Diablo III, Blizzard’s #1 most anticipated sequel to one of the greatest action/rpg games of all time is less than a week away, see the new tv spot reveal. I’ve been playing the beta for Diablo III quite a bit and I have to say it has been a “Hell” of a ride! There are many things that make this new installment great, such as not straying too far from its original formula and keeping the thrill of exploring worth while.
The beta for Diablo III only consists of the first section of Act 1, unless you could join up with another player online to experience the portions after that section. You start by choosing one of the 5 character classes and naming him or her before you delve into your dark adventure. Four of the classes in Diablo III are somewhat similar to the ones in the previous 2 games, but the fifth character is a Witch Doctor instead of the Necromancer who was in the first and second. The Barbarian stayed the same, the Wizard takes place of the sorceress, the Monk is also the same and the Demon Hunter is a mixture of the amazon and assassin. This is also the first in the series to allow players to choose male or female for either class, which seems to be the trend of many rpgs nowadays. I personally really liked using the Demon Hunter and the Witch Doctor on my play through.
After choosing my class (Witch Doctor) I jumped right in to the story, within seconds I’m already mutilating undead corpses as they make their way towards me. After helping out a nearby town of an undead invasion, I then become welcomed into their walls to explore the shops and meet other towns people. I did quite a few “go here, do this, collect that” type of quests and I didn’t at all feel bored or annoyed with any of it. I leveled up my Witch Doctor and gained new attacking abilities, such as throwing a jar at enemies only to break open releasing spiders to devour my foes. My main objective is to find, revive and kill the Skeleton King to conclude my time in the beta. I did defeat him with all 5 classes, so I could get a feel for my favorite character attributes and skills. Upon the end of this beta, I definitely felt like a little kid let down wanting more now without the wait. I did give the online portion a small and quick run through for the experience of killing enemies with unknown friends.
While playing this I did have in mind “this is a beta!” just so I wouldn’t be too terribly upset if anything were to happen, like glitches or what ever else. Now I did notice a small hiccup every now and then on the single player campaign which might also be because you are constantly signed into Battle.net the whole time. I know my computer can run this with no problems what so ever and their server being over capped with people could’ve easily been the issue here. Also, there was a small annoyance with logging on to the servers to play since they would get full so fast for most of the day. Once in it seemed to be smooth sailing, aside from the small hiccups in frame rate as I previously mentioned. When I did my quick run through of the online play, I did get kicked from the server a lot more than i would’ve expected. I am pretty positive that Blizzard will be taking care of these issues with many others that I may have or have not even noticed.
If anyone is on the fence about getting Diablo III, take it from me and if you enjoyed the first 2 then why are you even questioning this purchase? I’ve been waiting for this game for quite a long time as many of you have as well. If you plan on getting this game, which shouldn’t even be of question, it releases next week on May 15th.
