Here is the conclusion of our in-depth look at Diablo III!

Those who have been following the game for any length of time know that the art style has been the subject of unending controversy. The designers went for a ‘painterly’ style, and a vociferous group of fans claimed that it was too cartoony and colorful. While it is true that Diablo III looks different from its predecessors, the new style works. The scenery in this game is some of the best I have ever seen. It is true that there is a lot of color, but you need color to make the areas distinct and interesting. Wandering through four acts of darkness and gloom would get old very quickly. The autumnal areas of Act I and the luminous halls of Act IV deserve special mention for their superior execution.

Diablo III also features a stunning array of monsters. Each act has a diverse bestiary, with few overlaps. The monsters also deploy an equally diverse arsenal of attacks. The Dune Dervishes of Act II spin wildly, deflecting projectiles in the process, while the Morlu Casters of Act II can call down meteors from the sky to cause your character a world of pain. Champion and Elite monsters also receive special modifiers, such as ‘Vortex’ (which allows them to pull you into melee range) and ‘Waller’ (where they cause walls of stone to rise up and block your path). In Normal mode, Champions and Elites get one modifier, but in subsequent difficulty levels they get an additional one, which means they can have up to four in Inferno. Running into a pack of foes that are Wallers/Jailers/Arcane Enchanted/Invulnerable Minions is enough to give even the hardiest adventurer pause.

One area where the game fell flat was the story. For the past four years, the developers have been bragging that Diablo III would have the best story of all the games. But while it had some really cool moments, it also had some glaring plot holes. The random lore books that you find scattered throughout the world are really well done though. One also has to wonder why they felt the need to bring back no fewer than three minibosses from earlier games. Nostalgia is all well and good, but in this case it felt a bit forced. Blizzard also needs to realize that having villains explain their plans in a gloating fashion is the worst kind of cliché.

There are also times when the game feels… incomplete. Acts III and IV feel rushed, though the designers have maintained that this was a deliberate design decision to heighten the feeling of suspense by rushing the player toward the climax. But it is not just a question of pacing: those two acts seem to have fewer random areas and events than the two previous acts. It is also regrettable that the final act does not feature its own ‘town’ like the other three acts did. Given the final act’s spectacular setting, it would have been cool if we had had the chance to interact with more NPCs. In Act IV, you encounter a hostile NPC and it looks like you are going to have to fight him, but then he suddenly falls over (well, it is a bit more complicated than that, but I do not want to spoil it for those of you who have not seen it yet). It seems obvious that Blizzard had to cut the fight for some reason (perhaps to save it for an expansion pack?), but the change seems quite bizarre.

But do not let these quibbles dissuade you: Diablo III is still a fantastic game and a worthy addition to the series. It is every bit as addictive as its predecessors, and chances are you will find yourself staying up until all hours of the night as you try to clear out one more area or get one more skill. The little pockets of randomness that are sprinkled throughout the world make the game seem fresh, even on the tenth playthrough. All in all, it is an excellent piece of game design, and it is well worth the insanely long wait.

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After nearly twelve years of development, Diablo fans can finally return to Sanctuary to fight the forces of the Burning Hells once more. Diablo III hit store shelves with a great deal of fanfare, and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that it was one of the most eagerly anticipated titles of the decade. But does the game live up to its hype? In a word: yes.

Diablo III follows the same basic formula as its predecessors. Players choose one of five classes (Barbarian, Witch Doctor, Monk, Demon Hunter, and Wizard), each of which has its own unique set of skills. You must then journey through four different acts, ridding the world of Sanctuary of monsters as you go. As you gain more experience, your character gains access to different abilities. He or she also finds progressively greater loot, and the hunt for better items can become a game-within-a-game. Although the default mode is single-player, fans can also team up with up to three other people to fight demons cooperatively. There are four difficulty levels, ranging from Normal to Inferno. Inferno is meant to be brutal, and only characters who have reached the highest level will have a chance of surviving. But it is also where the best loot will be found.

Each of the five classes plays very differently. As you might expect, the Barbarian is a tank who specializes in dealing (and taking) huge amounts of damage. The Wizard, on the other hand, has been described by the design team as a ‘glass cannon’ who can dish out quite a bit of punishment, but cannot take much in return. The Monk is a martial arts master who strikes quickly and deploys special auras to heal himself and his teammates. The Witch Doctor is the spiritual successor to Diablo II’s Necromancer, and he makes use of poison, curses, and pets to kill his foes. The Demon Hunter is a ranged class who plays like a cross between the Amazon and the Assassin from Diablo II. Her primary attacks use bows and crossbows, but she is also capable of laying down deadly traps.

