Diablo III - Mac, Windows

Fun to play and it has many save points so you do not have to play for hours. You can play an hour or so, save and play another day. Graphics are well done. Game play is interesting and challenging.

im a fan from way back but this game blows hard, i played beta and thought the retail would be better they know this because they give it free to there world of warcraft players, its online only and has more farmers than IN has in corn crops. short and sweet i played D2 for 2-3 years and this is 2-3 weeks. graphic's suc and support team takes 3-5 days to respond good luck

Diablo 3 is a great follow up in the series. The overall gameplay is spot on and the story is overall solid. If you've played a Diablo game (or any action-rpg for that matter# you have a general idea of what you're getting into here, and in those terms what it does it does well. That being said this review is going to focus more on what I see as the short comings of the game. Please note that this is not a negative review of the game, it is a lot of fun, this is more of a heads up of the more drastic changes made to the formula and how they affect the game. As it seems to be a trend in the gaming world lately, many aspects of the game have been over simplified #whether it's a lack of creativity on the side of the developers, or just this overall desire to draw a larger crowd - namely the non-gamers#. First of all in the past Diablo games you were given attributes, in this case strength, dexterity, intelligence and vitality. Each class starts with it's own unique spread of these attributes, just like previous offerings. The difference now is that when you level up the attributes are automatically distributed as opposed to getting 5 points to distribute as you see fit. This seemingly forces the class in the direction and role that Blizzard wanted that class to fit, rather than how the player wants to play it. Sure if you're a wizard you can load up on gear that specifically bumps strength if you want more of it to play more of a battle mage style, but then you limit the equipment you can use. Secondly the skill tree has been simplified. Instead of having a robust tree for every class and a limited amount of skill points to distribute through your journey, now you automatically gain the next skill just by leveling up, and are not able to level that skill up. The only freedom you really have is choosing the runes that go into a skill #which slightly alter the skill, for instance adding life leech#. This means that by level 100, two players with the same class will pretty much have the same character, save for their equipment. Also, a lot of these skills don't require any 'mana' to use, and rather work on a cool down timer. Boss fights now work as events. This is OK in the single player environment, however in multiplayer if you die you can no longer get into that boss fight and must wait outside until your friends either all die or complete it without you. What also doesn't help this is the new potion system, where you can have potions #in one slot only#, but they have roughly a 30 second cool down time. Most of the time you must rely on skills or health orbs dropped randomly by enemies to heal. Boss fights sometimes have health pools that automatically refill during the fight. I would have preferred they stick to the old potion formula and ditched the orb system. Scrolls have been done away with and now you have unlimited town portals and can identifiy objects just by right clicking on them. In multiplayer you can automatically teleport to friends using their banners, which means no one needs to send you a TP to get you to their location. Again this is just another way they've over simplified things. I still believe stocking up on scroll tomes and potions was strategic and fun. Mana also no longer exists, and has been replaced by class specific energy systems. In theory this is a great system, however I feel that it is poorly implimented. Once you gain your first ability that charges your energy you lose your weapon slot and for the most part, no longer actually use your weapon for the rest of the game #unless your skill uses the weapon in the animation#. Your energy gathering skill will use the damage from your weapons, so weapons DO still have a point, however the game here begins to clump two separate aspects into one. If, say, my generating skill did a specific damage, my weapons did a specific damage, and my consumption skill did a specific damage, and I had to alternate what I was using strategically based on the situation that would be a much better system. You can select 'elective mode' and equip your weapon to a slot, but with this system it serves no purpose. Blizzard has also removed any kind of offline gameplay. This doesn't greatly affect me as of right now, however I feel this greatly segregates the fanbase. There still are a lot of people who don't necessarily have internet access, or a cheap way of getting internet access in their area. Also if I'm out somewhere and have my laptop but no access to the internet I should still be able to play a game that I payed for. This isn't an MMO or strictly multiplayer game, so this omission seems to be a poor business decision. Beyond this the game plays exactly as you would expect it to and it is a lot of fun. The boss battles are much more epic than previous Diablo offerings. There are a lot of references to previous Diablo games which is great for veterans. Blizzard has put together a great game in the series, however overall I do feel that they tried to marry too many elements from WoW into Diablo. From a technical standpoint I would say that Diablo 2 still remains the top of both the Diablo series and the isometric action-rpg genre, however Diablo 3 should definitely not be overlooked. If you liked the series in the past or just like action-rpgs in general, be sure to check this one out!

