ON The Insider:
Jessica Simpson Gets Booed
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Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment Developer: Blizzard Entertainment Release: Early 1999 Diablo II looks like it will improve upon its excellent predecessor in almost every way. There are more character classes this time out (five in all - amazon, paladin, necromancer, barbarian, and sorceress), each with distinct skills and attributes. The character skills are an interesting aspect unto themselves; as you gain experience, so do your skills. The skills work as a mini tech-tree, and you cannot access certain skills without a prerequisite number of points in another. However, individual skills gain benefit from additional experience points, so you must take heed not to spread your points too thin. An example of a skill enhancement would be the firebolt spell, which is automatically upgraded to the explosive fireball spell after you allocate a certain number of experience points. Skills can also be assigned to both the right and the left mouse button, letting you replace your primary attack if you desire. Many technical innovations are looking quite promising as well. The new realistic line-of-sight features should make the game a bit more sinister: Characters hiding behind objects won't be visible simply because you're in the same room, as they'll be concealed in shadows that look much more realistic than before. Of further note is the significant absence of loading time - you can run (another new feature) across an expansive wilderness, into a dungeon, through a few rooms and back out again without the slightest hesitation. Other gameplay additions will be interesting to long-time players. For instance, ranged weapons actually require ammunition (bows use arrows, crossbows use bolts). A host of tiny enhancements should also improve the game in many ways (you can see what an item is before picking it up, and you can see how much space an item will take in your inventory before purchasing it). The composite imaging effects are equally impressive, and we were shown an amazon in various combinations of armor and helms, each of which appeared individually on the character. On top of that, Diablo II packs four full chapters of gameplay (each bigger than the original game) and eight-player support over the Internet, complete with multiplayer-only quests and a bartering interface. Diablo II is shaping up to be a worthy successor to the original. |