The skill system has been one of the most controversial aspects of the game. In Diablo II, players had to invest skill points to access skills and improve their performance. Now, skills simply unlock based on character level, and players eventually have access to all of their characters’ skills. However, you can only have six skills active at any one time (by default, they are bound to the left and right mouse buttons and the 1-4 keys), and while you can switch skills at any time, there is a 15-second cooldown if you do so outside of town. Because a skill’s damage is now tied to the character’s weapon damage, there is no need to put points into a skill since skills now ‘level up’ as the character gains better gear. This also means that you can continue to use your first skill throughout the game, if you choose.

Skills are divided into categories, and each category is bound to a mouse button or key unless you go into the game options and enable Elective Mode, which gives you the freedom to bind your skills to whichever button/key you please. Unless you are brand new to the action-role-playing genre, you will probably want to go ahead and enable Elective Mode. The default settings are way too restrictive, and can actually make the game more difficult in higher levels.

Each skill also has five runes, which are also unlocked as you progress. Activating a rune modifies the skill in some way. Sometimes, it is as basic as adding more damage, but it can also change the nature of the skill entirely. For instance, the Sleet Storm rune changes the Wizard’s Ray of Frost skill from a beam of cold energy to a swirling vortex that freezes enemies in her vicinity. Runes are an exciting addition to the game, and they help keep the leveling process interesting after you reach level 30 and have unlocked all your basic skills.

Some fans have complained that the skill system does not allow for sufficient customization. They argue that, since everyone has access to everything, players will eventually resort to cookie cutter builds. In actuality, this does not seem to be the case. Because Blizzard has made a concerted effort to ensure that all skills remain viable to some extent throughout the entire game, players have a lot more freedom to tailor their builds to their own particular play style. In my own experience, my friends and I end up using completely different skills, yet our builds still manage to work. In Inferno difficulty, your skill choices become a bit more limited, but Blizzard has said that they plan on rectifying this in a forthcoming patch.

Combat also feels a lot more tactical. In Diablo II, players often focused on spamming a couple of high-level skills, but now you have to be much more careful when deploying your skills. Cooldowns and resource restrictions force you to deploy your skills carefully instead of just mashing buttons. You have to balance offense, defense, and ‘crowd control’ in a way that was largely absent from earlier games. Finding the right combination of skills to defeat a particularly difficult pack of elite monsters is much more rewarding than just blitzing them with one or two skills.

Followers have also received a big upgrade in Diablo III. You can choose either the Templar (a melee character), the Scoundrel (a ranged character), or the Enchantress (a mage). As in the previous game, you can give them weapons and armor, but now you can also choose the skills they use as they gain experience. For example, the Templar can heal you, while the Scoundrel can spray his foes with poisoned arrows. Followers also have distinct personalities, and they will converse with your character throughout the game. Some of their lines are quite amusing, though they can get repetitive after a while.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our in-depth look at Diablo III!

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Blizzard’s Diablo 3 breaking sales records to become the fastest selling PC game of all time should come as no surprise. The title, long awaited and massively hyped, sold over 3.5 million copies in its first day of release despite issues at launch, eventually breaking the 6 million mark before the week closed.

What is surprising is that Max Payne 3, Rockstar Games’ big release of the year, managed to outsell Blizzard’s much-anticipated gem in the UK. In physical copies, at least, Max Payne 3 was able to sell 8,000 more copies than Diablo 3 to the British gamers, locking on to the number one spot in UK sales charts.

While digital copies are not counted in the charts, Max Payne 3 achievement says a lot, and may be proof that new Max Payne games are a worthwhile endeavor.

The original Max Payne game was released in July 2001 for Windows and was later ported to the PS2, Xbox, Macintosh, and the Gameboy Advance. Its grit and hard-boiled atmosphere garnered much praise from prestigious gaming websites such as IGN and Gamespot, and a sequel soon followed. Subtitled “The Fall of Max Payne,” it followed in much the same vein as its predecessor. Despite positive reviews from the same major websites (although many criticized the short length), sales were unsatisfactory. According to the website VGChartz, the game eventually went on to sell 2 million across all consoles (the original sold 3.3 million) but the damage was already done. The only entry in the Max Payne series until now was a (predictably bad) movie tie-in released in 2008.

Leading up to Max Payne 3’s release, Rockstar began an aggressive advertisement campaign—a risky move, considering Max Payne is not one of the companies’ flagship series, titles that guaranteed to rake in a lot of money such as Grand Theft Auto. Also unlike Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne games (3 included) have been traditionally linear, resulting in little replay value, and relatively short game play. Max Payne 3 aims to fix this by including a multiplayer mode, lauded by critics.

