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Reigning classic of role-playing games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: December 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm writing after having played Diablo II and Lord of Destruction on and off for a few years. I've bought several other games, including Baldur's Gate II, but Diablo II with LOD keeps pulling me back. It's probably the best combination of action and role playing (in the light sense of the term) ever created.

This expansion pack is essential. Don't buy Diablo II without it, because the technical improvements change the complexion of the entire game. The increased resolution -- 800x600 -- isn't simply cosmetic. It widens the field of ranged combat. And Act V, added in the expansion, is likely the best of the lot.

Why does Diablo II/LOD live perpetually on my hard drive?

First, while the graphics are no longer state of the art, the mood of the whole game just works. I'm not a graphic artist and can't tell you why. But this is a very immersive game. The first time I played through Act IV (Hell), I really felt like I had spent a few hours in the grim, volcanic wastes. The Flayer Dungeon in Act III still scares the cr@p out of me.

Next, DII/LOD is extremely easy to learn and takes a long time to master -- the mark of a good game. Replayability is fair to good, because each of the character classes requires different strategies. You'll never get the "right" skill mix the first time through as a sorcess, paladin, etc. It takes practice. If the fixed maps and quests don't add variety, the character development makes up for it nicely.

Finally, while the role-playing aspect is kind of light -- you can just go out and hack and slay until your heart's content -- it's enough. Baldur's Gate II bogged down in a heavy story line that made me feel like I was working. Diablo II has a straight line story, but it's secondary. Mostly you just revel in how your character improves and acquires more powerful items. If you read the forums on Blizzard.com, you'll see that DII/LOD players are extremely attached to their characters. Is this psychologically healthy? I think it's fine and speaks to the success of the game.

After three years or so, I can still recommend Diablo II with its expansion. Every time I thought I was through, I end up digging up my installation CDs and loading it for "just one more run."

Brought back the Addiction

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 28 / 44
Date: June 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I thought I was done with Diablo 2 until I started hearing about the Expansion. I thought it was just another stupid add on to a game until I saw what it had to offer. They have 2 new classes, Druid and the Assassin. I played the Assassin and i like the character for several reasons. She can set traps to wound an enemy, also she is very skilled in close combat using fightingskills and claws to slash and bash the enemies. This is wat I thought the game lacked the first time around, a girl who was willing to kick a little butt. The Druid was a decent character. He is like the necro in a lot of ways. Hecan summon bears and wolves, but can also do a lot of harm with the other skills he has. I liked the Assassin more than the Druid. They both have 30 new skills and look great. Also they have improved th color to 800by600 which will make the game a lot more detailed. Also another act hs been added. Act 5 will let you finish the game letting you go to the Barbarian Highlands and fight Baal, the Lord of Destruction. It will add six new quests in the 5th act one letting you socket an item and a quest that when compleated you will get a classspecific item, im dieing to se what it is. But the most exciting part to me was the all new weaponry. They have a lot of new weapon classes and types, new uniques including alot of new uniques and set items. I love how they broght back a lot of the old weapons and armor from the old game like the mighy Arcanes Valor, an armor used by a great warrior with god-like stats. Over all this looks like the perfect expansion for the almost perfect game. I think that this will excite and inspire the Diablo player too keep plaing for at least another year.

Don't waste time reading, pre-order or buy it now!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 30
Date: June 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Ok, Diablo 2 was my BDay present from my dad. I thought it was cool and fun, but set it aside for some odd reason. (Probably our trip across the globe). I recently continued my Diablo 2 playing - but this time on Battle.net. It is VERY important that you play Battle.net, otherwise the game isn't as satasfying. It's my second favorite game ever, (First is Final Fantasy 7). Now there is an exp pack! White Items: Normal, Blue Items: Magic, Yellow Items: Rare, Orange Items: Found only by making in Horadric Cube, Gold Items: Unique (Very rare), Red Items: Elite (Best in the game, found only in the Hell difficulty). There are also new weapons for each class! The barbarians have executioner swords, polearms, and axes. Amazons have Ceremonial Javelins, and those bows that were mentioned above. Sorc's have Orbs now. Druids, I'm not sure. Assassins have wrist-bladez. There are all kinds of new monsters, wacked uniques, etc. I'd like to mention this also: Now weapons feature something like this: 125-160 Damage - 5% chance of casting L5 Frozen Orb - Freezes Target - +20 Life/Mana. Thats a new unique, that totally rocks. Anyway, if you're considering buying your son, or daughter, this, don't hesitate. It's a great game, and is NOT satanic or anything. You are after all, killing the devil :).

