Diablo - Blizzard RRP œ35
         (Isometric shoot 'em up in RPG's clothing)

             Reviewed by James Judge on a P120

I know Alex reviewed this game last issue, and did a sterling job
too, but I just wanna let my feelings be known about this game. Oh
yes, the FEELINGS. I can feel them (as you tend to, with feeling)
broiling under the surface of my skin waiting for a cathartic bout
of venting through the keyboard. Nya-hargh, hargh, hargh. What's
that, mum? Stop eating the emulsion?  OK, if you insist...

After having the all-too-rare experience of finding more money in
my bank account than I thought there was, I had a sudden rush of
blood to my head. This made me feel weak and so I stumbled into
the local Electronics Boutique store (pure luck, promise) and was
assailed by the racks and racks of PC games. Another blood rush, a
moment of queasiness and a sudden lurch towards the counter had me
handing over my credit card and waving a copy of Diablo in front
of the bemused sales assistant. Kerching! That was the precise
moment thirty five of my hard-earned quids went down the drain in
the biggest mistake of this year, so far (apart from the
putting-my-head-in-the-cement-mixer incident. Oh, and playing
pinfinger with a chainsaw. Erm, and eating those snails. And...
I'll stop here shall I?).

By the time I reached home the random blood-rushes had stopped and
I had regained full body control, apart from my left leg - which
did as it wanted to. I installed Diablo straight off which,
including saved positions, took about eight megs of HDD space
(that's one save per character type) and started the game.

To begin with I was well impressed - the intro looked nice and the
eye being pecked out by a raven set the atmosphere nicely for me.
Choosing a character and naming him was painless and BOOM! I was
straight into the game.

The first thing that struck me were the graphics - nicely detailed
SVGA 3D isometric things that were highly detailed and moved very
smoothly. My character had a cocky swagger to his stride as he
paced around the screen clutching his staff (I was a wizard) and I
could identify everything on the screen - there were no ambiguous
squiggles that would lead to hours of playing "Name That Pixel".

The next thing was the ease of control. The game was dead easy to
get into and everything seemed pretty natural - if you've played
one game which involves a bit of pointing and clicking you'll
easily pick up the control interface without even needing to read
the manual. Basically it all revolves around the use of the mouse
- left click for operating and attacking and the right for spells
'n' stuff. Anything of interest is highlighted - such as doors,
items, barrels and monsters - and one click will see your
character wandering over to it and using it however.

The final thing to strike me was the sound. All of the characters
seen in the game have their own voice, naturally, and all of the
speech is well-read and fits perfectly into the atmosphere of the
game. The blacksmith has a roving Scots accent, while the healer
is quiet and gentle. The best voices are those of the monsters you
meet in the dungeon as well as the drunk in the village. Apart
from the speech, the sound effects are also good with swishing of
swords as they fly through the air to the clunks of traps being
activated. Oh, and sometimes your own character makes an
observation too.

This is where my wonderment of the game began to fade. After a
brief half an hour the first two levels were searched and
eradicated of any demon spawn. Better armour, weapons and scrolls
had been purchased and my character was gaining levels like
no-one's business. An hour later a couple more levels had been
completed and the Butcher, while initially looking scary, was
shown the sharp end of a firebolt and he started his secondary
role in the game as "Big Ol' Bloated Corpse".

I then decided to take a break and read the manual. I was filled
with excitement as I put the mini-tome down; it promised loads of
extra monsters and items, not to mention spells for my wizard and
quests galore. I suddenly envisaged a huge sprawling dungeon with
loads of deadly puzzles and a fiendishly evolving plot. My left

leg then decided to revert control back to me so I went back
upstairs and continued on.

When I got down to level thirteen my character told me that I must
be close. Confusion swept across my face like a bad, violent rash,
and the rip-off-o'meter started flashing very vigorously to the
tune of œ35. To make things worse, and a pit form in my stomach, a
friend who had bought the game a week earlier chose that time to
'phone and tell me he'd just completed Diablo.

"How many levels were there?" I asked fearfully.

"A stonking twenty" he claimed.

Slightly more happy, I progressed on. Level fifteen saw me defeat
the last monster (the dreaded Diablo!!!!) and the end scene roll
onto my screen. The blood rushed to my head and I collapsed over
my keyboard. Waking several hours later, glued to the keyboard in
a puddle of dried dribble, I was a bit miffed and felt highly
cheated. A deft job with a screwdriver and pair of pliers removed
the keyboard from my face, leaving only the F4 key stuck to my
forehead. Still, that's for removal another day.