Could this incentive to keep players busy after completing the story mode result in more sales?  The Diablo Battle Chest was the 18th bestselling PC game of 2008, mostly due to its online mode. Online multiplayer modes seem to be the path to success. Could it be the key to Max Payne reestablishing itself as a franchise? A strong online following certainly would help the series. There is not much Max Payne fans can do, other than cross their fingers and wait.  Oh, and play more Max Payne.

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The launch of Diablo III made headlines, but not in the way Blizzard Entertainment would have liked. After waiting for twelve years, Diablo fans learned that technical problems could be more fearsome than any demon when the game’s servers crashed spectacularly on release day.

Unlike the earlier games in the series, Diablo III requires players to be connected to the Internet at all times, even when playing the game’s single-player campaign.

Over two million people pre-ordered Diablo III, and there were over 8,000 midnight launch parties worldwide. But when eager fans tried to enter the world of Sanctuary, they put an enormous strain on the company’s servers. They were confronted with an esoteric group of error messages, the most popular of which was Error 37, which was so widespread that it became a trending topic on Twitter. While whiling away the hours of downtime, frustrated players vented their frustration by creating numerous Error 37 memes.

Blizzard was forced to take the Diablo servers offline no fewer than three times for ‘emergency maintenance.’ Players also experienced numerous random disconnects. When I attempted to play the game, I was disconnected no fewer than five times throughout the day. Lag remained an issue as well, with combat becoming a mess as characters and monsters rubber-banded all over the screen as the main servers struggled to keep up with gameplay.

The final bout of maintenance ended at 11:21 pm PST, which was actually ahead of schedule for a change. Thankfully, Blizzard seemed to have gotten things under control, and the game played very well, without any of the login problems, random disconnects, and terrible lag that marred earlier play sessions.

These connectivity woes cast fresh doubt on Blizzard’s controversial decision to make Diablo III online-only. When the decision was first announced, Blizzard claimed that it was a necessary step to combat hacking.

They rejected the idea of having separate characters for single player and multiplayer, alleging widespread anger among Diablo II players who were unable to play multiplayer games with their single player characters. However, another (perhaps more plausible) explanation might be that, because real money is at stake in the game’s Auction House, Blizzard has to be even more vigilant about hacks and dupes.

Diablo III’s technical woes have generated a firestorm of bad press for Blizzard, and media outlets from Kotaku to the Daily Mail covered the glitches in excruciating detail. Despite these ‘teething troubles,’ the initial reviews of the game are generally positive. The Toonari Post will have its own review posted in the near future, so stay tuned!

Image Courtesy of    http://eu.battle.net

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Welcome back to our coverage of Patch 13! In the last installment, I talked a bit about the new rune system that Blizzard unveiled. That was by far the biggest single change, but Patch 13 made a host of smaller changes to the game as well.

Every character has had the order of their skills adjusted. Few of the changes were terribly dramatic. In most cases, it is just a matter of getting a skill a little bit sooner or a little bit later than you did before. But a few skills (such as the Wizard’s Disintegrate) have been taken out of the beta entirely since they are now beyond the level 13 cap. Similarly, a few skills that used to be above that cap have now been moved down into beta territory.

The Wizard continues to be my favorite character. This time around, instead of relying on my tried-and-true combo of Spectral Blade and Arcane Orb, I experimented with using Shock Pulse as my main attack. Shock Pulse is a lot like Charged Bolt from Diablo II, in that it sends out bolts of energy that move randomly. It can be difficult to hit specific targets, even if you are standing right in front of them. But it does have two redeeming features.

First, because it is a Signature Spell, you do not have to use Arcane Power to cast it; this is even more important now that the Wizard’s Arcane Power regeneration has been reduced. Second, when you use the Explosive Bolts rune, enemies killed with Shock Pulse will explode, doing lightning damage to nearby monsters.

But the stars of the show were undoubtedly Electrocute and Arcane Torrent. Electrocute is not new, but it now unlocks at level 11 instead of level 13, which makes it much easier to reach without a bunch of grinding. It is sort of like a combination of Lightning and Chain Lightning from Diablo II.

You cast it by holding down the mouse button, and it will leap from monster to monster. It will even leap to destructible pieces of the environment, such as urns and tree stumps. In its un-runed state, it only does 70% of  weapon damage as lightning damage, but since it is a Signature Spell, you can spam it all you want. When you add Arcane Orb and Wave of Force, you can handle almost anything in the beta.

Arcane Torrent is a newcomer to the beta, however, and it allows you to bombard a location with a bunch of purple arcane projectiles. Its base damage is lower than Arcane Orb, but in some respects it is easier to use because it casts faster and, unlike Arcane Orb, you do not have to worry about it detonating prematurely, in case a monster comes between you and your target.

