Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition

Game Info

I stumble, bleary-eyed, out of my office.  The rest of the house is silent and dark.  I look at my watch; “4:45? Where is everyone? I was only playing Diablo for…  hmm…”  I scroll through the text messages on my phone.  Most are from my boss – “Where are you?”  “If you miss another day of work, you’re fired”  “You’re fired, come get your last check”  “We threw out your last check”.  I look at my watch again, and wonder if I can get through The Butcher on my Hardcore Monk in an Inferno run before Papa John’s stops delivery for the night.  Then I realize, it’s 4:45am and I’ve been playing Diablo 3 for a month.  Let’s just say this game sucks you in.

If this is your first time on the internet, here’s the skinny on D3.  It’s a top-downish isometric action RPG where you kill monsters to level up and gain loot.  The leveling and randomized loot will keep you playing until the electric company shuts off your power for nonpayment.  A falling star landed on a cathedral and you are drawn to investigate.  This leads to the dead rising from their graves, demons attacking, cults being formed, and ultimately, a showdown with Diablo himself.  The big brute of a demon must be slain (again and again) for you to win.  The story is the same tried-and-true formula we gamers see all the time.  “You’re the only one who can save us,” and all that.  Save it, townsfolk – I need a new tiki mask for my Witch Doctor.  And that’s the real deal with the game; the loot and the chase for the loot.  Getting better and better stuff is the real meat of the game, until you get the ultimate sets of gear…  after a ton of playthroughs.  There are 40(!!!) difficulty levels, and cranking it up increases the loot payout, while obviously increasing the risk.  However, it almost never feels like a grind, since the loot chase is so well-implemented.  Even dry spells of not getting gear don’t feel terrible, since there’s just so much of it, the NEXT ONE MIGHT BE LEGENDARY AND IT’S 2AM WHO CARES ABOUT WORK TOMORROW!

Single player is all fine and good if your internet connection doesn’t work, but playing online is where it’s at.  Like other loot treadmill games, this continues to increase the difficulty and loot, but now since you have more firepower, it makes the game a more thrilling challenge.  Fighting tons of enemies with your compatriots is great fun.  Not all these enemies are basic baddies, either.  Occasionally (and frequently at the higher difficulty levels) tougher bad guys with unique names and higher stats will join the melee.  As always in this game, it increases the challenge, which increases the loot.  This incremental difficulty adjustment allows for very fine changes in enemy makeup and strength, which is great for tailoring a personalized experience.

Hats off to Blizzard for making, by a wide margin, the best action RPG out there again.  Diablo changed the game in 1996, and aside from rampant cheating in the online mode, was practically flawless.  Diablo 2 cost me hundreds of dollars in computer mice, as I’d break the left mouse button from all that clicking.  Diablo 3’s release to consoles is another near-flawless game, without a doubt far better than any competitors on the market right now.  But we’ve just discussed the main game, what about the additional Ultimate Evil stuff?  Well strap in kiddo, because it does everything you want it to.

Ultimate Evil edition adds the Reaper of Souls expansion, which includes an additional act at the end of the game.  Now you need to kill the eponymous Reaper, a baddie named Malathiel.  The new town is a nice addition, and the extra areas are great to storm through – although the final battle can get a bit annoying.  Don’t go in with your hardcore character first, just an FYI.  A new melee character, the Crusader, gives you another person to smash up enemies.  He’s a beefcake paladin-style guy who uses monstrous shields and can eventually wield 2-handed weapons with one hand.  Level caps have been raised to 70, allowing a few more additional powers, passives, and mods to your current setup.  Zombie piranhas make an appearance.  But the best part – and your greatest timesink – will be Adventure Mode.  Although Adventure Mode is locked until you beat Act V, it’s great.  It’s basically an endless mishmash of previous areas and enemies, with various special areas and massive loads of loot in case you thought you could go outside for an hour or so.  Plus, the simple added bonus of not having to chase down footprints in the sand like in that one section of Chrono Trigger is very nice.  You’ll be put on quests, such as go here and kill this guy, or collect this item.  When you beat these, you get “Bloodstones” and a key to unlock a special, way tougher level.  The Bloodstones are a new kind of currency to pick up even more powerful gear.  And although the bonus content is not available separately, you can port over your characters on the same platform (PS3 to PS3, etc) so there’s no need to start over.  Going up to a new platform from a previous generation console works – 360 to One, PS3 to PS4 – but not across the console war lines.  It’s not a per character thing, just one big umbrella save.  Tough to describe, but you’ll see what I mean.  Paragon points are introduced too – think Badass Points from Borderlands 2.  Finally, the PS3 edition has extra content and bad guys from The Last of Us, so you get to smash up some mushroom people – no sight of annoying tweens, thankfully.  It comes with some fancy Shadow of the Colossus armor, too.  Also (seriously, this is a great big expansion), the dye process has changed to a whole new customization.  These add visual styles at a new vendor to change an item into how it looks – such as changing some idiot helmet into the cool-looking Leoric’s Crown.  This new vendor also lets you reroll a stat on any item.  This takes cash and crafting materials, but can completely change the usefulness of certain gear pieces.

Graphically, the game is fantastic.  Like nearly all the other action RPG games out there, equipping your character with things will make them look appropriately heroic, but merchants with certain dyes and potions can make your gear look however you want it.  Animations are nice and smooth, and the whole package at 1080p looks like a particularly vivid painting.  After a few hours of playing, you’ll start to recognize little clues as to enemies, spell effects, and the little touches that are put into the game, down to the mystical swirling bones around your legendary bo staff.  The really remarkable thing, however, is that there’s no slowdown at all, even when the action really gets thick.  The only time I’d ever experienced any slowdown was due to a connectivity issue – no fault of the graphics engine, to be sure.  The sound is pretty well done, too.  Audio cues will be easy to recognize after a few fleeting hours in New Tristram, and the huge amount of lore buried in the menus is voiced appropriately.  The voice acting can be a little wonky – everyone is vaguely British, except for the old codger Deckard Cain.  He sounds like his voice actor is an 18-year old kid, told to make an old man voice.  It’s silly, but after getting to adventure mode, you never have to listen to him again.

The Recommendation

If you’re new to action RPG clickfests, you’d might as well start with the best before trying the rest.  Diablo 3 is far superior to any of the competition.  I’d often find myself saying over the flawless voicechat, “this is exactly how these games are supposed to be.”  If you’ve already played Diablo 3, this is a no-brainer buy.  The Adventure Mode is worth the price of admission, and all the extra stuff is (as we say around the office) totally gravy.  Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition is the ultimate buy for this genre, this generation, period.