Leaving D2 Forever . . . (but I am sorry I have to leave).

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: April 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I must say, I started playing D2C (Diablo 2 Classic) 14 months ago. I bought LOD (Lord of Destruction expansion) on its release date.

There are many features and aspects of the game that will make you come back to play over and over again, as indeed I've done, often to the exclusion of many other important things in my life. Which is why this coming weekend, I'm giving both D2C, and D2:LOD away (CDs and online Battlenet accounts) to a friend, and I will never play again.

Why do I depart from something that is so much fun? Because it is not always so fun. There are as many features of the game that I hate as I enjoy.

A full explanation would require a thesis sized document, but I'll hit the highlights.

1: Hackers and Cheating: Computer hackers who exploit loopholes in online-network-play computer code achieve stunning advantages for themselves, both in game play and in creation of false "duplicate" items. Dups, as they're called, are literally materialized out of thin air through trickery for the purpose of avoiding actually playing the game for long periods of time (the best items in the game drop rarely). Hackers thus either build up large inventories of fakes (which can disappear later like mythical fool's gold), or create temporary dups for use in trading in order to trick people into giving up their "real" high-quality items for nothing.

2: Bad Attitude: There are a lot of socially maladjusted computers geeks and eight and nine year old children running around in online play (actually, they come from all walks of life). They share one common trait, plain outright rudeness, a complete lack of consideration for others, and a lack of any detectable self-respect. For instance, a wide-spread activity online currently (04/24/02) is begging. Yes, begging. Begging has always been a part of the game, as low-level characters (played by the highly lazy or highly impatient) go around asking for item hand-outs from high level characters in order to jump-start the progress of their characters through the game. However, now, a new form of begging has become vastly predominant. Begging for "rushing". "Rushing" is an activity that's been around for a while, but now it's nearly universal. A high level character joins up with a brand new character, and uses their enormous stats to carve a path directly through the minimum requirements necessary to complete every part of the game at standard difficulty. With the infamous Map-Hack (see my discussion of Hacker and Cheating above), a high level character can take a low level character through the whole standard game in ten to fifteen minutes, sometimes less if lucky. The next two higher difficulty levels (where the monsters are all tougher and meaner), are also quickly disposed of. The purpose of doing all this (what do you do with a low level character at the end of the game where one hit from the weakest monster would splat the character into a bloody pulp . . .)?

3: Gaming Environment: The way the game is currently set up, there is enormous incentive to simply have a low level character rushed through all three difficulty levels of the game, and then create a special game in what was previously and usually a one-shot joke/bonus/feature called the "Secret Cow Level". This highly amusing area of game play features upright walking cows wielding very large axes (pole-arms, actually, to be accurate). These cows run around the board, and moo-moo sound effects are going off left and right, it's all good for great laughs. There are lots and lots of Cows, a huge density of monsters in packs, and they deal enormous damage and can be quite dangerous. However, if you avoid killing the "Cow King" special monster, you can play again and again. Why? It's the monster-density. There are more monsters in a single area on the Secret Cow level than anywhere else. This huge density of monsters yields up large amounts of experience. Joining this game at very low levels can cause a new character to advance many levels in a single game. In only hours, a character can be two thirds of the way toward maximum level, and have only had the character sit off in a corner, not participating, "leeching" experience away from active participants. Yes, that's another feature of the game, people can advance their characters on the backs of other player's labors. It falls under Bad Attitude above, and is a problem so bad that I skipped detailing it so I could cut this down by a page or two (along with also skipping the reason people go around duplicating items so rampantly, so they can sell them for actual $$ on ebay, some people have reported raking in $20,000; so there is substantial motivation to cheat this way, which further affects the Game Environment, and results from Cheating and Hacking and Bad Attitude).