The biggest surprise was probably the Witch Doctor. I had played her a little bit in previous versions, but she just did not ‘click’ with me the way the Wizard or the Monk did. But I like her a lot more in Patch 13. As I mentioned in Part 1, her Poison Dart skill benefits greatly from the addition of runes.

Grasp of the Dead also seems improved, though the Patch Notes only mention an increase in the amount it reduces enemies’ movement speed. Of course it could be that Grasp of the Dead is just more noticeable now, because the new guided mode automatically binds it to your left mouse button when you unlock it at level 2. Before, I had to make a conscious effort to choose it.

Sadly, the Demon Hunter remains the runt of the litter. Not only do his initial skills lack the flashy pyrotechnics of the Monk or the Wizard, but he also has the hardest time killing monsters. Part of the problem is that he does not really have a good area of effect skill at first. Hungering Arrow can hit multiple enemies, but it is still too linear.

Bola Shot can damage nearby enemies when it explodes, but I have not found it to be terribly effective in dealing with groups. The closest thing he gets to a proper AOE skill is something called Caltrops, but all it does is slow enemies who walk over it. You would think that something named after sharp metal spikes would do some sort of physical damage to enemies! As much as I would like to see D3 released ASAP, I hope they will take some extra time and polish the Demon Hunter a bit more.

I had hoped that Patch 13 would do something to make crafting seem less overpowered, but in that respect I was sorely disappointed. The stuff the blacksmith makes for you is still much better than most of the magical loot you find. There is no real downside to crafting either. The average crafted item at this level costs around 150 gold pieces and requires three Subtle Essences, yet my five characters have around 15,000 gold pieces and 50 Subtle Essences between them.

Once my characters have leveled-up enough to wear crafted items, loot becomes little more than a source of raw materials. Crafting just feels cheap, both literally and figuratively. I hope that things balance out later on in the game, so that the blacksmith’s items end up being either more expensive or less powerful.

Patch 13 has been a lot of fun, and the game continues to shape up nicely. Even though I have run through the same areas dozens of times now, the gameplay still manages to be addicting, which definitely bodes well for game’s long-term prospects. Blizzard has said it is shooting for a second quarter release, so with any luck we are already in the home stretch!

The article Diablo III Beta: Patch 13 Review Part 2 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Last weekend, Blizzard released Patch 13 for the Diablo III beta. At long last, fans have a chance to try the new skill and rune system the developers have been working on over the past few months.

The introduction of runes is probably the biggest change in Patch 13. Like almost every aspect of the game, runes have had a rather convoluted history. Originally introduced as ‘runestones’, they were supposed to be loot items that could be socketed into skills in order to modify that skill in some way.

They came in five colors, and their effects ranged from the mundane (putting an Alabaster runestone into the Wizard’s Magic Missile increased its damage) to the bizarre (putting a Crimson runestone into the Witch Doctor’s Zombie Charger turned it into a zombie bear). Each stone had seven ranks, with the higher-level ones becoming progressively rarer. This system was never incorporated into the beta, and few people outside of Blizzard had the chance to experiment with it.

But Patch 13 unveiled a dramatically-revamped system. Runestones have become ‘skill runes,’ and they are no longer droppable items. Now, they are part of the redesigned skill interface and they automatically unlock based on your character level. The color-coding is gone too, as are the different ranks. Each skill still has five possible runes that can be applied to it, but you will not be able to level them up. But their base effects remain more or less unchanged.

Given the limited scope of the beta, players only get to experience a fraction of the total number of runes. Even though the sample is limited, I was impressed with how they radically altered the gameplay. Take the Witch Doctor’s Poison Dart skill, for example. It is the first skill a Witch Doctor receives, but there is nothing particularly special about it to begin with.

Before Patch 13, I usually switched to something else as soon as possible. But when you equip the Splinters rune, you shoot several darts in quick succession, sort of like a machine gun. It is a dramatic improvement, and I kept Poison Dart as my main attack throughout the beta.

Runes can also alter a skill’s basic properties. Adding the Bounding Light rune to the Monk’s Fists of Thunder skill removes the knockback and adds a chain of lightning that strikes nearby foes, so players have to decide if they would rather have added damage or knockback. In theory, runes will help keep skills viable throughout the entire game, unlike in Diablo II where most skills became obsolete at some point. They also add a welcome element of customization.

Because runes offer so many potential changes, you can eventually adjust every skill to fit your play style. Of course not everybody is happy with the new rune system. Some fans are up in arms, claiming that there is now less customization since everybody automatically gets the same runes instead of having to find them as loot. I disagree. Chances are, lower-level runes would have dropped quite frequently, so it would have been easy for players to get all five colors.

