A Quick Review of Diablo 3

Granted, we’ve only played a couple of hours on Diablo 3, so a full-on review at this point cannot be possible. The best we can do for now is to give you a quick impression of the game as we see it, and then add a “meatier” narrative later on.

First impressions

Alright… what’s the first thing that comes to our minds about Diablo 3? It’s a muddled-up mess. But please don’t think I’m talking about the game. Word on the street is that Blizzard has delivered a total FAIL to its loyal fans by failing to secure enough servers to accommodate the long, long line of excited players trying to activate their copies all at once.

To their credit, Blizzard took action as fast as they possibly could and pulled in as many servers as they can conjure up to accommodate the throngs of enraged players. The good news is that Diablo 3 is now ready to take on all comers, but Blizzard is still hedging its bets by saying that they are still “keeping an eye out” for more problems which are likely to crop up.

Gameplay

So now, let’s talk about the gameplay. Notwithstanding the server-side issues, Diablo 3 provided a very solid, great-looking game that is really fun to play. You’d have to take lots of pauses just to understand the workings

of the skills system, though, but the combat is tops. You’re going to have an easier time playing Diablo 3 if you’re already familiar with these types of games, but if not, you will need to spend a good portion of your playing time pondering the mysteries of the game’s inner workings.

I also picked up on another significant issue. As I played the game, it become quite obvious to me that weapons are far less useful in Diablo 3 as they were in the earlier versions, most probably due to the over-powered skills system. Even when you’re at at the lower levels, you can already power up with several no-cost skills that can make you feel like using your weapon is a waste of time.

The auction houses were also a game-changer, but not in a good way. I decided to buy an axe to see how it could affect my character and my gameplay, and I got the most powerful one that was available for my current level. After spending some time with this new axe equipped, I discovered that I couldn’t pick up anything else that could come close to this auction house bad boy. Somehow, it manages to make the loot system a lot more useless than I originally suspected.

As I mentioned earlier, we were not able to play Diablo 3 for as long as we hoped. But despite the slight criticisms I mentioned above, the overall impression that our crew had was that the game deserves its hype. For its own sake, I look forward to seeing Blizzard displaying its capability to handle future concerns even before they become problems, but as for the game itself, the first few hours we spent with Diablo 3 were a blast.