4: Lack of Character Management: This whole game is about advancing your character by playing the game. You kill the monsters, and pick up cool items to equip your character so they can deal with ever bigger and more dangerous threats until all three difficulty levels are completed (three runs through the game facing ever tougher and meaner monsters). However, each character has very little "room", or storage space to hold onto these items. If you find something that might be useful for another character you have, you must resort to a variety of non-completely reliable methods of moving the items around (which can often result in heartbreaking disappointment when that unreliability rears its ugly head and erases your hard won items). There is, simply put, no feature of the game to alleviate this, and as far as I can tell, there never will be. The pack rat in me simply can't take it. The good stuff I find, I must keep, and that's simply quite impossible in D2.

5: Time: Finally, as I mentioned above, D2 is taking up vast amounts of my time . . . yes, that's right, despite the problems I've outlined above, I still played, just not anymore.

One Gamers Point of View

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: February 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'm far from expert at Diablo II or the expansion, but approached the game as ome who had finished Diablo II as a level 65 Paladin utilizing thorns and conversion.

I'll leave the question of whether ANY video game is worth this kind of time to others..lol.

If you liked Diablo II, this will probably prove fun. The ability to heal and keep an NPC until it achieves the same level is good. The new acts are fine. The larger stash and improved graphics are fine too.

I'd rate ot four stars...but a few tips and criticisms.

Criticisms. Maybe its my strategy failings, but the hell level is too hard in that it apparently requires near endless leveling up. I converted my paladin for the game and developed it to level 78 ( along with a 78 barbarian npc), and didn't seem close to getting past the ancients in the hell level. Packed it in. Leveling up and searching for better items becomes mind numbing befotre too long...truly excellent items in very short supply..and even those with catchy new names are really the same old stuff too often. And past a certain point the leveling up is sooo repetitious that its akin to picking fly droppings out of pepper with boxing gloves on. And the nifty barabarians fighting out in the fields in act 5..initially a kick to see and aid....get stupid in a hurry when they get stuck in simple corners. A true programming flaw...if they didn;t want them to aid in the completion of that act they could have had them retunr to town etc....seeing them walk into walls instead makes ya wonder if they were brain damaged in the battle.

Random tips.

Conversion becomes much less powerful in the expansion. Limited time. Thorns used with conversion becomes dangerous, because the converted characters retain the aura after they turn back in 16 seconds....quick way to get your npc killed. The combo I have used is fanaticism and the improved zeal. Nice combination but not good enough for hell so far. Vengeance might have been a better choice.

Its worth the time to go to the first act of the normal level to pick up 3 chiiped gems and save them. Combined with a superior ( non magic) rune, legend , or fransisca sword in the cube, they often form a potent socketed weapon.

Save your awarded sockets for the last attempts at the hell level (if you plan to go that far).

Armor rated at 1200 or better sometimes show up at Lazruk...so repair often and search for it and try to have 1.5 million handy.

Nihiluk is among the deadliest of characters. Keep a portal opened nearby for quick return. Try to lure his minions out of his range..then after you have killed as many as possible, charge him...waste no time....his spectral hits kill from a distance..he is less dangerous in close.

Concentrate on building elemental damage for your hell efforts....many of the characters on that level are immune to physical damage.

Make plenty of full rejuvenation potions for the higher levels...you'll need em.

Have fun...hope you get further than I did. ; - )

2 new characters with good and bad flaws. The game ROCKS!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: July 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I thought DIABLO was hard in act 4 of Diablo II. Well, act 5 is worse! Now all the quests were pretty easy until the last. That quest kept changing. Each time I reached the quest goal, instead of showing it completed, it just changed the quest. So the last quest was really several goals long, each harder than the last!

I loved it!

I have been experimenting with the 2 new characters too. The Druid has some awesome powers. However, if I changed into the bear, I found that even though the bear does more damage, he is EXTREMELY SLOW! The wolf is FAST and attacking quicker puts more hits on the enemy, so there is more damage done with more attacks, but the same amount of time. And I don't have the patience to lumber around. I like to be agile and killing demons.

