Diablo III console release revelation

[Headdrivehardscrew]

OK, so, yes.

I am one of those haters. I admit, I hated Diablo III on PC. Still do.

Today, while play-testing Diablo III - with the intention to better sharpen my critique - I noticed that it plays really well with people who have not played Diablo nor Diablo II. They enjoy the ride, and almost everything feels very natural with a gamepad-type controller. It has a much better flow than the keyboard-mouse torture of Diablo III PC, no auction house, the randomness is now seemingly shifted with a +10 LUCK on everything for every character, and filling a sofa with people to then play some drop-in, drop-out Diablo III - it really works.

The only thing that bothers me now is still that one bit - it does not feel like Diablo proper to me. What it feels like is this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/Gauntlet_screenshot.png
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Commodore_Amiga/Snap/big/Gauntlet_II_-_1989_-_Mindscape.jpg

Gauntlet. It's a super modern Gauntlet, and as such, is pretty damn good. As Diablo, it still makes me sad.

Thoughts? Impressions? Opinions? Onions?

captcha: hulk smash

 

[White Lightning]

I wasn't gonna get it but if it really is like a modern Gauntlet I might.

 

[krazykidd]

I hated it on PC . But love it on console . It feels and looks nice . Plus the couch co-op is a godsend . I will now refer people to this game when they are looking for a good co-op game . While i prefered the skill/stat customisation of D2 , i can see why they moved away from it. I mean the genre has evolved in the last decade ( when did D2 come out?). Sometimes it's time to do somethig different .

I like the addition of difficulty levels , but seriously max difficulty is ridiculous . Damage sponges to the max . I'm all for challenge but holy hell , that's not challenge , that's beatin you're head on a brick wall . Master V is not for the weak willed nor the friendless.

The controls are good , aiming is a bit difficult but at least you can lock on .

The UI is amazing and intuitive, no more playing tetris in you're inventory .

Graphics/sound is great .

I haven't touched online so i can't comment , but co-op is a blast .

8.5 out of 10 . Come at me bros.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I have not played the PC version, not because I lacked a way to play the game (I am running a fairly high end gaming PC easily able to handled any game out there) but because I simply didn't want to play the game without people I knew playing it. Then a friend picked it up on console shortly before he too got a gaming PC. Then my Fiancee took note of the game as said friend was playing it and expressed interest as the last game she played and enjoyed was Champions of Norrath on the PS2. Then I found out it had couch co-op that would allow us to play the game together - something we've tried but have never really succeeded at.

So I picked it up. Functionally, it is a fine game I suppose and most of my complaints are hinged on the irrational "But it isn't like Diablo 2!". That every character class is hugely dependent upon their gear in order to determine damage and that certain skills have an arbitrary long cooldown time were, at the start, moderately irritating to me.

As I've played the game, though, I've come to accept those flaws as being necessary. As a Wizard, I can't simply run around blasting staggeringly lethal nova's at people and am forced to use the full range of equipped skills regularly to survive in thrive. In this way the game is actually an improvement. The controller seems like a perfectly reasonable intefrace into the game and in many cases seems like an advantage making it easy to teleport where I need to go in a fraction of a second or dodge projectiles.

I still think I'd rather play the PC version but for now the couch experience is notable. It's the only game we can play together other than minecraft that doesn't fill one of us with frustration induced rage.

 

[Frezzato]

I have not played the PC version, not because I lacked a way to play the game (I am running a fairly high end gaming PC easily able to handled any game out there) but because I simply didn't want to play the game without people I knew playing it. Then a friend picked it up on console shortly before he too got a gaming PC. Then my Fiancee took note of the game as said friend was playing it and expressed interest as the last game she played and enjoyed was Champions of Norrath on the PS2. Then I found out it had couch co-op that would allow us to play the game together - something we've tried but have never really succeeded at.

So I picked it up. Functionally, it is a fine game I suppose and most of my complaints are hinged on the irrational "But it isn't like Diablo 2!". That every character class is hugely dependent upon their gear in order to determine damage and that certain skills have an arbitrary long cooldown time were, at the start, moderately irritating to me.

As I've played the game, though, I've come to accept those flaws as being necessary. As a Wizard, I can't simply run around blasting staggeringly lethal nova's at people and am forced to use the full range of equipped skills regularly to survive in thrive. In this way the game is actually an improvement. The controller seems like a perfectly reasonable intefrace into the game and in many cases seems like an advantage making it easy to teleport where I need to go in a fraction of a second or dodge projectiles.

I still think I'd rather play the PC version but for now the couch experience is notable. It's the only game we can play together other than minecraft that doesn't fill one of us with frustration induced rage.

I have to agree with everything you've listed. Although the auto-aim is kind of broken I think. I've only played the demo, but I found the default, directed attack for the sorcerer to be too weak, while the lightning has proven to be a better attack after upgrade. In addition, the auto aim was just annoying, leaving my character shooting at empty vases and jars, instead of the mini level boss that was walking right towards her. And the official Escapist review was correct about the addition of the dodge ability. It's fairly useless at ranges within five feet of attackers, with hits against you registering while you're clearly out of attack range.

I was expecting the second thumbstick to be used in a manner similar to the old school arcade game Robotron, meaning I had hoped that Diablo would have finally broken free of the whole "can't shoot while moving" concept, which plagued Resident Evil for years, although I haven't played an RE games since the first one so that might have changed.

Oh right, and how come nobody has pointed out that Diablo basically ripped off Torchlight with the whole 'shared storage' thing? You know, shared chest space between multiple, player-owned characters? I mean, Torchlight is guilty of having a soundtrack exactly like Diablo 2, so they're not innocent either. Credit where credit is due, that's all I'm saying.

