Diablo 2 (2000) review
To commemorate the release of “Diablo 2: Resurrection”, we released the original review of “Diablo 2”. This review was published in the 86th issue of PC Gamer UK in September 2000. We are making a new comment on “Diablo 2: Resurrection”.Is online, you can find Fraser’s impressions here.
My arm hurts. Although I want to say something to Diablo II that is not conducive to it, when my criticism is compared with common muscle pain, my criticism is ultimately meaningless. Although I will call it repetitive and non-original, claiming that it encourages indecent games and curses its fetishism’s immaturity, the simple and painful fact is that Diablo II has been played since Half-Life. The cruelest addictive game ever. It swallows time. You sit down and have a quick play-just to find the next dungeon, you tell yourself; just to know your direction in the next part-and then you will regain consciousness as the alarm clock rings from the bedroom, and one arm suffers from the whole night Click the mouse and become so nervous that you can hardly feel a part of you.
The basic hypnotic appeal of the game is obvious; a tried and tested formula. You create an insignificant poor character, and then run around in a fantasy world to fight monsters. Your efforts will be rewarded with more and more powerful weapons, armors, and magical items, as well as another self that grows in power as he or she gains experience.Then, as the game progresses, you can deal with stronger monsters… and gain a stronger energy boost… which allows you to defeat or even more Powerful monsters… thus further enhancing the player’s character… etc.
This is the paradigm for almost all computer role-playing games, from the ASCII character dungeons of the mainframe Hack to the team-based missions of Baldur’s Gate.Continuous motivation is always a prospect Slightly higher number Just around the corner-Craft Axe (Damage 3-12) replace your existing Axe (Damage 3-11), or Glorious Chain Gloves (Defense: 14) instead of Advanced Chain Gloves (Defense: 11). This often leads to spending a lot of time adjusting inventory and staring at statistics screens, hoarding gold and wondering whether to buy cool-looking magic weapons from town merchants, or wait until you stumble upon something better in some dungeon.
The genius of Diablo II is that it caters to this RPG prototype and uses it to do two very different things.
My arm is very, very painful.
First, it contains stereotypes and provides the purest realization of the original dungeon crawling experience. “Diablo 2” is condensed to the most basic elements. It is a real-time full-action slaughter event with simple click controls, a large number of monsters to be killed, and thousands of finely differentiated items for players to accumulate and play . No need to manage parties, no lengthy conversations, all you need is an omnipotent hero. Six non-player characters will chat with towns that provide services on request, but none of them have any real personality-they are just vending machines on their laps. Once out of the city, everything you encounter is a clear “bad thing” and must be quickly sent to hell; the task of building a process in the game is basically “Go to this place and kill everything you find there”. (These places are often called “evil nests” or something-no, really.)
In the classic way, you will trade items in the town and upgrade your character’s abilities with each increase in level. When you start to care about their development, you will really start to appreciate the large selection of items provided in the game, and find yourself becoming very anxious when choosing whether to make room for the inventory of Victory Broadsword-this means abandoning you and always carry it with you Carrying platinum pointed mouth (I didn’t make it up).
(Image source: Future)
No matter how unoriginal this structure may be — and its unoriginal nature is amazing — there is no doubt that it has a strong appeal. The developer Blizzard North certainly knows what they are doing: the game runs smoothly (no occasional tremor around steps and levels). It has an intuitive interface and many neat touches (I will discuss in detail later). Very good, there is never any unnecessary pause in the action. There is no load interruption when you move from one map area to another, and when you browse the other half of the inventory and character management windows, the playback window remains active on one half of the screen.
For now, it’s all good-but it hardly screams “outstanding game”. As I suggested before, it is fundamentally repetitive. It replaces obsession with objects to attract narrative and reward bloody perseverance for élan. Whether you slash the Huntress with an axe to cause two damage per attack, or use the Roaring Glacier Great Scepter to knock her down and kill her with one hit, you still just point to the creature and click the mouse button. Your screen roles may have become more proficient, but you have not.
However, without interrupting the ruthless beat of the game’s dungeon exploration heart, Blizzard made Diablo II into something more satisfying, surpassing the prototype, and creating a surprisingly subtle game. Execution with Blizzard’s trademark attention to detail, it turned out that this is a much better game than we expected.
The main factor in the success of Diablo II is the true flexibility it offers you in character development. There are five different professions to choose from, each of which is completely different-not only in the balance of statistical attributes, but also in the availability of additional skills, which has a real impact on the way any particular character plays.
