Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls > Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls

D3 Previews

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Camelo:
Her er er D3 preview fra 1up, der har spillet demoen på Gamescom.

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3175657

It's been a long time coming, but finally, here on the show floor at Gamescom, I got my first chance to play Diablo 3. I'll cut straight to it: It was an almost religious experience. Within moments, all my hopes and expectations for a modern Diablo sequel were met. It's a fine line -- on the one hand, you want all the familiar pieces that made the prior two games so addictive. And on the other hand, there's the evolution of other action-RPG games in the intervening time since Diablo 2.

With a choice of Witch Doctor, Barbarian, or Wizard greeting me, I dove right in. Not sure of how the Witch Doctor's grenade-like potion tossing would work, and a veteran of many a Barbarian campaign, I opted for the Wizard. My main attack loadout consisted of spectral blade (a spell that thrashed enemies in front of me with a flurry of magic swords) on the left mouse button and arcane orb (a slow moving ball of electricity shot out as a projectile) on the right.

The demo area turned me loose into the desert region Alcarnus. Starting from an outpost, the primary quest was to travel over to Lut Bahadur. After a brief walk through wind-worn ravines, the scene opened up into a sprawling desert with no shortage of enemies who weren't too please to see me there. Almost immediately, the "Diablo-ness" of this sequel came out. Over-excited by the moment, I charged into the first group of enemies and wound up dead quite quickly. Remembering how to play, I was able to settle into a rewarding tactic of luring a few foes out, freezing them in place with frost nova, moving back and blasting them with arcane orb, and finally mopping up the remainders with the more powerful spectral blade.

As you'd expect, a variety of demons and creatures came out of the sand to attack me. Some, such as the Lacuni Warrior and Fallen Overseer, had a fairly traditional demonic look with a hunched over posture and flaming swords in each hand. Others were desert creatures, like the Sand Wasp that flittered around a little ways off while launching volleys of baby wasps at me. One of the more dramatic opponents was the Dune Dervish; it twirled and spun around, and used those spins to produce a vicious stun attack with a knockback effect.

All this action looked familiarly enough like Diablo, but with all the polish of a modern game. Liberal use of special effects made a big impact on the presentation; the screen warped with the impact of spells and became obscured from dust swirling around the Dervish. And through it all, the unmistakable art style left no doubt what game I was playing.

Taking a quick look around the menus found the skill trees that, not surprisingly, look very much like those of World of Warcraft. Divided from the top into three branches, working down the tree adds numerous skills and upgrades to your character. In-game bonuses can also be had -- for instance, survive a battle that's taken you down to your last bit of health, and you receive an experience bonus for the enemies you just killed.

If it's possible, playing Diablo 3 made me even more anxious for the day when I get to sit down, install the game, and start my first character. If it weren't for several thousand square feet filled with other games here at Gamescom I'd just park myself at the demo. For fans of the series there's a light at the end of the tunnel headed to Diablo 3, and it's shining quite brightly.

Camelo:
Et preview fra Kotaku.

http://kotaku.com/5340558/diablo-iii-impressions-hands-on-with-the-barbarian

We just played Diablo III. For fifteen painfully brief minutes, our lady Barbarian tore through hordes of Fallen, clicking them back to the Hell they came from. It was good.

The Gamescom (and Blizzcon) demo of Diablo III featured at Blizzard's booth features the three announced classes: Wizard, Barbarian and Witchdoctor, with male and female options for both. I opted for the Barbarian, what I assumed would be the easiest, most familiar introduction to Diablo III. That assumption was correct. Blizzard doesn't seem to have mucked with the successful formula of click, kill and loot in the newest Diablo.

Our short journey started in the desert.

The demo begins in the Sundered Pass, a dusty zone that smacks of Lut Gholein's desert lands in Diablo II. Of course, the deserts in Diablo III look far better than those featured in the previous game, with visible winds carrying clouds of sand across the plains, dust storms kicking up around us. The land is similarly populated with tiny desert creatures, snakes and insects that get trampled underfoot.

Our main quest in this desert land is to head to Alcarnus, as given to us by the lady Asheara, to see just what the hell is going on in that town. Since Diablo's back in town, things in Alcarnus aren't going too well. You know, demons and stuff.

That's what stood between us and Alcarnus—a hellish hot spot we actually never made it too. Instead, we ran into a few side quests. One sent us after the bounty of a man named Husam. The price on his head was high, so we took his head. It really only took one good whack from the maces we were dual-wielding. After some backtalk from Husam, we bludgeoned him until his head popped off.

We started off with some good equipment, two maces, an axe, a shield, plus full armor. We also had an Adventurer's Backpack, which brought our Barbarian's inventory to a cool 28 slots. The inventory screen should look familiar to Diablo fans, but the newest version is far more streamlined. When hovering over unequipped items in your inventory, you'll see a pop up window with that item's vital statistics and the item you currently have equipped in that slot.

That made it a lot easier to see if the leather pants we picked up at one point were better than the "lucky" leather pants we started out with. They were. A right click equipped them, draining our character's luck, but upping her armor.

We were also equipped with two Barbarian skills, Ground Stomp and Battle Cry. The former was hot-keyed to the "2" and, when enabled, stunned everything around the Barbarian. Helpful, when Fallen are surrounding you and Fallen Shamen are tossing fireballs your way. The Battle Cry, on the "1" key, increased our armor class temporarily. If we were playing a multiplayer game, that Battle Cry effect would have been passed on to our party members. But we were doing this quest solo.

The Barbarian's other skill, Cleaver, was mapped to the right mouse button. Click on it, and our lady brute did a two handed attack on two enemies at once, as long as they were side-by-side. Again, handy when surrounded by Fallen and Sand Wasps. Those Sand Wasps really suck, by the way, ejecting a quartet of mini-Wasps at our hero. Nasty.

We ran into a few other nasty things in the desert, the most annoying of which was the Desert Dervish, a spinning tornado of a beast with a strong knock-back attack.

The demo offered a few side quests on our way to Alcarnus. We ran into a "Crazed Miner," who offered us the quest, "A Miner's Gold." All we had to do was defend the miner while he raised a treasure chest via a pulley system. When he started, swarms of Fallen came after him. If we were successful in defending the miner from the swarm, we'd get half the gold. It really wasn't a challenge for the Barbarian, as Ground Stomp made that defense quest a simple task.

After that, we were quickly bested by a massive Fallen attack, as Shamans and other beasts piled upon us. It seemed like the demo ramped up the difficulty quickly when the "Thanks for playing" popped up. We could still play—and revive the dead Barbarian—but a Blizzard rep kicked us off.

From graphics to gameplay to interface adjustments, Blizzard seems to have delivered with Diablo III. The game looks fantastic, dripping with atmospheric detail and gorgeous visual effects. But honestly, it's the user interface changes that are most exciting. Blizzard has made the process of looting and equipping much more efficient, letting the player focus on the action.

We'll have more hands on impressions of Diablo III from Gamescom—and soon from Blizzcon—in the coming days.

mads-wm3:
jeg glæder mig... jeg glæder mig... JEG GLÆDER MIG!!!!!!  ;D

MonsterPool:
Det er så fedt. Giv mig nu det spil! :)

Camelo og jeg har indset at vi burde have fyldt bilen op med benzin og kørt til Köln i går, så vi selv kunne have gamet Diablo 3! :-\ ;D Mon ikke der tages revance næste år, hvis der altså stadig ventes på D3.

Camelo:
Lige præcis. Hvis situationen er den samme næste år, ryger vi sydover til Köln ;D

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