I remember when I got a copy of the original Diablo demo that was leaked so many years back. It was ground breaking and all I wanted to do was play it over and over. Diablo II carried the torch forward and the following expansions to me were equally as exciting. Diablo III could and I believe should be so much more than it is. I understand the reason why Blizzard did what it did - if it isn't broke, don't fix it! However, this saying doesn't always ring true especially with almost a decade between Diablo II and Diablo III. This is just my take on this game and I fell it worth mentioning that I am a Blizzard fan, but sometimes even your best friend can mess up and warrant some criticism. On to the review: Graphics - The game looks "nice" to be sure, but the graphics are a bit outdated. Remember, this game has been in development for quite some time and I think what happened is they took too long to release and outdated themselves. Characters - Shame on you Blizzard for not letting people create a character appearance. My 10 year old son sums this up best as I suggest he play a Barbarian, "I don't want to play as an old man!" and honestly I don't either. Take what they give you or leave it, but you will have some troubles getting into most of the characters. Game play - This is true Diablo and I think it was wise to leave this part of the game alone. It would have been nice to have the option to skip having to play to the game in "normal" mode before getting to the good stuff though. I think it is cool that Blizzard wanted to make the game accessible to new game players by toning the difficulty down at start, but for those familiar to the series it only promotes racing through the game to get to the good stuff. For those who do not know, Blizzard has stated that 70% of the gear and drops available in Diablo III are not even an option until you hit the next mode of game play. Audio - Overall the music and voice acting are right on par with Blizzard quality. Bottom Line: The game is playable and once through the normal mode I am sure will open up and offer new challenges. Overall the Diablo feel that was in the first two games of the series is missing and without being to create a character you can relate to, this only further takes away from the game. Diablo III for me is not a rush home after work because I cannot wait to play kind of game. For a game so long in the making, you would think it would redefine top down RPG games, but clearly does not do this at all. To do it all over again knowing what I know now, I would have saved the money spent on two copies of the game and a game guide and waited for it to drop in price, but it is what it is. Side Note - This was factored into my review, but is worth mentioning. Blizzard is having a lot of issues with the servers and they quite frequently are taken down or restarted for one reason or another. I'm sure the servers are overwhelmed and with each day passing, this should get better and better. You will notice some character lag from time to time as everything is stored on the server. Remember, to play the game you must be connected to battle.net and the issues they are having will effect your game play until they have it all fixed.

I have been playing the beta for a while now and I must say it is a rather well balanced game (witch doctor may be a bit overpowered.) The true hack and slash of diablo 2 is back and the best part of looting for better armor and what not is what drops is only yours. So no more run in to the boss and hope you are close enough when they are killed to get something good. The worst part of this game is that it is only available while signed in on servers. There is no way to play if your internet goes out or if you are having connection issues. Also Diablo 2 came out 12 years ago and I still get on and play from time to time but with D3 requiring you to log into a server it seems doubtful that I will be able to play this in 12 years from now and enjoy it(just think 2024!)

This game has been seriously underrated by most people. The gameplay is the most immersive I have ever seen in any Diablo game, having played the entire series. The fact that there are 4 difficulties for the campaign adds a lot more of content to play through, and the 5 new classes are really cool. So what if it's not D2? That game is 10 years old, and the combat system there was quite primitive, and too much like WoW (too many spells/abilities to choose from). Things have to change eventually, and here they have. I believe it to be awesome even though it is still in Beta. For any RPG/Blizzard fan, this is your game.

The game it's self as a whole is very good. I don't like the weapons offered from the merchants and the blacksmith. You will find way better items on the quest. I played the whole game on easy level and never died. I am now currently playing on the medium level and I find it a bit more challenging but still have managed to not get killed. I feel it is no Diablo II but very good non the less. I bought it for only $20 online from Best Buy which makes it even better. Now I can't wait till The Reaper of Souls comes down on price. I've played Diablo from when it first came out with Diablo and learned to wait the over hyped price of it's original release and will come down within 6 months to a year. Having waited for so long to have D3 come out, 6 months to a year is not long to wait.

where do i start by saying i am blown away. like many of you i have been waiting years for this game to release and i said i would never buy it because it would most likely be bad. i am really wrong on that. the game blew me away from the start of it considering that its made with very high details in mind. everything is very in depth about the game and i can thank blizzard now for taking 3 years to polish the game because it really shows throughout the entire game so far. the weapons are great and everything is much easier to understand for weapons and what not. the only thing that i wish that had done different is put better music then that annoying original soundtrack from the 90s when diablo originally got released. other then that i can find anything wrong with this game so if you haven't bought a copy yet get it.