Get your Warcraft out of my Diablo - Review

So Diablo 3 finally came out after a decade of waiting. What would be in store for us, what awaited around the corner we wondered. Well wonder we didn't really have to. If you'd been following the development of the game over the last 5 years or so you'd know that the team handling it were the same group that made World of Warcraft. With that knowledge in mind you already know what to expect and that is a really boring ass game. But what did we actually get? A boring ass game of course!

Story:


The story in Diablo was never one to email home about, but Diablo 2 anyway had really amazing cutscenes a clear sense of dread, and a certain mystery and wonderment about the brief scenes played out between Marius and the Wanderer. In no instance do we get those moments of character intrigue for Diablo 3 sadly. We're supposed to care about Dekkard Cain's relative but she comes off as nothing more than a damsel in distress. She has no backbone to her and rolls with the punches. We don't root for or against her like every other character in the game...except Tyrael.

For me I rooted against Tyrael since he was a shadow of his awesomeness in Diablo 2. They made him mortal...and they made him a black guy for absolutely no other reason than to fill a minority quota. Seriously, go back and play Diablo 2 that was NOT a black guy voice in the slightest and this has nothing to do with race at all either this is about character consistency. Nothing annoys me more than when a character is completely wrong or changed between shows, or games or whatever. It throws me off completely and bugs the shit out of me. It's just like how Marvel made a black Spiderman and actually this annoyance has less to do with the "change" in character so to speak as much as it has to do with the fact that it totally takes away from the uniqueness of the Spiderman accident itself thus diminishing the character. Oh, so just everyone can be Spiderman now eh? To quote The Incredibles "If everyone was super, no one would be." I also hate She Hulk in the exact same way I hate the black Spiderman idea. Both are just cash grabs to get a certain minority interested in their product and aren't there for the sake of story. These characters are made to take the easy way out and that's it. These "creatives" take an established idea and insert a different gender or race instead of actually making a new character. Good examples would be Wonder Woman, or Static Shock where they are clearly characters of their own and can be liked or disliked on their own merits rather than on the comparison of their origin counterpart.

It's these types of lifeless decisions that pander on throughout the game. I could have been swayed to like the  new Tyrael had he been interesting too. But no, he was all JUSTICE prevails all blargh blargh. That was nothing like the Tyrael of the first game who was there to be just a guide for the humans in their plight.

But it's more than that, there's no sense of urgency to the quest. It never feels like the evil in the game is building to anything at all. You reach the final chapter and BOOM Diablo starts fucking with the Angles taking over their realm. In Dibalo 2 you had a constant sense of urgency since you were always trying to catch up to Marius and the Wanderer. The game gives you that "just missed em'" sense while playing and it keeps you going. There is an immense build up of impending evil through the Wanderer and through Marius's depiction of the Wanderer slowly becoming Diablo and once that clock finished all hell would break loose! Diablo 3 did none of this at all. It was haphazardly thrown together and the acts don't even feel connected. I'm very scared to see how much worse the expansion can potentially be.

Gameplay: 


You never know what you're missing until it's gone, and that's the case with Diablo 3. Here is where WoW seeps into the game. Here is where it stops being a Diablo game where you can spam skills and go nuts like a good action game lets you and instead bars you from that frenetic gameplay forcing upon you the dreaded COOLDOWN!! Yes...everything in this game has a cooldown factor that is so irritating and unpleasant the fun is just lost on the game. I chose to use a Barbarian who has no less than 3 skills with a TWO minute cooldown! One of them is just summoning shitty barbarian familiars that only last 15 seconds and don't do shit. This would be like in Diablo 2 if the Necromancer could only summon a golem once every 2 minutes and then it dies immediately. Hell leap attack has a friggin cooldown. Everything has a cooldown and it's NOT fun.

There's cooldown to teleport for god sakes! 90% of all the fun I had in Diablo 2 was teleporting around Act 3 to quickly get to Mephisto to kill him. Can't do that anymore. Not to mention no move was as fun to do as Frozen Orb in Diablo 2 and there is no comparable move in Diablo 3. Whirlwind thankfully doesn't have a cooldown, but it's terrible. It's downright useless.

