Stalking Venus

I just finished watching the 568 mb Diablo 3 game play video, and boy am I psyched! I was a bit sceptical at first, having only seen some still screenshots of the game, which — as has been mentioned by countless others — looks a bit like a wishy-washy watercolour painting.

However, as soon as you see everything in motion, the graphics are actually pretty amazing. The colours lend the game a lot of atmosphere and the lighting, water, weather and particle effects are fantastic. From fairly obvious stuff like rain drops, to the much more subtle, like refraction rainbow effects in mist and variable fog density.

The environment is also more interactive than the first and second Diablo games. Bridges crumble and collapse, broken walls can be bashed so that the blocks tumble onto your enemies, doors splinter when bashed and take a few hits to break through properly, and so on.

Inside looks more like what I remember from the older Diablo games, although revamped with better lighting and effects. There’s also a much greater sense of depth, in that there are often balconies and ledges, where you can see the levels below you.

The indoor lighting is also incredible, with atmospheric pools of light contrasting with dark shadows in which nasty creatures could be lurking. Again, there are more details, with better textures on everything, and effects like smoke rising from candles, intricate cobwebs and things fading off into the distance just the right amount for it not to be a pain in the ass.

The interface has also been revamped. Again, it looks like the Blizzard team has tried not to deviate too far from what made the first two games popular. The look and feel of the interface are similar to the older games, and work in a similar manner, but the graphics have been updated and improved.

The characters and their abilities are excellent. There’s a new character type called the Witch Doctor, that can summon ‘familiar’ demons to serve his needs. He can cast pestilence on people, which jumps from enemy to enemy, inflicting damage as it swarms. He can also cast this spell on his own familiar creatures, which causes them to inflict infection damage too. When a familiar creature is running low on health, the Witch Doctor can choose to destroy the creature, making it explode and cause major damage to nearby enemies.

The Witch Doctor also has a great spell called ‘Wall of Zombies’, which does exactly what the title says: Creates a great big wall of the undead, which attacks any enemy that comes near it. Great for casting across narrow passageways when you need to buy yourself a bit of time!

Then there are the enemies… There are a hell of a lot of enemies! Skeletons by the kazillion, zombies, big ugly rotting creatures that explode when you kill them and turn into scores of serpent-like beasties that bite and squirm around you, massive — and I mean massive — creatures like the ‘Siegebreaker Assault Beast’ that will stomp you for hundreds of points of damage at a time, and spawn a graveyard full of skeletal warriors when they die…

Yes, this look like it’s going to be a pretty entertaining game! We’ll have to wait a while to review the actual gameplay mechanics, but from what I’ve seen, this looks like it’s going to follow the first two Diablo games into the halls of fame. Nice one Blizzard!

For more, visit: Diablo 3 website