Diablo 3

Honestly, I've never gotten into Diablo. Raised a console gamer (a very different breed than our PC-gaming counterparts), I had always been of the opinion, "Oh, so it's a game where you click a lot?" Further, the isometric view screenshots have really not been doing the game justice. I mean, check out some screens for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops (Ooh!), then compare them to the mild-mannered Diablo III screens (Oh.). The news of a double-wielding Demon Hunter class did nothing to change my mind, either.

Being a total Diablo n00b, I went with the class that seemed most attuned to my console sensibilities: the Barbarian. Big sword, looked tough, my kind of killin' machine. (Then found out later that the Monk is a straight-up God of War-ification of PC gaming. If only I had known!) There was an option to pick the sex of the character, but each class had only one option at this point in the development cycle.

Dropped into a dungeon with a fifteen-minute time limit, I quickly come to terms with just how simple and intuitive everything is. Click on a barrel, hit the barrel. Click on an enemy, hit the enemy. "I" brings up the inventory. Shuffle things around and re-equip new weapons and armor with an easy click-and-drag. Hit a number key on the keyboard to use one of your spells or abilities. Simple as that.

It's good that it's so intuitive, because within about thirty seconds there are more than a dozen zombies lumbering toward me, while mages behind them fire off spells at my character and summon zombie dogs to attack me from underneath my feet. Click click click. My Barbarian cleaves through one undead enemy after another with an entirely unexpected viciousness.

Limbs fly. Heads roll. Blood fountains stain the walls and floor. Severed zombie torsos refuse to give up the ghost and continue to crawl towards me, swiping out with their cold, undead fingers. They fall under a few viscerally satisfying swipes from my sword. I focus on the summoners. Do I want to fight an unending stream of flaming zombie dogs? No sir, I do not. Luckily, summoner robes aren't the most protective armor against a giant broadsword.

It's about now, as appendages bounce around the room and blood spurts from every new orifice I create in my enemies, that I realize just how detailed and beautiful DIII is. Fire spells produce their own flickering light, casting new shadows across the floors on the way to their targets. The zombies animate just how I'd expect a real zombie to act, complete with a tenacious tendency to continue attacking long after they should have ceased to move. Screenshots cannot capture how good it looks, how good it feels.

There are environmental traps, as well. Giant blades cut down from the ceiling and damage both your character and your enemies. Fire pits need to be navigated carefully, but zombies caught in the flames become the slow-burning Inferno Zombies that you're better off attacking from a distance, lest their flaming bodies burn you too. Hit a rope tied to the wall and parts of the ceiling will crash down on your opponents like a chandelier in an earthquake. It seems like there's always another way to fight besides just click click click.
Defeated enemies will rain loot on you, as well. Your inventory is pretty small, but you're able to salvage unusable/useless weapons and equipment you discover right from your bag. This turns your spoils of war into crafting materials that can be given to NPCs to create something newer and better for you. I wasn't able to discover one of these helpful NPCs during my brief demo, but perhaps it's a skill that the player will be able to learn later, as well?

The addictive carrot-on-a-stick nature of the first two Diablo games was apparent in my short time with the third iteration. There are also some just-announced PvP arenas and co-op play to keep gamers addicted for the next dozen years, although there wasn't a chance to try them out yet, really. I was assured, however, that the team at Blizzard is making every effort to ensure that the multiplayer aspects of DIII will be much more than just an afterthought like the Duel option from past games. A huge community built up around that mechanic, despite Blizzard adding it as merely a throwaway feature, and they hope to better serve that community this time.