Higher level runes of each color would have been rarer, but they would only increase the skill’s power. The rune’s underlying mechanic would stay the same. So the difference between individual rune levels would probably not have been terribly dramatic, and I am not sure they constituted meaningful customization (“Your Wizard’s Magic Missile can do 126% weapon damage? Ha! Mine can do 128%!”). The rune system does allow players to adjust a skill to fit their preferred play style, and I think that is much more important than fussing over numbers.

The only real complaint I have about the system is the new skill interface. It is horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Part of the problem is that Blizzard has decided to implement a new ‘guided mode’ where certain skills are automatically mapped to certain buttons. Now, skills are divided into categories. There are three general categories that all characters share (primary, secondary, and defensive), plus three class-specific categories (in the Wizard’s case, they are arcane, conjuration, and mastery).

When you are in guided mode, primary skills are bound to your left mouse button, secondary skills to your right mouse button, defensive skills are bound to the ‘1’ key, and so on and so forth. But if you want to bind primary skills to both mouse buttons, or put a defensive spell on the mouse instead of the keyboard, you are out of luck unless you go into the game options and check the box for ‘Elective Mode.’ Even then, the process of switching skills from one button/key to another is terribly awkward.

I am not one to QQ about things, but this new skill interface needs to go. While they are at it, I think they could safely do away with guided mode too. I realize they are just doing it to make life easier for casual gamers and people who are brand new to action RPGs, but I think they are offering help where it is not really needed.

The game already assigns skills to certain keys by default. If you do not want to mess around with your keybindings, you do not have to. But forcing people to use the defaults unless they enable a different game mode is just stupid. Check back soon for the second part of our coverage of Patch 13, including a look at how each character’s skills have changed.

Image Courtesy of   http://eu.battle.net

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DC Comics recently released the second installment of Sword of Justice, their new five-part series set in the world of Diablo, Blizzard Entertainment’s hit ARPG.

Issue #2 picks up right where its predecessor left off. Jacob ends up killing his father in self-defense, but it seems as if the old man’s mind had been poisoned by some mysterious ailment. With his last breath, he warns Jacob not to touch his blood. Back in the present, Jacob is still in the mysterious cave he discovered in the previous issue, staring at a glimmering sword that protrudes from the ground.

Jacob pulls it free, much to the relief of the hooded woman who had been guarding it. She introduces herself as a wizard named Shanar, and unlike most comic book females, she is actually somewhat modestly clothed. No chainmail bikini for her! She delivers some exposition about the sword, but her spiel is cut short when thugs from Jacob’s homeland pay him a visit. Jacob is reluctant to see them killed, so he forces Shanar to pull her magical punches.

In a nice nod to Diablo III, Shanar fights with wizard spells that will appear in-game, such as Electrocute and Wave of Force. Of course no good deed goes unpunished, and Jacob is rewarded for his mercy by being knocked unconscious and taken prisoner. Thankfully, Shanar returns to Jacob’s side and helps him to escape his captors. But the bad guys prove to be persistent, and Shanar uses a teleportation spell to whisk herself and Jacob from their grasp.

They end up in the Black Marsh near the Forgotten Tower (two areas that will be familiar to players of Diablo II), but the issue’s last panel suggests that they might have exchanged the frying pan for the fire.

The first issue was understandably a bit heavy on the exposition, but scriptwriter Aaron Williams has toned it down in Issue #2. He has also done a nice job of incorporating some of the newer lore that has been developed for the Diablo universe. The bit about the Crystal Arch in the High Heavens fits in nicely with the Book of Cain.

And speaking of lore, it is interesting to note that Williams told IGN that he had originally planned to have a scene in the Forgotten Tower. He ended up dropping it because the Tower apparently shows up in Diablo III and he did not want to create continuity problems. If the Tower does indeed make a comeback in Diablo III, it would be nice if we actually got to see it; in Diablo II, we only saw the (rather expansive) basement!

Despite Williams’ obvious talent, there are some plot issues that left me scratching my head in confusion. Take the battle in the cave, for example. Jacob tells Shanar not to kill the thugs, which seems spectacularly unwise given the circumstances. His decision to show them mercy might have been more believable if he were trying to reason with them, but he makes no such attempt.

Instead, he fights in moody silence and refuses to deliver killing blows. But what does he hope to gain by holding back? Does he hope his enemies will just get frustrated and leave him alone? Perhaps Williams was trying to show Jacob as naive and good-hearted, but instead he comes dangerously close to being ‘Too Stupid To Live’.

