I played Diablo 3

All three in a row.

It's been a long time since the destruction of the world stone. And frankly, nothing seems to be any different. Once you've decided on your character you start at the top of a hill, going down you find dead attacking a nearby gate and people defending it. Help them out, mention something of destiny, and you find yourself in Tristram.

Well, not Tristram exactly, you're in New Tristram. Built after the events of the first Diablo, and I guess during Diablo 2, even though you visit Old Tristram in this game and it's pretty darn close to new Tristram. So I guess nobody really thought it was odd to be building so close to the demons and undead of the old town. Well, let's not claim people are smart.

Yeah, they said money was the biggest factor. I guess using Tristram as your personal storage backfired just a bit.

So right off the bat there's fewer classes to choose from. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I will say that the lack of being able to customize your character is a downside of this game. As for controls, well I'm playing the PS3 version and I'm actually much more comfortable with these controls than I was for the last two Diablo Games, and the hot buttons for skills let me mow down enemies much more effectively.

I do have to say, though, I think the story was the biggest letdown for this game. Don't get me wrong, there's some good stuff in there, but the massive retcons really pulled away from this. Let's just say, in the first Diablo, it seemed pretty clear that Adria was well past child bearing age. They were clear as to how many sons King Leoric had, and what happened to him. And the sudden appearance of the black Soulstone killed so much of this story for me.

But there are some good parts to the story too, it's just a shame that they were bogged down by the worse elements. And giving Gharbad another quest was great. I should clarify that I don't have the expansion though. But when playing all three back to back as I did, three just doesn't seem to fit. And this brings me to yet another complaint.

Since I got the game right away, if I want to play the expansion I have to buy the whole game again. Not just the expansion. I've looked into it, for digital: only the combination is available. The only physical discs are the combination. I would be forced to pay for the entire game a second time just to get a little more content. And this game was definitely not that good. And this is coming from the guy who has bought every version of Chrono Trigger I've come across, even one's I can't play.

This is the kind of tactic I would argue as at least as low as on disk DLC. But at least on disk DLC is marginally cheep. It's deliberately singling out the people who were excited for the game and happily bought it early only to rip them off later when they finish the game. And Diablo having expansions at all isn't exactly a thing, Hellfire was made by Sierra and isn't really a continuation of the first Diablo. There's no real connective tissue there.

I know people will have higher opinions of the story than I do, so I'm still going to avoid explaining what happens. Once again you are traveling around the world, even making your way back to the Mt. Arreat and descending once more into hell to fight the evil that has risen to take the place of the prime evils.

But from the depths you rise. Heaven awaits, and it's not what you may have thought.

Heaven is corrupted by evil and over confident angels are as much a part of the problem. Honestly, they've seen the Prime Evils defeated by humans, and now when they're getting trounced they tell you to shove off. Well, let's face it, you're the protagonist and it's up to you to save the day.

Something they kept from Diablo 2 is the follower, however, now they have a story element. They're not just some name and weapon you hire. They're characters who join you, talk to you, and follow you for their own reasons. I'd call this a massive improvement over earlier as each character is interesting and interacts differently with your character depending on your class, and even gender. Several merchants also follow you around too, I think this was more to save on voice actors, but they at least made the characters that stay with you likable.

I don't think this game lived up to it's predecessor the way Diablo 2 did, and it really fell short in a few areas, though I probably had high hopes because of Diablo 2. But it's still a fun game, and if you don't take the story too seriously as a continuation and hold it on it's own merits it's pretty good. It just doesn't fit well with what was established before. I'd suggest the PS3 version myself, because one thing it has that the PC version does not is an offline single player.

Seriously, I hate games that require you to be online just to play single player. Sometimes my connection is garbage and I want to play a game.