Diablo II with Lord of Destruction Expansion Set Review

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            Diablo II with Lord of Destruction Expansion Set Single Player Mode

Review by The SirenJuly 2002

I have always lived a solitary, reclusive existence as a Sorceress.  Content to move amongst the shadows, I call the wilderness and darkened wood my home. At first glance, I, The Siren, might appear frail; fragile … Lest you pass me by, know this: I not only brave elemental nature, but harness it with my own body and use it! Wielding the fearsome powers of lightning, fire, and ice as weapons in my hands, I both further the causes of good on this earth and attain my own ends.

As I wander my vast homeland, I am perplexed and repulsed by the evil spirits beginning to spawn upon it. Where have they come from, and what do they want with my world? The beauty of the richly detailed countryside becomes quickly marred by the bodies of dead Rogues—my compatriots—who attempt to battle these evil spirits as they appear. I hear rumors of other existing warriors against evil, each with their own strengths and attributes, Barbarian, Paladin, Necromancer, Amazon, Assassin, and Druid. Yet, I encounter none of them and travel this vividly colorful landscape alone.

Approaching a Rogue encampment (at this moment a darkened, rain-soaked haven), I seek solace for the night at a blazing campfire. Here, I find friends who not only impart wisdom but trade goods. They also detail for me the sordid history of Diablo, the larger devil behind this spiritual blight against mankind that we now face.  As daylight approaches, my spell-casting skills as a Sorceress are met with both skepticism and rekindled hope by these entrenched Rogues, who cannot overtake this evil uprising on their own. I am challenged by them to take on varied and ever-changing quests with my magic, to support the causes of right.

I strike out on my own to prove my worth and might! Songs of both victory and terror perpetually hang in the air. Each enemy has unique war cries and utterances, and each locale its own distinct audible nuances to aid me in my battles.

As I spar with ever-increasing numbers of zombies and all manner of demons and wraiths, my experiences only serve to strengthen both my character and reserve. Mysterious shrines of renewal and magical power dot the landscape, recharging my elemental weapons in time of need. I traverse lush green and golden hills, muted, stony valleys, and bloodied, rotting caves. Light passes into darkness; sun into storm. Cold, fire and poison threaten me, spewed from vile enemies, but I fear not. I meld lightning bolts right in my hands, first throwing them as static to weaken aggressors, then sending out chained lightning to finish them off …  I annihilate rushing herds of mad demons by forming fire bolts into rows of vicious fire hydras that fight for me. I sculpt moving blazes and set them down to protect me and follow in my wake, burning down all evil spirits that might follow … My survival is assured by fashioning ice bolts into frost novas that, spiraling outwardly in rings all around me, slow and shatter the undead servants of Diablo … All the while, raiding passed-on souls both righteous and foul, I gather gold, gems, magic items, weapons and armor to strengthen and aid me in my quests or to trade away.  I recoup lost items for the Rogues as well, in return for even more rewards!

These Rogue compatriots of mine at the encampment finally help to prepare me for their worst local foe: Demon Queen Andariel.  It is a long and arduous journey filled with hordes of murderous, otherworldly fiends who attempt to strike me down. Alas, I have hired a mercenary-archer named Gaile from the encampment, and she follows and guards me willingly and fiercely. Going into battle with Gaile by my side, her experience, defense and power growing even as mine do, we fight this poisonous Queen and her onslaught of new terrors together, emerging victorious once again!

This outland cleared, a caravan leader from the encampment offers to take us to Lut Gholein, a nearby town also overrun with Diablo’s treachery. We go, by now craving the very things that may be our end! The owner of a public house seeks vengeance for the deaths of both her son and husband, and so the first of our new quests begins … Locked treasure chests and abandoned barrels and jugs pepper the landscape, providing new jewel-encrusted magical weapons, health potions, gold, and magic portals for our emergency transference back to the safety of the town center. Their presence is mixed with the tortured corpses of past Rogues, unrelenting swarms of unique monsters and their masters, and dens and underground dungeons of evil that must be cleared for new treasures, experiences and defenses to be gained.

Our journeys, not for the faint of heart or mind, span in all five expansive locales. Gaile and I gather carnage from murdered heroes, forging new and incredibly powerful weapons from them.  We ultimately open the sinister gates of hell to confront the most heinous beings behind this demonic plague of our world; both Diablo in his infamy and the unforeseen Baal, the Lord of Destruction.  Many traps and deceptions of the eye await us, but for the bravest of brave, true light shall reign once again as we vanquish these horrendous foes and restore peace to our once-wondrous land …

Story

A demonically medieval tale woven through perpetual quests involving innumerable battles that carry through straight to the end. Diablo II itself consists of four acts that culminate in a final confrontation with Diablo; the Lord of Destruction expansion set adds a fifth act of gameplay and introduces yet another major boss to defeat in the form of Baal, the Lord of Destruction.

Game Mechanics

A point-and-click interface allows for strategic targeting of the unrelenting droves of enemies, along with easy manipulation of icon-driven weapons, inventory, and character skill tree systems.

Possibly overwhelming for a novice are the intricacies of the specific character classes and their detailed skill trees, where various types of experience points are earned for victorious battles that can be applied to numerous character traits, such as strength, vitality and energy, and used to broaden and reinforce character specialties such as spell-casting. Once specific experience points are applied, for better or worse, they can never be removed or reused; that said, the neverending battles do allow for constant earning of additional experience points. Each numbered level of character experience requires more and more game play in between to reach, though, and most locations must be played through multiple times (with enemies spawning again and again), or else a character’s experience level will not build up adequately enough to win boss fights with.