Similarly, when Shanar helps Jacob escape after he is captured, it seems hard to believe that she would not attack the thugs while they were busy dismembering their dinner. They were totally distracted; it would be the perfect opportunity for Shanar to take them all out. At the very least, she and Jacob should have discussed some sort of counterattack. Instead, she and Jacob just run off into the woods. That sort of behavior seems to be dictated by plot necessity rather than logic.

Those matters aside, Issue #2 was an enjoyable read. Overall, the story remains compelling, and it will be interesting to see what else Williams has in store for Jacob and Shanar.

The article Diablo III: Sword of Justice Issue #2 Review appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Here is Part 2 of our look at the Diablo III beta!

As longtime Diablo fans know, the game’s art style has attracted a fair bit of controversy over the years. Some of the earliest screenshots showed a bright, autumnal world that struck some fans as out of place in a dark and gritty series like Diablo. However, if the beta is anything to go by, fears of a shiny and cheerful Diablo are unfounded.

The outdoor environments are decidedly somber, featuring a dark color palette and macabre touches (such as hanging corpses swinging from nearby trees), and the dungeons are littered with the mutilated corpses of townsfolk. True, the art style is rather stylized: the game designers have repeatedly said that they were aiming for a ‘painterly’ aesthetic.

If you are looking for cutting-edge, photo-realistic graphics, you should probably look elsewhere. However, Diablo III’s graphics are stunning, and they have their own grim charm. Judging from the beta, this is going to be an incredibly atmospheric game. The designers have rendered the world with a loving attention to detail that was lacking in previous games.

For example, in Diablo II the outdoor areas were randomly generated, which usually meant that they were large rectangular areas adorned with random bits of scenery. While the map varied from playthrough to playthrough, the world did not really come alive. In Diablo III, the wilderness areas are static, which allows the designers to create a much more detailed landscape. In order to keep things from getting boring, the designers inserted dynamic areas within each map that change each time you visit.

A cellar that was boarded up tight on your first playthrough might be open the next, allowing access to a mini dungeon. I also found myself interacting with the world like never before. Much of the scenery can be destroyed: tables can be smashed to bits and wrought-iron chandeliers dropped on the heads of unsuspecting monsters.

Sometimes, the scenery will attack you. While walking through the catacombs, it is not uncommon for plaques on nearby vaults to spring off as cackling skeletons crawl forth to do battle, and if you stand too close to certain ravines, you may find yourself surrounded by zombies. On higher difficulty levels, moments like these could become quite perilous.

Speaking of peril, I have to admit that the  beta is actually quite easy. There were very few “oh, crap!” moments where I felt like I was in danger of dying. Patch 10 has increased the difficulty somewhat, as I have noticed more packs of ‘champion’ monsters that present more of a challenge (though that is offset by an increase in character hit points).

On the whole, the difficulty is not onerous. That might not necessarily be a bad thing, considering this is the very beginning of the game. While series veterans would undoubtedly appreciate a bigger challenge, the game also has to be accessible for people who are completely new to the series, or even the action-RPG genre as a whole. I imagine that later parts of the game, and the three additional difficulty levels, will present players with the challenges they seek.

Despite its limitations, the Diablo III beta has been an enjoyable experience. Blizzard has put together a solid game that shows signs of being just as addictive as its predecessors. Now if only they would finally release the $^@! thing!

The article Hands-On With the Diablo III Beta: Part 2 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

It is no exaggeration to say that Diablo III is one of the most-anticipated games around. First announced in 2008, it has been mired in a lengthy development cycle that has seen Blizzard’s obsession with iteration reach new heights.

Last September, the game finally entered the beta testing phase, and thanks to the generosity of a friend, I have been able to spend some quality time with the Wizard, Monk, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, and Barbarian as they take the first few steps on the road to defeating the Lord of Terror.

The Diablo III beta test consists of the very beginning of the game (roughly one third of the first act). Not only that, but Blizzard seems to have edited the game to remove as many potential spoilers as possible, so beta testers are only seeing a tiny sliver of the total content. Character progression is capped at level 13, so you can only experience a handful of the available skills.

Despite the limited scope, the beta sucks you in right from the get-go, and you will find yourself fighting monsters within the first few seconds of starting a new game. Unlike previous games in the series, each character starts with a skill, so you feel powerful from the outset.

Blizzard has gone out of their way to make sure that even first-tier skills are satisfying: the Barbarian’s Bash skill can literally knock a monster’s skeleton out of its body, while the Monk’s Fists of Thunder sizzles enemies with a satisfying display of lightning damage. RPG purists might object to this on the grounds that new characters should start the game weak and defenseless, but the Diablo III approach certainly livens up the first minutes of the game.

