Diablo - Blizzard Entertainment RRP œ45.00 Reviewed on a P200 by Alex van Kaam System Requirements: PC - Pentium 60 RAM - 8mb for single player, 16 for multi player Operating System - Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 Controls - Keyboard & Mouse Drives - 4mb Hard drive space and double speed CD-Rom Video - SVGA card and DirectX 3 (comes with the game if you don't have it) Sound - Any Windows 95 compatible soundcard On my last visit to the UK I went to see Sue, this time we had some more time so we went into Sidcup and there I found the legendary Silica store, and what a bummer it was , not even half the size of what I thought it would be, after exploring the store a bit I decided to buy Diablo____ @~That was on Monday ... on Saturday they announced the store was @~closing down - just saw it in time, eh? ... Sue Once back in the "Medley" house and after lunch it was PC time, we slammed the CD in Sue's new drive and off it went, the installation was quiet simple, we first did a system performance test and saw the everything was supported except DirectX stuff, so back in the main menu we selected that, this installed without a pain and one reboot later Sue's machine was DirectX 3 ready. For those who wonder what DirectX stands for, it is some tools created by MS, they help programmers to bypass the slow Windows interface and go direct to the hardware (graphics card, sound card and stuff), this is just a simple explanation and the only thing you need to really know is that it is good for you, it means Windows games can go faster and better. (a little hint, if you install DirectX and you don't have one of those new 3D graphics cards, then make sure you uncheck that option in the install menu!) So once more we pushed the CD in the drive and pressed install. After that it all went fast, the game was installed in a few seconds and soon we were watching the atmospheric intro --- Once this was completed we came to the main menu and choose Single Player game, then we could select Warrior, Rogue or Wizard, since I am not the Wizard type and definitely not the Rogue type the choice was easy ... WARRIOR, so 5 seconds later Aragorn once again entered a new game ... The first thing that impressed us was the graphics and the sound, both are very sharp and together create a good atmosphere. After a bit of walking using the mouse and looking through all the inventory and statistics screen we encountered our first quest ..._the Butcher ... after that 3-4 hours passed very very quickly :o) As you can see by the part above, it is very easy to get involved in the game, no huge menus, no difficult options and settings, it's all done with your left mouse button, walking by clicking where you want to walk to, combat by clicking on the foe, inventory, stats, magic spells, map and quest list are all viewed by clicking on the right button or by pressing the right keys on your keyboard, it's easy, clear and fast. One thing that always shows that your deeply into the game is the fact that once you'rr dead you come to the conclusion you didn't save for the last hour or so ... as we did In the centre of the screen, just below the main display you have 8 slots where automatically your health potions are kept and by pressing the keys 1-8 you can quickly use them, this will save your life more than once :o) The game itself looks a lot like Ultima 8 - Pagan, a 3D view from above. But unlike Pagan if you walk behind a wall it becomes transparent and you have a better view of where you are. Also unlike Pagan you don't have that many options, all you can do is walk, there is no jumping and climbing and that is a bit of a shame. Also the game is very dark, especially in the dungeons, you easily miss a door but the Map is the solution for this, it shows you all the doors in the area you've been through so a quick look on it will help you loads. One thing that I noticed already when playing it together with Sue was the fact that the Quests are not as important as you think or as you are led to believe, in the end it's just 1 dungeon (so far) and you just hack and slash your way through it, the more kills the more experience and the more points you can divide over your character. Once I got home again and installed the game on my machine I saw that the above was very true, I have now reached the 9th level of the dungeon and so far have done nothing special, I just explored the dungeons like I do in any RPG and encountered 4 quests so far, 4 quests of which I know they are quests, I have done several areas which could have been quests but to be honest I could not be bothered to go up to the village and talk to everybody about it. Another thing that tells you loads about the game is that you can only have 1 save game, so that means that you can't do much wrong, either you're alive or you're dead, no worries about solving a quest the wrong way, or puzzles that can only be solved in one way, you can't get stuck really, just hack your way down the dungeons --- The game hold loads and loads of items, monsters and spells, the items are perfectly drawn, and seeing your character in a chain mail wearing a skeleton king's crown it a great sight to see. The monsters are as perfect as the weapons, they move great and are not really stupid, in a room full of archers shooting at you, you can only attack one at a time, the rest regroup and attacks you as you are trying to attack the archer you selected, very well done, there are also some humorous parts, like a horned demon running towards you like a mad man, and you taking a step to the left so he smacks full into the wall behind you, guaranteed to make you laugh :o) Spells again as the weapons are very well balanced, even as a warrior you can use spells, only you can't use them as much as a wizard and you can't build them up as much as a wizard does. Gaining new spells is fairly simple, you either learn them as a shrine or you read a book containing a spell, the first time you read or learn a spell it is added to your spell book, the second time the power of the spell increases. So now I sit here and I have to form my final conclusion of the game, in every aspect the game looks, feels and runs great, the only thing I find annoying is that I seem to find myself just hacking through dungeons without many quests or puzzles, which I find a great shame, maybe in later levels it will get better but at the moment it annoys me a bit. One part of the game I did not try was the multi player bit, either on Network, a Direct Connection (null-modem), Modem or TCP/IP (via the WWW logging onto Battle.Net) I think the last option will give the game a huge extra dimension but as long as the Telecom companies in Europe time local calls I don't think it will be a huge success in Europe. Well that brings me to the end, if you like a good hack and slash game with a good atmosphere then go get it, if you want more quests (like Xeen) and Puzzles (like Dungeon Master) then think twice. @~Yeah, I'd agree with that as far as I saw when Alex was here. @~Calling it an RPG is a bit of a cheat ... it's action all the @~way. The only real RPG bit is picking your character and even @~then there's no rolling up of stats etc. Graphically brilliant @~though, well worth seeing ... Sue - o -