This is exactly how WoW is played but here's the thing....Diablo is a single player game where you are allowed to travel in parties to play if need be. WoW had cooldown in skills so team synergy plays a more vital role. Putting imposing cooldown in a single player game causes hefty imbalances and very unfun situations. Take for instance the idea that since the Barb nor the Monk can spam their best abilities, if they cannot assail tough monsters in that one burst where they CAN use their shit, then they have to run away and kite monsters. This is NOT how a melee class should operate. Diablo 2 got around this by allowing the melee classes full range of their abilities and gave priority to life leech options that only the melee class could take full advantage of allowing them to stay in a fight and tank the way they're supposed to. As it stands now in Diablo 3, melee classes are completely useless.

The other major problem with the game is the item drop mechanics. Diablo 2 was addictive due to being able to spam magic find and hunt specific enemies for loot. Diablo 3 fails in this regard in every way. Firstly, legendary items are garbage. There is no reason to want a Grandfather sword or Windforce bow anymore. There's no "items" to aspire to getting. The only thing you are interested in seeing are Yellow items with high DPS. So items are no longer interesting, they are nameless and thus not any fun to treasure grind for. No longer can you get excited seeing a Soj ring, but instead you hope to see an item that has XXX # of DPS.

The final issues I take is of personal preference. First attaining the max level is too easy in this game. It was much more enjoyable in Diablo 2 to basically never get to the max level. When you're treasure hunting far too often you'd go 20 hours with nothing to show for it except maybe you got another level. So you GOT something out of it, it didn't feel like your time was wasted. In Diablo 3 you can go that same 20 hours with literally nothing to show for it.

I also dislike in Diablo 3 that you can't pick skills. There are no builds anymore, you're just a set of numbers now defined by your gear. And none of this is helped by the addition of the auction house which is another clear cash grab. Not only does it further reduce the uniqueness of items and builds it pits all items found in the game into one centralized location dashing fun experiences in Diablo 2 you'd get such as having the Cow King drop a Grandfather sword and everyone gathering around to take a look at it on the trade screen if said person who picked it up allowed a viewing (which they always did). These are memorable moments the auction house can never produce.

There is one bright shining spot in the gameplay of Diablo 3. Item drops are now specific per character so no more mad dashes after a boss dies to gather up all the items. This is really the best addition to the Diablo series ever, sadly marred by all the other poor choices.

Sound:


Overall the music is better than Diablo 2 but the sound effects aren't. My major complaint here is the utter lack of the Barbarian's "HURRR" noise during a leap. Miss that soooo much.

Graphics: 


It looks like WoW and that isn't a compliment.

Conclusion: 


Through patches much of these issues can be addressed and Blizzard has spoken on the issues with melee characters and the shittyness of Legendary items so there is hope for the game. As it stands now though I can't be bothered to keep playing it.

*HURR HURR HURR - Barbarian, Diablo 2 Never stops being funny.*

In Defense of Linearity

I'm really not sure why I have to speak on this subject of linearity in gaming, but there seems to some major confusion in the gaming community about linear games. It SEEMS that there are people out there who think that all games should be free roam, even ones designed as linear games.

What do I mean by this you ask? Well after having completed Alan Wake on the PC and enjoying it tremendously I had to clear up a few questions regarding the plot so I swung over to gamefaqs for some plot synopsis. Catching my eye, however, were user reviews and a few of the top ones being quite low. The main complaint of these reviews you ask? You guessed it, the game is too linear! Ok...so what I ask. Clearly the developers made a game with the intention of guiding the player along a path with a story to tell. What's wrong with that? Games have been doing that since Super Mario Brothers. I never heard anyone complain that Mario was too linear.

So apparently people want more freedom in their games, and you know, that's fine by me. But don't play a game that is clearly NOT a free roam game and then complain that it wasn't a free roam game. It's as if people don't understand that there are linear games in general.

What's wrong with a linear game anyway? Personally, I prefer linear games and I wouldn't scoff at a free roam game because it wasn't linear either. Linear games have distinct traits that defiantly outshine free roam games by a mile:

1. Better Stories:
         Linear games by far have the best plots. Take the most basic example of Final Fantasy vs Elder Scrolls. Both are RPG's but Final Fantasy always tends to have better stories and this isn't just opinion either. Basing my logic on the basic structure of storytelling open world games lose out on one major front and that's pacing. A linear game can convey a plot and characters with a keen sense of timing and purpose that is severely lacking in open world games. Think of it this way. Start reading a book, and in the middle of a chapter go out to your local library, pick up an encyclopedia and start reading about dinosaurs. This is the equivalent of an open world game starting you on a quest and you get sidetracked by another random quest that has you research a large monster of some kind. Suddenly you are immediately whisked away from the main plot, character development, and the sense of urgency never formulates. These are all key facets of storytelling that is utterly lost on free roam games. Take a guess why Alan Wake wasn't a free roam game...

