Diablo III: This Year's Biggest Console Game
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There's a reason the name evokes hallowed memories in any PC gamer over the age of twenty, and a reason a sequel to a game that came out twelve years ago has us desperate to delve into its depths: the Diablo games, like the soulstones and enchanted gems its players pick from its dungeons, are polished to an insane level.
The previous game saw a band of adventurers stomp the archlords Mephisto, Baal and Diablo, as well a host of their grotesque followers. But it's been twelve real-life years and twenty pretend ones since those events of the PC-only Diablo II, and the people in the town of Tristram are forgetting their land's troubled past. But just as society collectively decides all those stories from two decades ago were total myth, a new evil rises in the undercity beneath Tristram. Enter you, your weapon, and your insatiable desire to murder things by pressing buttons very quickly.
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Lead technical artist Julian Love describes his team's development as 'finding the line by crossing it.' "If we're going to develop something, we immediately shoot for the most ridiculous version of that idea," says Love. "We know we've got a winner when we put it up on screen in front of the whole team and everybody cheers." His approach works. It's beautiful to watch Diablo III in full flow − that flow being violent and forceful, with each skill producing arcing splashes of viscera.
As well as skills to manage, the five characters have their own resources to watch out for. The Demon Hunter has both hatred and discipline gauges, for instance - one in red and one in blue. A canny player will balance their spending across different abilities, alternating between the former to deal damage, and the latter to escape it. The Barbarian works differently, generating fury as he gets more and more pissed off from beating corpses up. As you would. But build up enough and you get to use his beefiest moves.
