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DIABLO III Review
As both the fastest selling game of all time - 3.5 million units shipped in less than a day - and the overall best-selling game of 2012, it's not much of a surprise to see Diablo 3 finally making its way to the current crop of home consoles. The Xbox 360 version feels like a PC port every step of the way - with characteristics like tiny character fonts and a very complicated menu system - and it's not the best looking game in history either. Textures are muddy and often quite fuzzy, and if you leap between locations too quickly the pop-in can be pretty drastic. But Diablo 3, as good as it looks on a well-specced PC, didn't become such a gargantuan smash hit by worrying about its looks. Diablo 3 is exactly what everyone expected it to be: a dungeon crawler par excellence.
Blizzard haven't made a console game since the N64 port of Starcraft from back in 1998, but you wouldn't know it from playing this. You don't tend to associate hardcore PC games with things like local co-op and joypads, but both of those new aspects fit the property like a glove. There's even a new combat roll move that's mapped to the right thumbstick; it's available despite which class you choose, whereas it was locked to a single class on PC. Those few differences aside (and visuals notwithstanding obviously) this is the same barnstorming video game that PC players have been enjoying for well over a year now.
In terms of story, newcomers you need only know this: the game takes place in the outrageously bleak fantasy land of Sanctuary (imagine Middle Earth crossed with Westeros or Essos) and play focuses on the series' indomitable hero Deckard Cain. All you need to know about the plot is this: a star has fallen, and a mass of undead foes have mysteriously emerged from the wreckage. That's all you need to know going in: you don't need to be a hardcore fan to follow the rest of the story, as this is very much a stand-alone tale.
Gameplay is in the classic Diablo mould, but rest assured that if you've never played one of these games before, you've almost certainly played one of the games that unceremoniously ripped it off. From the best known (and probably most high-quality) Dungeon Siege series to the polished but slightly bland XBLA romp Crimson Alliance, most gamers have experienced this kind of thing at some point before. It's a seemingly straightforward isometric action-RPG, but there are things like chance events (and a few randomly generated dungeons) to keep things feeling fresh and versatile.
So it's all about smashing, looting and levelling up, and the difficulty curve is judged to absolute perfection. The game's opening tiers are a bit of a breeze, but after a couple of hours you'll start pre-planning everything that you do… because if you don't, you'll die. It's enjoyable enough in single player but it's hard to imagine who'd complain if multiplayer was mandatory: it makes the game at least four times more entertaining. So if you're a console gamer that's new to the genre, make no mistake that this is the best place to start your journey. If you're already a fan of the PC version, this is different enough to warrant a second play through. It just isn't as polished.
8/10
Review By Chet Roivas
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