazy till it was dead, not very entertaining. To add insult to injury, the monsters I was encountering were pretty much the same old beasts with a new outfit on, and maybe a different attack or special ability.

Sure, there are tons of collectable items, and Blizzard claims that the items you wear change your appearance (A half-truth as boots, gloves, and jewelry do not show up on your character). But you can only do the same thing over and over so much. The game's "quests" from what I've encountered are basically you go here, kill this boss and come back. Sure, there may be a few things you need to do, like a grab an item from point a, an item from point b, and put them in point c; but the basic premise still stands.

The game has it's merits, they did spend a great deal of time making the full motion video cut scenes beautiful (ala SquareSoft), and there are alot of items, and the areas are fairly sizable, and the load times are next to nil (since the entire game is on your hard drive instead of on the cd like diablo 1).

The install process is slow and requires you to swap several disks including one with large movies on it (you should have the option of not viewing movies in any game). But the uninstall takes mere seconds. Which leads me to believe the game doesn't get fully uninstalled. I also hear the multiplayer is very fun (which can make the worst games great).

What honestly kills the game in my opinion? The constant need to click the mouse in a rapid fasion (the alternative is to hold the button down, which is just as bad), and the repetitiveness (which is also a major flaw in Phantasy Star Online).

If mindless clicking is your cup of tea, then by all means pick up a copy today. But otherwise save your cash.

Sleep......must sleep. Eat......must eat.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game has sucked up all my available time, and more. I came home from work for another dungeon crawl and wound up taking a 3 hour lunch. Never got into Diablo 1 so most of the comparison complaints are null to me. GOOD THINGS: Simple, addictive gameplay. Lots of kills, easy getting started. Excellent sound, adequate graphics. Cool surprises!

BAD THINGS: Not enough storage for goodies found, lousy save game feature(starts you back at town and repopulates monsters). Multiplayer on Battlenet has terrible lag.

Great Game, but slow performance

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The game is great, graphics are slow. I have a B/W G3 400Mhz with 512MB of RAM and a Radeon Graphics Card and i can only get 15-20FPS (thats Frames Per Second) but when fighting a boss or when alot of monsters come onto the screen the FPS drops to 5-10FPS and that is totaly unplayable. I have found out that when playing Online i get 25-35FPS I dont know why but I do. So I guess what i am trying to say is if you dont have a G4 Mac then dont waste your time or money buying this game. But if you still want it please download the demo first then buy the game if you think it is OK.

Good at first but then gets boring

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: August 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I downloaded the demo version of this game and I've decided not to buy it. The first two hours of hacking, slashing and managing inventory were very enjoyable. The simple inventory interface and character management felt like a relief compared to something like Baldurs Gate 2 which can get overwhelming at times. It was good, simple, leveling-up, buy and sell weapons, armor and magic FUN.
But then my face started to droop. This game is so repetitive depression sets in. Nothing but clicking on monsters until they die. Click Click click click click. Boring dark scenery, stupid monsters, and clicking.
I don't criticize others who like this game, it's seems like it would be much better playing on-line with others than by yourself.
Pros:
-Really cool weapons, armor and magic management interface.
-many different ways to level up your character
-pretty good sound and music
Cons:
-certain game players will get incredibly bored after
the 1000th click and may feel their life slipping
away
-I think I leveled-up myself more by simply mowing my
lawn today

Why don't you own this?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: July 27, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Diablo II is easily the best game this year. Every magazine article I read about this has confirmed this. The reviews are well deserved.

If you own Diablo you won't be dissapointed. The depth of this game is such that I already have 7 characters and will probably have more.

Diablo 1 set up Diablo II and Diablo II has set up Diablo III. I already can't wait of Bilzzard to put the next one out. Diablo II was worth the wait, so stop reading this review and buy it.

Review Page: Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next 

Actions