In terms of gameplay, Diablo III shares many similarities with its illustrious predecessors. At its heart, it is a point-and-click dungeon crawler. But character progression is handled much differently than it was in previous games. It used to be that, upon leveling up, you received a certain number of attribute points that you could allocate to traits such as vitality, dexterity, strength, etc.

Now, the game does the allocation for you. Some players have complained that this removes an important method of customization, but I cannot say that I missed manually assigning my attribute points. In practice, you had to adhere to fairly rigid guidelines if you wanted your character to be viable in Diablo II, so most characters ended up having similar attribute distributions.

The way in which you acquire new skills has also changed. Skills in Diablo III are linked to character level, and you no longer have to allocate skill points to make them more powerful. Now, their damage scales as your stats improve, and you acquire better weapons (even spells are tied to weapon damage).

However, you can only have a certain number of skills active at any one time. You start the game with one active skill slot, which soon increases to two. By the end of the beta, you can have three skills active, though that number will rise to seven when you are playing the full game.

It is possible to change your active skills, though the mechanism for doing so is up in the air. When the beta first started, you could change your skills at any time, but the designers decided that that was too much of an exploit. A patch changed things so that you had to use something called the Nephalem Altar to change skills.

Since the altar was only found in town and at the beginning of one dungeon, changing skills was something of a production. Now, with Patch 10, the Nephalem Altar is gone, and you can once again change skills whenever you want, though there is a 30-second cooldown period for newly-switched skills.

Blizzard has made it clear that this current system is a work-in-progress, which is good since it leaves something to be desired. I can understand why they do not want to allow unfettered skill switches; that would make a mockery of the whole idea of limiting the number of active skills.

However, the 30-second cooldown just seems arbitrary, and it is odd that you have the same cooldown whether you are in the field or in town. Surely skills switched in town should not have any cooldown at all.

Going into the beta, I was a little bit concerned that the current skill system will lead to cookie-cutter builds since players no longer have to worry about spending skill points or investing in prerequisites. Playing the beta has convinced me that those fears are probably baseless.

People are always going to have differing play styles, and that, in turn, is going to influence which skills they choose to activate. For example, when my friend plays the Wizard, he likes to use Disintegrate, a skill that causes a beam of red energy to shoot forth from the Wizard’s hand in a straight line of death and destruction.

I, on the other hand, would much rather use Arcane Orb, which lobs a large galaxy-like ball of arcane energy across the screen until it explodes on contact with a monster. Even within the limited confines of the beta, the two of us were able to take different approaches to the same character. When you add runes (which are not even available in the beta) into the mix, you will have even more opportunities for customization.

Be sure to stay tuned for the second part of our coverage of the Diablo III beta!

The article Hands-On With the Diablo III Beta: Part 1 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Hosted by the star of NBC’s “Chuck” and avid gamer Zachary Levi, executive produced by Emmy Award winner Mark Burnett, and featuring cutting edge in-show augmented reality and world premiere footage from hotly anticipated releases, Spike TV’s ninth annual “Video Game Awards” proved to be a night to remember.

Industry giants gathered as the network celebrated the outstanding artistic and technical achievements in the world of gaming over the past year. Internationally, the ”VGAs” were seen in over 100 countries and territories around the world.

A host of the most influential members of the gaming industry, as well as stars from the worlds of sports, television, music, and movies gathered at the biggest night in video games and watched Bethesda Studios release “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” receive the highest honor a game can receive when it took home the coveted Vector Monkey after being named Game of the Year.

“The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” also won Best RPG and garnered Studio of the Year honors for Bethesda Game Studios. Other multiple award winners included “Portal 2,” which won in five prominent categories, including Best PC Game and Best Multiplayer, and “Batman: Arkham City,” which won four Vector Monkeys, including awards for Character of the Year for the Joker, Best Xbox 360 Game, and Best Action Adventure Game.

“The Legend of Zelda” creator Shigeru Miyamoto made a surprise appearance to accept the first ever Video Game Hall of Fame Award on the groundbreaking franchise’s behalf. “We always push ourselves,” said Miyamoto, “and we’re grateful you notice.”

Additional honors included the second ever Gamer God Award, which was bestowed upon Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of the “World of Warcraft,” “Starcraft,” and “Diablo” series.  Original founders Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce were all on hand to accept the prestigious award.

The “VGAs” debuted never-before-seen world premieres of the most anticipated games of 2012 and beyond, including Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us,” the surprise reveals of “Command & Conquer: Generals 2,” “Alan Wake American Nightmare,” Epic Games’ “Fortnite,” “Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance,” “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Patriots,” “Transformers: Fall of Cybertron,” “BioShock Infinite,” and the winner for Most Anticipated Game “Mass Effect 3.”

