Diablo

Game: Diablo
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1996
Stephen's Rating: 6/10

Blizzard's Diablo is the quintessential action-RPG.

Basic Plot

You play a lone adventurer on a quest to travel the deepest depths of Sanctuary to find and destory the prime evil Diablo. Along the way you create allies in the town of Tristram including the infamous Deckard Cain.

Gameplay

Diablo is an action-RPG dungeon crawler. You pick one of 3 (4 if you have the Hellfire expansion) character classes and enter the world of Sanctuary.

 Gameplay.

The game involves entering dungeons which are randomly generated every time you join a new game server (or create your own single player one). You battle countless enemies, obtain better items and spells, and level up to become stronger. The objective is to descend 16 dungeon levels, find Diablo himself, and destroy him.

Spells were found by searching book cases. All classes could cast spells, but some had a natural affinity and could cast them faster and more effectively. On levelling up the player could assign stat points to increase their strength, dextery, intelligence, etc.

You could play single player (as I mostly did) or go online and battle with other players. At the time I was on a dial-up modem connection and we were paying something like $2 per megabyte so I didn't get to play much online...

Positivies

The replayability of the game was increased significantly because of the randomly generated levels.

The game as a whole was a satisfying and well rounded dungeon crawling experience.

The fact that it provided the starting point for Diablo 2 is a positive in itself.

Negatives

When you equiped items it could only change the appearance of your character to one of 2-3 pre-set looks (one for leather, chain, and plate armour). This was pretty unsatisfying, as the greatest armour in the game looked the same as a rusty set of platemail.

The story was weak. The success of the game lies in the mechanics and the hack'n'slash experience rather than anything deeper.

Memorable Moments

When I beat Diablo with my rogue, I only won because of a glitch in the game. He kept knocking me backwards until eventually I was "blackness" and he couldn't hit me, but I could fire arrows at him. I just kept firing until he fell.

 Diablo himself.

You could "dupe" (duplicate) items by throwing them on the ground, walking away from them, and then clicking on them to pick them up. At the exact moment that the item was picked up if you also picked up a potion from your belt, it would replace the potion with the item on the ground and the item would also appear in your inventory. Because of this every player had the Godly Plate of the Whale (best armour in the game) and various other magical items.

The rogue character I played online was a female (all rogues had to be). For some reason there was this guy called "Guardian Angel" who assumed I was female, and gave me all this stuff and would walk around protecting me. He sought me out on more than one occasion. It was pretty creepy, but I got lots of cool gear so I didn't tell him I was in fact a 14 year old boy until after I'd taken all his gear from him. And then he never spoke to me again. HAHA!