Blizzard Entertainment's "Diablo 3" had a rough launch. The always-on DRM led to much frustration and gnashing of teeth about the dungeon crawler. The problems were worked out although the much hyped player vs player element promised by Blizzard has yet to appear. The game is set to come to the PS3 and PS4 later this year and was playable on the showfloor at PAX East. These are my impressions.
There were two characters to chose from: a Barbarian, the tank, and a Demon Hunter, the ranged character. I went with the Demon Hunter because my preference in these types of gams is to do as much damage as possible from far away.
I've only dabbled with with PC version so I can't speak to how the two compare. The game began with simple fetch quests to familiarize the player with the controls. After talking to a forgettable NPC it was off to the dungeons for reasons that remain unclear. The fighting and looting felt good although it was difficult to figure out what the different potions, gauntlets and hats did in my brief 15 minutes with the game.
Playing it was like watching a pulled back version of "God of War" especially since the right stick controls the dodge mechanic. Attacks are mapped to the face buttons and right triggers while the heal button is the bottme left trigger. The attacks, and their level of cool down is on the bottom left of the screen.
The visuals were bright and the the mix of spiders and monsters were fun to fight, although I did die two times. Once in the dungeon there were no quest markers so it did take some trial and error to figure out where I needed to go. Overall, this is one to watch when it comes out.