The game manual does little to direct the player towards the better experience point choices or to detail many specifics, so too much experimentation yielding poorly placed points often lends itself to beginning the game again on a better footing. The game automatically saves all progress over itself in the same save slot.

Once a quest area is started, if the game is exited before completion of that area, reentering the game will start at the closest safe town and the desired area will have to be accessed via Waypoint portals for transport and then conquered from scratch again. If a playable character dies, that same character spawns again back at the nearest safe town bereft of most inventory previously carried (except that which has been stored remotely in personal chests) and also sans acquired armor and jewelry previously worn.

One must only save and exit the game, then reenter it at said town and raid one’s old corpse, however, to recover everything intact, except for items carried in personal sashes and any gold the character had on his or her person. If a particularly difficult fight has been won or a large amount of experience points just earned, it is a good idea to exit the game and back up the sole save onto a disk, where it can be reinstalled back into the game over the current save if there is a major mistake made. A saved character from a previous Diablo II game may be converted to an expansion character for use with the LOD, but once converted that character cannot be changed back. Maps randomly change with each new character and game started, and a nice red overlay map showing all entrances, exits, shrines, caves and the like can be toggled on and off.

Inventory System

The ability to upgrade “socketed” weapons and armor by inserting acquired gems and jewels into those sockets, thereby adding magical attributes, certainly personalizes and enhances the gaming experience. However, there are so many magic items added with the LOD expansion set in addition to the already overwhelming amount of existing magic items, armor and weapons available in Diablo II itself that even the doubling of the storage area in LOD and the inclusion of large, wearable sashes for extra goods can’t keep inventory from spiraling out of control. The perpetual required trading and manipulation of inventory can be cumbersome and overly time-consuming.

The Horadric Cube, an acquired inventory device used for combining inventory items and morphing them into better items, has vague connotations and can be difficult to use to its maximum potential.

Rewards of battle are immediate, and health and mana (fuel for spell casting) refills are abundant. Keyboard shortcuts can be programmed for quick fortifying of characters, as well as for fast access to inventory and character attributes, etc. Constant upgrades for armor and weapons are in almost infinite supply; however, when selling items to vendors, their worth is cut in half compared to what a game character will pay to purchase them, making poor purchasing choices or lack of inventory storage space more costly.

Learning Curve

To the uninitiated, the amount of character stats, class-specific weaponry, beneficial shrines, and magic items may seem inhibiting at first. With patience it becomes easier to comprehend, and the thrilling battles will quickly draw the player in and render the less-clear points as secondary to some degree. The game can still be completed even if its finer details are not understood and the Horadric Cube’s use is not maximized.

Graphics

Diablo gets a boost with the Lord of Destruction expansion set, bringing its world into the long-overdue 800×600 resolution, with optional (and more enjoyable) 3D. Scenes are bright and richly detailed, if not still somewhat pixelated. The rare in-game movie sequences look stunning, however, and offer decent backstory information. 

Sound

The voice acting of the NPCs is superb, as is the constantly evolving medieval musical score. Sound effects for everything from changing weather to enemies’ actions and vocalizations are top-notch as well.

Replay Value

The wide range of character classes to choose from, the forming and perpetual refining of each character, and the sheer breadth of customizing traits available all serve to solidify the replay value of this immense epic. The fact that maps differ when beginning a new game also adds to replay value.

Stability

Diablo II with the LOD installed and ran flawlessly under Windows 98 SE on my Athlon XP 1900+ PC with 512 megs of PC2100 DDR RAM and an Elsa Gladiac GeForce2 Ultra video card. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Blizzard Publisher: Blizzard Release Date: 2000 (Diablo II); 2001 (Lord of Destruction expansion)

Available for: Windows Macintosh

Four Fat Chicks Links

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

PC—Single Player: Lord of Destruction expansion pack requires the full version of Diablo II to play Windows 2000, XP, ME, 98, 95, and NT 4.0 SP 5 or greater Pentium 233 64 MB RAM 800 MB available hard drive space (in addition to the original 900 MB Diablo II multiplayer install) 4X CD-ROM drive Direct X compatible video card

Additional requirements for Lord of Destruction multiplayer: Up to 8 players over TCP/IP network or Battle.net (Battle.net requires a low-latency 28.8 Kbps minimum internet connection) Multiplayer games played over a LAN require a TCP/IP network Enhanced graphics support: 8 MB 3D acceleration card that supports either OpenGL (v1.1.2 or higher), Rave, or 3dfx

Mac—Single Player:G3 processor or equivalent Mac OS 8.1 or later 64 MB RAM plus virtual memory 650 MB free hard disk space 4X CD-ROM drive Video support for 256-color display at 800×600 resolution Mouse and keyboard Glide, OpenGL (1.1.2 or later), RAVE, or 3dfx compatible 3-D accelerators (optional)

Multiplayer:64 MB RAM plus virtual memory 950 MB free hard disk space 28.8 Kbps or faster modem Up to 8 players over TCP/IP network or Battle.net requires low-latency Internet connection with support for 32-bit applications

Where to Find It

Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

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