So, after purchasing this game on a whim (and a spasm) I spent
about eight hours playing its fifteen levels to completion.
Ignoring the speed at which I had completed the game, I was left
feeling as if there was still a game to play. There were no
puzzles that I could find (save one, on the last level which
involved throwing two levers) and the quests that I found were few
and far between. There was also no cunning built into them as you
HAD to complete all of the important ones and all of those were
presented to you as part of the completely linear dungeon.

All throughout the game you only had one thing to do - that was
enter a level, kill all the monsters (which usually had the added
bonus of completing a quest for you) and progress straight onto
the next, maybe with a trip to town for supplies.  There was no
branching off into different areas of the game - either inside or
outside the dungeon - and at no point was I stuck.

The end of the game came very suddenly and I didn't even know I
was fighting Diablo until I had killed him. I guessed that he was
probably a powerful member of the opposition as it took me all of
a minute to do away with him, instead of the usual five seconds
the standard dungeon denizens required, but there was no build up
to his entrance. Admittedly, a large neon sign saying "Here Be The
Lair Of Diablo" wouldn't be a plus point, but just bumbling around
a large level (as I was) and then to round a corner and meet
Diablo plus a number of other monsters seems a hell of an
anti-climax to me. And he was a wimp.

Since completing it that once I've retraced my steps twice using
different characters and, basically, the story is just the same.
Admittedly, every time you start a new game you get a randomly
generated dungeon, but it is still either fifteen or twenty levels
long with the same major quests in place. True, during the new
games I did come across new monsters and new spells (by the time I
had finished my first game my wizard's spell book wasn't full -
far from it) but they added no variation to the game at all. Also
changing character types from Wizard to either Warrior or Rogue
didn't change the playing style all that much. The same items were
present and the monsters reacted to you in the same way. The only
thing that was different was the way that you killed the
opposition - either with blade, bow or spell.

I then took my original mage through the dungeon again (as you
can, if you want) to see if I could discover any new spells and
whether the dungeon would be made any harder this time around.
Well, the dungeon became oh so slightly harder - but it was barely
noticeable, my mage still carved through the dungeon and in a
couple of hours Diablo was only a few levels away. I did find some
of the missing spells and I also uncovered a couple of bugs -
mainly to do with duplicate artefacts in the dungeon.

I then, to try and get some pleasure out of the game, networked
the game with a friend and this added to the enjoyment, but
barely. In a multi-player game the only two things that are
different are (a) there's more than one of you and (b) there's far
more monsters to hack at. The same quests are there and, in all,
very little else changes. We only got a couple of levels in as we
became bored to death in no time at all, so maybe it changes
further down - but I doubt it.

To play multi-player you'll need either access to the Internet or
a network. For both options you need a CD in your drive and the
other player's, so there's no chance to play off one CD over a
network as there is in Warcraft or Red Alert. In a dungeon there
can be up to three other players playing with you. You can send
messages and work either co-operatively or aggressively with the
other players, but the non-team way of working seems pointless as
the dungeon is so linear that you'll soon get fed up with running
into one another and having to go back up to the town to get
healed.

So, after playing the game through to completion a number of times
and dabbling in it over a network I still feel cheated at this
game. It holds so much promise, but fails to realise it in nearly
every count. If it was less linear it would be better. If there
were non-dungeon parts it would be better. If it encompassed a few
towns and their locality it would be better.  If it allowed more
than four players it would be better. If it enabled true puzzles
it would be even better. If the quests were interesting,
challenging and well thought out, adding to the gameplay it would
be much better still. If the list of spells and pieces of kit was
more varied (after a while you begin to realise that although it
looks like there is a lot of kit, there is in fact only very few
pieces of worth and the rest are just basic variations on a theme)
and interesting it would be better. If the game had all of the
above then it would be a world-beater, bringing RPGs to the masses
and providing a multi-player environment never before created.

As it is, it sucks.

The game has a good premise, nice graphics and sonics and is well
executed physically. The only trouble being the ease at which it
is completed and its utter shallowness - both in single and
multi-player modes. If someone were to take this engine and idea,
wrap a world from, say, Daggerfall around it and then make it
available with proper sets of quests and puzzles, as well as

design-your-own editors then the game would be one of the bright,
shining stars of gaming history along with Civilisation and Quake.

As it is, it sucks.

Keep well clear unless you're truly a beginner and want a very
easy start into the world of swords and sorcery with plenty of
eye-candy. If you're not, well, you're lumbered, mate as it isn't
even an RPG - just an isometric shoot-'em-up using the mouse, a
health and mana bar and the trappings of a fantasy world.









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