This year’s show included presenters and appearances by major stars from all over the entertainment world, including Charlie Sheen, Brooklyn Decker, Seth Green, Felicia Day, LL Cool J, Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Tony Hawk, will.i.am, Anders Holm, game designers Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games, and Hideo Kojima of Konami.

The show also featured a performance by Grammy Award winning rock duo, The Black Keys, and Grammy Award nominated dance music innovator deadmau5, who helped transform the show with his visual representation of sound into a real life video game experience.

Additionally, NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice was on hand to announce the results of the vote for Digital Cover Athlete of the forthcoming “NFL Blitz” from EA Sports, with Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens selected by fans who cast their ballot at vga.spike.com during the show.

A full list of winners is included below:

GAME OF THE YEAR
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

STUDIO OF THE YEAR
Bethesda Game Studios

CHARACTER OF THE YEAR
The Joker – Batman:  Arkham City

VIDEO GAME HALL OF FAME AWARD
“The Legend of Zelda”

GAMER GOD AWARD
Blizzard Entertainment

BEST XBOX 360 GAME
Batman: Arkham City

BEST PS3 GAME
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST Wii GAME
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

BEST PC GAME
Portal 2

BEST HANDHELD/MOBILE GAME
Super Mario 3D Land

BEST SHOOTER
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

BEST ACTION ADVENTURE GAME
Batman: Arkham City

BEST RPG
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

BEST MULTI-PLAYER
Portal 2

BEST INDIVIDUAL SPORTS GAME
Fight Night Champion

BEST TEAM SPORTS GAME
NBA 2K12

BEST DRIVING GAME
Forza Motorsport 4

BEST FIGHTING GAME
Mortal Kombat

BEST MOTION GAME
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

BEST INDEPENDENT GAME
Minecraft

BEST ADAPTED VIDEO GAME
Batman: Arkham City

BEST SONG IN A GAME
“Build that Wall (Zia’s Theme)” by Darren Korb – Bastion

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Bastion

BEST GRAPHICS
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN MALE
Stephen Merchant as Wheatley – Portal 2

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN FEMALE
Ellen McLain as GLaDOS – Portal 2

BEST DOWNLOADABLE GAME
Bastion

BEST DLC
Portal 2 Peer Review

MOST ANTICIPATED GAME
Mass Effect 3

GAMETRAILERS.COM TRAILER OF THE YEAR
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations – E3 2011 Trailer

EA SPORTS NFL BLITZ DIGITAL COVER ATHLETE
Ray Rice

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Although Diablo III has been postponed until 2012, fans of the series can tide themselves over by picking up the first issue of Sword of Justice, which hits the shelves this week. Set in the same dark-fantasy world as the game, SoJ is a five-issue comic series published by DC Comics which takes place during the twenty years that elapsed between the ending of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction and the beginning of Diablo III.

The issue starts with a nice little summary of the overarching story of the Diablo universe.  Sanctuary (the world of mortals) was created by angels and demons as a place of refuge. Despite the best intentions, Sanctuary was almost destroyed twice, and each time it owed its salvation to Tyrael, the Archangel of Justice.

We then segue out of the past and into the present, where a young wanderer is confronted by an old beggar who claims to be able to see the future. He knows that the young man’s name is Jacob and that he is being pursued by hostile men. He tells Jacob to seek out a mysterious mountain.

At first, Jacob doesn’t believe the old man’s ramblings, but after almost dying of thirst in the desert, he stumbles upon the mountain that the old seer described. Inside, there’s a great cave whose walls are carved with scenes from his past, and a shining sword protrudes from the stone.

Seeing the scenes on the wall bring back painful memories for Jacob, and the reader finally starts to understand what the young man is running from. Video game tie-ins often leave a lot to be desired, but SoJ manages to be a compelling read. Scriptwriter Aaron Williams has a done a nice job with Jacob’s characterization, and he has a knack for incorporating subtle humor into the dialogue.

The story he’s crafted appears promising, and it will be interesting to see how SoJ fits in with the storyline of Diablo III when it’s finally released. The art, however, may not be to everyone’s liking. If you’re one of the fans who thinks that Diablo III isn’t dark and gritty enough, then you might want to steer clear of SoJ.

Joseph Lacroix’s work is visually appealing, but his highly-stylized drawings may not appeal to those looking for gritty realism. All in all, SoJ is a promising addition to the world of Diablo. It could have easily become a cliched ‘young warrior finds a magic weapon’ story, but it looks like they’ve managed to create something fresh and new.

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