Diablo III Previews

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Written by BuckGB on October 12th, 2008

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Eventually I get my first rune. The rune system in Diablo III allows you to slot stones you find into powers in order to increase their effects in specific ways. The minor power rune I pickup adds a bit more damage to my disintegration ray, whereas a multi-hit rune might very well split the beam into multiples. The developers have not only had to create the powers for each class, but determine how each rune you can pick up effects said powers. Each run has a cosmetic as well as functional effect on each power. It's a very ambitious system that I cannot wait to see more of.

At know point during my 3-level dungeon descent do I worry about the bright colors ruining my experience. It's still moody and pretty dark. The spell effects, on the other hand, are vibrant and colorful, and the death animations for the creatures I kill seem to vary depending on the power I use. Disintegrate actually disintegrates my enemies. No caned death animations here.

Diablo III is going to be a masterpiece.

Before anything else, it needs to be stated - and cannot be overstated - that the fears that Diablo fans might have had about the direction of the game's art and style are wholly and completely unwarranted. Anyone who was concerned that D3 wouldn't be true to the grim and gothic tone of the first two games will be reassured from the first few moments spent running through the ruins of Tristram.

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After belting up a few more monsters I get a item i can use. A two handed sword, which almost doubles the damage I'm doing. Zombies that took a few swings now get demolished in one or two, and oh don't get me started on the skeletons! Boom boom boom. This sure as hell is fun.

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This is not "isometric World of Warcraft." This game is a Diablo game through and through.

This isn't to say, though, that the developers of Diablo III haven't taken a page or two from the WoW playbook. It's much more common to see abilities with short "cooldown" timers, for instance. One of the Barbarian moves, for example, is a devastating stomp that deals damage to all enemies in a small area around the character and stuns them. However, it takes 8 or so seconds for the skill to recharge, so it can't just be spammed at will.

While players are still able to assign abilities to the left/right mouse buttons, the potion bar from Diablo II has been replaced by a hotbar for up to six abilities or items - you can put potions on it too, if you'd like. Since two skills can be mapped to RMB (Tab switches between them), this means that a possible total of nine skills and abilities are at the players' fingertips at any one time.

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