2. Better Characters:
       Much in the same way linear games deliver better stories, they deliver better characters too. A linear game allows the director to make the player listen to characters problems and develop them more. You learn to like or hate them rather than dialoge box skipping over everything in a free roam game. Not to mention the characters are often with you on your journey rather than passer-byers in a free roam game where the player cannot be tied down. Further, in a free roam game you are always some user created character with zero personality which also makes characters around you just as hollow since their interactions with you are played out normally with the players "good" or "bad" choices and subsequently offer very little depth for everyone involved.

3. Boredom doesn't kick in as quickly:
      This is more personal taste or how well the game is done in general. But if I were to be forced to play more Skyrim combat than say Devil May Cry or Lollipop Chainsaw I'd go friggin nuts. Open world games rarely have fun gameplay, Saints Row 3 being one of the few exceptions for me. I'd much rather have a game with a small room where it required some kind of twitch based skill combat where winning and losing is based on how well I'm doing as opposed to say Fallout New Vegas's free roam accidentally running into a Deathclaw right at the start with no way of winning. With better gameplay boredom doesn't kick in as fast. While you may have the freedom to go wherever you want after a while the magic of freedom gets marred by the repetitious tasks / combat you're given.

4. Most Games are Linear:
     While this isn't exactly a compliment to linear games what it says though is that if you are a gamer there is a heavy chance you've played more linear games in your lifetime than non-linear games. Though that doesn't speak to quality either, what that is also saying is the odds are very high you became a gamer based off of linear gameplay experiences.

Really though, the point of all this is the next time you play a game that isn't free roam and you expected it to be, don't blame the game because you were too stupid to know what kind of game you bought!

*((real life dumbass moment from me)) "Hmm...I'd like to get an easier game because I can never beat any game I have now." Sees Ninja Gaiden 2 NES. "Huh, a ninja game that can't be too hard." Blatantly overlooks the large "Hard To Beat" sticker on the box...*

E3 2012 Predictions

Not to undo tradition I will post my brief thoughts on what may occur this year at E3 with a minor update to follow on my thoughts after it's over.

Nintendo:

They already released their pre-E3 video so I'm kind of cheating here. Nintendo will almost solely focus on the Wii U and how it connects families and bullshit. They'll talk about how it's a unique experience nothing like we've ever had before yadda yadda... Last time they promised us this we got a Zelda game we could flail to a Mario game we could flail to and countless other games that would have been better minus flailing. Now we have a system with a controller that still flails and has a screen on it. I'm guessing this will cause even more untold damage when kids fling it across the room.

Some may ask where's you're unbridled Nintendo fanboy optimism? I'll tell you it's in my rather empty game chest drawer that was supposed to be for Wii games. I have about as many Wii games as I do PS2 games which for me is less than 20 (of course being a Nintendo fanboy during that era I accumulated over 50 Gamecube games). Maybe for the normal gamer 20 or so is acceptable for a system. All right fine I'll jive with that logic for the moment even though that's not my personal view. But also consider of those 20 games a few were experimental games just to better understand how the Wii's controller functioned such as Call of Duty 3, Elebits, Dragon Ball Z, and a few others. All told I have about 6 or 7 games that I bought mainly just to see how the genre reacts to the Wii-mote giving little regard to the quality of the game itself. So nearly half of my collection is a constant reminder that "oh yeah, this shit didn't work well on the Wii either." And then there are a scant few games that should have been good but sucked anyway somehow like Fire Emblem and Zelda Skyward Sword. Of the games that don't blow absolute chunks I still regret not being able to play them in an "un-unique way" ie a regular controller. So did 6 or so great games justify a $250 system? No...they don't.

Bearing all this in mind my hopes for the Wii U are very minimal at best. The system specs alone on the unit leave much to be desired and knowing the other two companies are going to blow it out of the water graphically speaking once again, we can surely expect developers to ignore the Wii U. Why go through the efforts of making a lesser version of a game just for the Wii U? Also consider the Wii was something of a flash in the pan item everyone bought like it was an iPod or something. Can you honestly expect people to do this again as their Wii Fit boards collect more dust? Of course not. What is the incentive, a controller with a screen on it? People have iPads now and smartphones why buy a game console where games cost upwards of $50 each just to play something your iPad most likely does now anyway for .99 per game? They demoed throwing a ninja star from the Wii Pad to the TV like it's some amazing thing yet there are countless iPad games where you can flick shit on the screen. Also the Wii Pad uses the shitty touch screen the 3DS and DS uses not the really good iPad  or Vita screen. I only compare the two because they are the same audiences. The people that bought the Wii were looking for a less expensive alternative to quick interactive entertainment at the time and the Wii fit that demographic. With the advent of smartphones, they don't anymore.

