June 2012 saw the release of the long awaited sequel to Blizzard's action RPG franchise, Diablo III. The months leading up to its release were filled with excitement and anxiety as rabid fans salivated over the return to Diablo's dark fantasy world of Sanctuary but also dreaded its lack of gothic darkness. When it finally came out, the game was a polished product for sure, but Diablo's mechanics felt gutted. Some found it difficult to call it an RPG as character customization had now been limited to what breastplate your character was wearing. To some it was a failure, but to most critics it was a decent release, garnering an 88 on Metacritic.
Since its release, the auction house has come and gone and many who missed the previous iterations' depth of character progression had left to try alternatives like Torchlight II and Path of Exile. But in September 2013, we saw the release of Diablo III again, but this time for consoles. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 users could now enjoy the hack and slash loot farming from their couches as opposed to leaning into a computer screen. Reviews for the console versions strayed not far from their PC counterpart with both versions getting an 86 on Metacritic.
This is not Diablo's first foray into the living room. The original crawled its way to PlayStation in 1998, only a couple years after its PC release. Gamespot gave Diablo for PSX an 8.1, praising it as a mostly successful translation of Diablo's addicting hybrid gameplay with a few animation hiccups. All in all, a formula for success. So it's no surprise that Diablo III saw the LCD light of flat screen televisions.
I bought Diablo III shortly after its PC release in 2012 and played it for about a week. Leading up to it, I had been playing Torchlight, which borrows heavily from the first two Diablo games (no doubt because of Torchlight's development team containing Diablo developers) and adds some unique mechanics like a pet to send all of your extra loot back to town for selling. A worthy successor for sure. Yes, it was cartoony to the point of bordering on juvenile, but the mechanics were something to write home about.
Diablo III lasted about a week for me. The story was middling at best--though who plays Diablo for the story? And while the dark aesthetic was preferable to Torchlight's, environments began to feel stale and recycled. While the randomly generated level mechanic of the Diablo series had made a return, there was only so much variety to see. Multiplayer was an alright experience when you had someone to play with, but I too was feeling miffed that I had no say in what stats to increase every time I hit a level. Sure, the monk's fisticuffs looked like a dream in full three-dimensional rendering with Havoc physics to boot, but for Cain's sake, I thought I was playing an RPG.
That's not to say I didn't like the game. I find it fun in bursts. But playing the game by one's self feels more like a chore than outright fun. So, I figure let's give the Xbox 360 version's couch co-op a shot. Sam doesn't game but she's been such a loving girlfriend to feign interest and give it a shot with Bioshock Infinite (damn her motion sickness!), and she's agreed to jump into Sanctuary with me. We'll give the demo a shot before we invest any further into the game (hello nearby Redbox).
God help us.
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