The Assassin is my favorite! She has the most AWESOME skills and her finishing moves rock! By level one or two, she can summon a blade that spins between her and the enemy, hitting them several times and almost always killing them in the first blow, while I can attack other demons with claws that would make Wolverine envious! She also has a skill so that with each hit to an enemy she gets a glow flowing around her. Once she has 3 going around her the assassine can channel it to hit an enemy. The skills get MORE AWESOME as she increases in levels!

The end bad guy, Bael (sorry if I spelled that wrong), is even harder than Diablo! Super fast and minions out the ying-yang!

This game is the best I've played yet! Highly recommended. Rated M for gore and violence though.

Great... But not too different from D2

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I was almost going to give it 5 stars...
But there is not too much more than the original...

True, runes make it fun... And The 2 new characters look good... The new resolution 800x600 is also better, but overall it is pretty much the same as D2. I would have expected a bigger improvement... More changes to the game...

A couple of new worlds... not just 1 new world.

But don't get me wrong. I enjoyed it a lot. I played with the assassin. And I tried to find as many runes as possible to check out the combinations and extra powers.

So if you liked D2, this is even better. If you haven't played D2 I highly reccomend buying the Battle chest (both products) And play The expansion right away.

Consider Yourself Warned

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: April 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Alrighty, how do I begin? I feel it is necessary for someone to explain the fact that this is, without a doubt, the single most addicting game ever made (assuming you like RPG's). I have owned this game for about a year and a half now and I can still play it non-stop for five hours a day (yes, I have befallen to RPG nerdiness to play this game). If you are considering buying this game, consider this:

It is not a complete waste of time (at least that's what I tell myself). When you build your character you are building something that has some value. It is unique and it will kill you to delete it. Especially if you reach level 70 and above.

You will fail school because of it. (Trust me, I know)

You will dream about it. You will close your eyes and red and blue orbs will sit behind each eyelid

Your character will die and it will make you go into slight depressions for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. (Unless you are crazy enough to go hardcore and then you will probably need to see some kind of professional if your character bites it)

You will love this game and hate this game all at the same time. You will swear to yourself you need to remove it from your harddrive, but you won't be able to.

There are a thousand more things that will happen to you while you play this game. If I could give just a few words of advice, don't play single player if you can help it, EVER. Only make online characters. Multiplayer is where the game is at. Single player should be your learning playground, but that's all it is. It is the sandbox in the middle of the beach. The big guns exist online and online is the only place where you will find the best items and actually reach high levels in any quick amount of time. Once you dip into this game, it is very hard to let it go. Good luck!! I hope you decide to purchase it and join the ranks of the hopelessly addicted. I could begin to explain how this game works, but it would be impossible in 1000 words. You have to get it and discover it for yourself. Cheers!!

P.S. If you need any tips on how to get to level like 70 in like two days, or how to find all the good stuff, shoot me an email (north_face@yahoo.com)

Great expansion to a great game, but...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: June 30, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have played through it now and I really enjoy playing it. D2 itself was a great game. The only reason that I am not giving it 4 or 5 stars is because it is GROSSLY overpriced. 40 bucks for an expansion of 1 act? As much as I enjoy it, if it had not been a gift to me, I never would have bought it. I understand the new character classes, items, etc., but come on.

REAL review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: June 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Most of the reviews that i have just read were not helpful. The expansion to Diablo 2 is a vast improvement on the most part from the classic game. Lord of Destruction adds many new possibilities by adding 2 new character classes, bringing the total to 7, and thousands of new items. These new items include such things as runes (artifacts that fit into weapons, helms, armors, and sheilds to make powerful uniques if done correctly), charmes (which can be held in your stash to give you bonuses the same way rings and ammys do), and many new character-specific items. Although many believe that the just released patch was made the MAKE people buy the expansion, this is a blatant lie. The version 1.08 patch updates classic Diablo 2 to be more like the expansion so that not everyone has to buy the expansion to get some of it's updates. I encourage everyone that has played or does play Diablo 2 to purchase Diablo 2: LoD.

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