 

[LetalisK]

Huh. I may have to get this now. My wife is a huge Torchlight fan and neither one of us has played this. The couch co-op would basically be exactly what we need.

I just hate controllers for anything outside of sports and fighting games, so I think I might rent this first to see if I can adapt well.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I have to agree with everything you've listed. Although the auto-aim is kind of broken I think. I've only played the demo, but I found the default, directed attack for the sorcerer to be too weak, while the lightning has proven to be a better attack after upgrade. In addition, the auto aim was just annoying, leaving my character shooting at empty vases and jars, instead of the mini level boss that was walking right towards her. And the official Escapist review was correct about the addition of the dodge ability. It's fairly useless at ranges within five feet of attackers, with hits against you registering while you're clearly out of attack range.

I've had good success dodging some projectiles using the dodge skill attached to the thumbstick but as often as not they seem to hit even though I clearly was out the way as you indicated. Still, its' a fair improvement over the old system which, in Diablo 2, made it hard to dodge at all. Indeed, the soul defensive strategy in that game amounted to stacking tank and gank abilities and just overcoming damage with lifesteal.

By contrast, demon haunter's leap (or vault or something - don't recall the name) skill is invaluable at keeping you at range or getting out of problem spots. By contrast, the Wizard's teleport, which has virtually the same function (save a slim increase in functionality) has a long cooldown meaning it can't be spammed. This is what has made the wizard interesting to play - with long cooldowns on most of her signature spells of old, I have to use a full set of abilities to survive (much less thrive). By contrast, virtually any problem I've run into as a Demon Hunter (first playthrough of course) can be resolved with nothing more than the bolo auto attack (for crowds), that mobility move (which I can spam easily to avoid ever being pinned down), and rapid fire.

I was expecting the second thumbstick to be used in a manner similar to the old school arcade game Robotron, meaning I had hoped that Diablo would have finally broken free of the whole "can't shoot while moving" concept, which plagued Resident Evil for years, although I haven't played an RE games since the first one so that might have changed.

On both the PC version and the console version there remains the important moba skill of the stutter step (basically, halting an attack animation by issuing a movement command as early as possible and moving until you'd be free to attack again naturally). This isn't as good as attack while moving but, then, in order for such a system to work, the world and monsters would need to be far more lethal as you'd be able to easily kite most mobs without relying on any skills.

Basically, I understand why the system in place has been set up in such a way.

Oh right, and how come nobody has pointed out that Diablo basically ripped off Torchlight with the whole 'shared storage' thing? You know, shared chest space between multiple, player-owned characters? I mean, Torchlight is guilty of having a soundtrack exactly like Diablo 2, so they're not innocent either. Credit where credit is due, that's all I'm saying.

Because Torchlight's system was absolutely necessary as a way to transition items between characters you owned. By contrast, Diablo 2's online system was such that you had ways to transfer items between characters, even if it was a bit clumsy. Torchlight simply resolved a problem the other Diablo games weren't seen as having. Still, it was utterly worthy of stealing as the old system of having someone launch a game to act as a temporary holder for items, logging in with the character with an item and dropping it, then logging out and back in with the new character was a bit of a hassle.

 

[Frezzato]

[...]By contrast, the Wizard's teleport, which has virtually the same function (save a slim increase in functionality) has a long cooldown meaning it can't be spammed. This is what has made the wizard interesting to play - with long cooldowns on most of her signature spells of old, I have to use a full set of abilities to survive (much less thrive). By contrast, virtually any problem I've run into as a Demon Hunter (first playthrough of course) can be resolved with nothing more than the bolo auto attack (for crowds), that mobility move (which I can spam easily to avoid ever being pinned down), and rapid fire.

Ahhh, that makes sense! That wasn't in the demo. That makes total sense now, seeing how you could accidentally box yourself in with Frost Nova.

Because Torchlight's system was absolutely necessary as a way to transition items between characters you owned. By contrast, Diablo 2's online system was such that you had ways to transfer items between characters, even if it was a bit clumsy. Torchlight simply resolved a problem the other Diablo games weren't seen as having. Still, it was utterly worthy of stealing as the old system of having someone launch a game to act as a temporary holder for items, logging in with the character with an item and dropping it, then logging out and back in with the new character was a bit of a hassle.

Coming from you, a person that has clearly played both Torchlight and Diablo, I'm happy to hear a proper explanation. I pointed out the whole shared stash similiarity to my friend, who has only played Diablo 1-3, and his response was, "No they didn't," which was annoying to me since he had no idea what he was talking about.

I like to view it as smaller, indy game companies having a positive, measurable effect on the progression of gaming.

 

[The Pinray]

I didn't like it on PC one bit. Always online, the auction house. It was ridiculous. The console version is so much better, in my opinion. My wife isn't even a gamer, and she wants to play it all the time now.

Playing on the gamepad does have its concessions, but overall it feels like it was meant for consoles all along.

 

[00slash00]

Huh. I may have to get this now. My wife is a huge Torchlight fan and neither one of us has played this. The couch co-op would basically be exactly what we need.

I just hate controllers for anything outside of sports and fighting games, so I think I might rent this first to see if I can adapt well.

The demo is free and will take about 2 hours to complete. Plenty of time to decide if you like the feel of using a controller or not. I played the demo last week and it made me a little angry. I was blown away by how vastly superior in every way the console version felt to the PC version (except visually). I will agree though, it doesn't really feel like a Diablo game. It did remind me a lot of playing Gauntlet.