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Diablo II Stress Test Review -By Deathwing
The release of the Diablo II stress test was major news in the Blizzard community, not only did it signal the last phase of development, but also that 100,000 will get the chance to try it out before release. The role of stress test is of extreme importance, while it allowed Blizzard to see that whether their servers could support the huge strain of server-side games and characters, it also acts as a demon. Being as hyped up as it is, the stress test needed to impress consumers, or Blizzard would risk a massive backlash as happened to DaiKatana. So did the Stress Test achieve its goal?
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| By making monsters tougher and drop much better items if there are more people in the game, Diablo II actively encourages team play. ‘The more the merrier’ is case could not be more correct. |
Indeed it did. While the stress test only offered the Barbarian character class and four areas of Act I, it successfully demonstrates the level of detail Blizzard has put into the game. Each of monsters are animated with its own personality, which it retains while charging, fighting or even when dying. With each individual wielding different weapons and often fleeing if outclassed, it gives a feeling that your actually fighting monsters, not a bunch of algorithms the computer throws at you.
The weakness of many online RPGs was the fact that there are only a limited amount of different magical weapons, making it possible the post powerful weapon or armor that is known to exist in the world. Sooner or later, one would wander through the world seeing just about every extremely high level character wielding such as weapon. Diablo II solves this problem with a sophisticated random item system. Using a randomly determined prefix-suffix system as its predecessor, the range of different items featured within are limitless.
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| Even the barbarian has useful ‘spells’. Shown here is his Roar, which frightens away lessen monsters so you can deal was the big boss man to man (or undead woman in this case). |
Rare items were also introduced to increased variation, which combine four two five different prefix and suffixes together and gives the time a random name. These items look similar to unique do in Diablo, but are totally random, and hence no two are ever alike. Powerful rares combine several deadly abilities, such as ‘The Bitter Axe’ pictured here. However the combinations can always get more powerful, and hence there is none of ‘absolute best weapon’ that tends to ruin massively multiplayer online games.
One of the few complaints I have heard is that players still cannot customize their attributes when creating a new character. This has the tendency to make every 1st level Barbarian look fairly much alike. Fortunately this is compensated by the large amount of choices that are given to the player once the game has started. The skill trees is Diablo II function extremely well, and leave players pondering on whether they should blow their skill points all on combat masteries or get active skills that are more powerful but useful only when mana is available. While the stress test only includes the first few skills of each separate tree, the level of choice is readily apparent. So far all six skill slots have proven useful in different situations.
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| Want to create your own weapon? Gems offer a new way for players to customize weapons to their style of play. Beware though, there are plenty of difficult decisions and only three slots. |
The introduction of Gems also brought Diablo II to a new level. These rare pieces of jewelry can not only be sold at a great price like other games, but also inserted into Weapons, Helmets and Shields to bestow powerful magical properties. Gems come in numerous types and five levels, making a huge amount of combinations to be possible. While an item set with three gems have the capacity to be one of the most powerful items in the game; they are extremely rare and gems of the highest level harder to find than most uniques. Due to the fact that once a gem is placed within an item, it can not be taken out, players a forced to make difficult decisions as whether to embed there weapon with a chipped gem or wait for one of better quality.
The stress test offered only a small portion of Act I, including the Den of Evil, two levels of caves, two crypts and four above ground areas while the two quests of the game could easily be completed within one hour of starting a new character. Even so, the game was compelling, additive and thoroughly replayable. The urge to get better items for your character makes it fun even after hacking Blood Raven (the Stress Test boss) to pieces a few hundred times.
When Diablo II was announced to be server based, there was much debate over the amount of extra lag this may cause. However after playing many games, I must say that latency problems were minimal, and much better than Diablo 1. Due to the fact that the realms run all Battle.net games itself, the lagging on one player in the game will not lag everyone else as in traditional games such as SC. The lagged player simply finds that there’s a increased period of time between command and action, kind of like an exaggerated ‘extra high latency’ setting in Starcraft. In most cases, this was no problem, and the game would operate as smooth and as fast as if it was on my hard drive.
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| Have a problem finding something that’s dropped on the ground? The handy alt tab command comes to the rescue, highlighting all the items on the floor. |
While crawling through the caves and crypts, one thought was ever present within me; Haven’t I done this all before? Indeed Diablo II operates nearly exactly the same as Diablo did, but with useful additions here and there, more polished gameplay, and best of all, no hacks. As it’s predecessor, the temptation of ‘just clear off another level and find another item’ is so great that one needs a will of iron to stop himself from playing right through the night. With an intoxicating combination of character improvement and fast paces action that’s not normal found in RPGs, Diablo II is simply a game that you won’t see yourselves putting away any while soon.
While Diablo II may play just like Diablo, there are a few noteworthy improve improvements. No longer are items dropped on the ground difficult to find, by holding down alt + tab, one can see all items that are on the ground. Being able to hold down the mouse button to attack monsters also saves one from aching fingers, and the ability to run makes for a lot more action. While slight, these changes help to give a already great game an ever better experience.
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| Despite it’s resolution limitations, Diablo II still offers stunning special effects. Shown here is the death of Blood Raven, to boss of the Stress Test. |
The only significant weakness in what is otherwise an almost perfect hybrid of RPG and Action is Diablo II’s resolution, or rather the lack of it. While the artists at Blizzard had done a phenomenal job in rendering the terrain, monsters and spell effects, a fixed resolution of 640x480 seems just a bit too low in today’s competitive industry. The monsters animations are good, the glide effects amazing and the special in game sequences after the completion of a mission superb, but all are slightly marred by the low resolution. The low resolution made the game look slightly blurring at times in my 15 inch monitor, which I’m sure will look no better in 21 inch monitors some hard-core gamers have.
Overall the stress test has shown that Diablo II will simply be a great game, one that will definitely arrest your interests for a long, long time. The range of items available are tremendous, the gameplay additive and no longer shall we see ‘Obsidian Rings of Zodiac’ lettered among the floor. While the resolution isn’t the best, it is more compensated by the immense size and level of detail Blizzard has put in. I for one will be eagerly awaiting the full version to hit the shelves sometime around the 1st of July.
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