(Image source: Future)
The four basic attributes—strength, agility, vitality, and energy—will change as you gain experience points, and affect regular attributes, such as attack and defense capabilities, your ability to use certain weapons, and your life (HP ) And mana (spell and skill abilities) total. At the same time, each role occupation has a unique set of skills that can be learned and developed through the careful allocation of skill points. There are 30 skills available for each profession, and the more points you assign to each skill, the more effective it is-but, interestingly, these points are difficult to obtain, especially in the later stages of the game. You can only get one skill point for each level of the character, so every choice is very important. The area you decide to specialize in will determine your character’s strategy throughout the adventure.
Issue #86
(Image source: Future)
This review was first published in the September 2000 edition of PC Gamer UK. Here are some other comments from the month and what we said:
Grand Prix 3: 95%
“Not only this year’s best F1 simulation game, but also the best We played the game for a long time. “
Icewind Valley: 84%
“The epic dungeon crawl is below the high standards set by its inspiration.”
Kiss Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child: 80%
“A true archer who has returned to basics, managed to put the tribe back where it was.”
Pompeii: The Legend of Vesuvius: 29%
“Bring boredom to new depths. Friends, Romans, compatriots: don’t buy this game.”
For example: I play my main single player game as a paladin, and one of his earliest optional skills is Smite, which is the ability to slam the opponent with a shield. If successful, it will knock back the enemy and stun it. The more points you give to this skill, the more damage you will cause with a blow and the longer it takes to stun your opponent. So I poured the skill points into this feat, although it felt a little useless at first, until it changed. Become a highly effective tactic. Large, powerful creatures can be easily dealt with with repeated heavy blows, and cannot strike my Paladin because they are in a coma during the entire encounter.
However, this decision has many side effects. This means that I am committed to close combat, rather than long-range attacks, and have overlooked another useful paladin ability: the Holy Arrow, which can shoot down undead creatures at long range. And because I now have to carry a shield at all times, it eliminates the possibility of using any two-handed weapons, so I have to focus on finding the best one-handed weapons. This also means that I did not develop any special defense skills. However, coupled with my magic shield specially designed for this purpose by a friendly blacksmith, it is still a very useful special action. (Although not as useful as Zeal-but that is another matter…)
Similarly, Amazon players must decide as early as possible whether to specialize in arrows, spears, or javelins, while the barbarian must stick to several preferred weapon categories and decide whether to use one-handed weapons and shields or whether to use his Double Swing to move and use two at the same time. Put a one-handed weapon. Skills are arranged in a tree structure, and advanced actions are developed from early skills, so each player will naturally find himself focusing on one or two areas at the expense of others.
(Image source: Future)
In addition to the true “role-playing” aspect of Diablo II, the wide variety of items available in the game also help to achieve true strategic complexity. There has never been any ultimate “best” weapon or armor; your needs will depend on your character’s personal strengths and the types of monsters you anticipate, as well as personal preferences, extreme rarity of specific items, and their ability to modify them. Certain items can improve attribute statistics or are specifically designed to enhance specific occupational skills, so you will continue to face interesting choices. In fact, you can only store a very limited number of devices, so you find yourself throwing away items, even if they might prove to be priceless one day, which adds to the richness even further. The same is true for the appearance of inlaid items. Rare jewels can be inserted into them to give them magical powers according to your judgment.
The low-resolution graphics were disappointing at first.
As your understanding of character strategy deepens, so will your understanding of the tactical wisdom of Diablo Il. Attacking the nearest monster just by holding down the mouse button and walking around will not work. You will gradually learn to switch weapons and skills to maximize your effectiveness against different types of enemies in encounters, determine when to use restorative potions and when to retreat, and begin to appreciate the implementation of good endurance functions.
Holding down the Ctrl key while moving allows you to run to your stamina level for how long you have left—and this strategy has always proven to be invaluable because you pass through the dashing army of demons to attack the lurking leader behind them and offset him The ability to resurrect the slain minions of the dead. Or simply rush through a dungeon, through hordes of bad guys, whose health is extremely low, and then rush to the exit desperately.
There are many other great things in Diablo II. The opening part of the game (divided into four separate chapters) may be a bit boring, but the structure of the next three chapters is much more interesting, with its own very unique look and feel. Among the familiar skeletons, zombies and spiders, there are some impressive monster characteristics, and the music is good enough to not be turned off.
(Image source: Future)
The fixed viewing angle and low-resolution graphics (fixed to 640 x 480) may be disappointing at first, but they are clear enough and come alive with some excellent touch. Spells and other magic will produce some truly spectacular special effects; real-time lighting ensures that the burning corpse will illuminate the wall most pleasingly; there are some beautiful…
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