So they are still pandering to a demographic that ignores them now and are losing the support of people that just want another Donkey Kong or Mario game and not more Mii games. What does all this mean for E3? Well just what I said, they're going to be pandering to a crowd that won't be listening. This will be like the "soccer mom" E3 debacle before they shifted gears and tried to win back the gamer crowd. Why they are reverting probably is reflected in their ever decreasing bottom line. They are reactive to the market and trying to win back the people that made the Wii initially successful. Sadly, I'm not in that crowd...

Sony:

They will most likely try to push the Vita and lie about sales numbers. The Vita is doing about as well as sales of bulk energy bars at Costco. This is sad because it's a really good piece of technology. It definitely caters to the hardcore crowd desperate for a handheld console that has buttons and joysticks but at the same time offers other input options like touchscreen and rear tocuhscreen which is still retarded. Never the less it hasn't done well with a poor lineup of games and nothing much to look forward to. The 3DS had a similar road when it began but upticked with Mario Kart and Mario Land 3D. Sony needs that for the Vita but time may be running out for it. Resistance was supposed to help spur sales but it ended up being a rushed sack of garbage. Hopefully Sony will give good reasons to own the Vita at E3.

I also predict Sony will finally stop mentioning the Move, (I hope). If they even bring it up one time I'll shoot a baby kitten. There will be blood on your hands Sony!

Aside from that they'll tout sales numbers as usual and hopefully have a great E3 show like last year keeping Move to a minimum and game release information at the forefront with a large swath of trailers.

Microsoft:

As much as I don't bother with Microshit they COULD likely have the most interesting E3 of all if they pull a rabbit out of the hat and show off the new Xbox. It is NOT very likely though seeing as they will probably push the Kinect more along with Halo 4 and the new Gears of War game. All of which will be on the 360 so why divert attention. They might...MIGHT mention their new system in passing but I doubt we'll see it sadly. Chances are we'll see new games, perhaps some new apps, maybe a new Xbox live subscription options with more stuff included. Hard to tell since I don't follow them much, lol.

**UPDATE**

Well looks like I was largely correct about most of my E3 predictions. Nintendo ignored the 3DS mostly and spoke of family and gathering around the Wii U and didn't really hard sell anyone on the idea the Wii U will be a capable gaming device. Sony repeated their last year successful conference with many unique game offerings and new IP's along with old staples like God of War. They also didn't talk about the Move much apart from their new Wonderbook game idea. What I got wrong here was the Vita, they ignored that more than the Move! That is NOT a good sign. Microsoft was the worst of all as all they talked about was a new Gears and new Halo rounded out with Smartglass that will see about as much support as Vita crossplay in the end, and .... an Usher dance number....ugh...

Overall the real winner of E3 was....Ubisoft! They were a large force in ALL 3 conferences showing off Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed 3, a new Rayman, new Splinter Cell, and a bunch of other great looking games. Regrettably they had the worst host of all time for their own show and by far the most awkward presentations I've seen at E3 since Nintendo's soccer mom or drummer boy.

Biggest disappointment was Microsoft not talking about a new system. The console cycle is reaching its end and now was the time to let gamers froth at the mouth over new tech. We all knew Sony wasn't going to jump the gun on it but Microsoft could have. Either they don't want to show their hand to the ever copy-cat Sony (cough, Move, cough Playstation Smash Brothers), or they really didn't have anything tangible to show, or they didn't want to direct attention away from the Xbox 360 yet. Any of these reasons are good ones I guess, but console reveals are usually 1 year out before they are released and rumor has it Microsoft is planning to launch their new system next year soooo....let's see it!

Apart from enhanced graphics I really want to see a revolution in game distribution. The Vita has somewhat begun this where nearly all new Vita releases are also available for download. Cut the middle man out, cut development costs, cut costs of gaming, go digital! For those without internet though I can see that being an issue. But something tells me if you can splurge on a gaming device the chances are good you have internet too.