Diablo III

I've stopped playing D3 and I don't know why
If i had to think about it I'd say because battlefield 3 is better, but perhaps that's not true, maybe Diablo 3 just was not built with the same depth D2 had. The fact that you can beat the game in a weak means that by the end of the week you have experienced all you can experience from Diablo 3, all your basically doing in playing on is beating a dead horse and grinding it out for what? more loots? The number of monsters doesn't increase only the difficulty, ultimately I wasn't happy with the way it was done but for someone who is easily entertained and isn't obsessed in battlefield 3 it's probably a great game.

Irony is smarine77 accusing anyone else of acting like a child after posting 200 qq words because somebody said mean things about his video game.

To correct a mistake you appeared to make while reading any review ever - a reviewer ONLY reviews games for themselves. Nobody is psychic, and nobody can know what another person likes or dislikes. So a review is a written piece detailing the experience from the point of view of the writer themselves. Anyone claiming anything else is a liar.

I have read dozens of reviews and I think

Diablo III WTF! - ZGR

on Youtube came closest to my feelings about the game.

Peaceout fanboys!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I find this review junk. I didn't come here to find spoilers, and then apologies from the reviewer only to find that the reason he noted them, was because

' I didn't think much of the reveal at the time because after countless playthroughs of D2 he meant very little to me'.

Last time I checked, Joaby, you don't review a game, for yourself. You are a bit narcissistic , don't you think ? A bit, full of yourself ? Yea, I thought so too.

I also came here, and registered just to tell you, that while there are parts of the game I can understand people of D2 fame being a slight bit uncomfy with, but that does not magically impart you with the ability to use words that are non professional; though Im sure you won't understand to what I refer, because well..your Narcissism is of epic proportions.

I read a review, not to see arrogance and dismissal of quality just because you 'wanted to play it 4 days straight', but a professional realistic and fair review of a game that while expensive ( few game aren't), contains alot of cool factors that most people are seeing, and wanting to continue to experience. I played diablo 2 with a very dear friend, I see the differences in Diablo 3, but I guess I'm made of different stock than some whiners I see here & on diablo 3 forums. You play for hours, then complain you want a refund, or that the game's story is banal, when its clear you could do no better. THis is NOT A BOOK people, its a game. No game is ever going to compare, to a book. You really do need a life, if you think otherwise. There are no exceptions, to that rule.

I absolutely LOVE the art style in this game, so that alone gets huge positive points by me. Diablo 2 was wonderful ( once my friend pushed me on being OK with the nasty resolution forced on me) with regards to that design choice, and Diablo 3 is no different, on any level, and its better because they masterfully combined 2 with 3d. I also was wonderfully captivated by the choice of going with voice acting, instead of boring raw text, when you pick up a journal entry. To me, while hardly mandatory for a 'enjoyable experience', it made the game more immersive to me, as it was as if the actual person making the journal, was there in the room with me explaining their story.

I also love the fact they added some physics here, although ( maybe im not there yet) I'd love to see things like vine bridges of the sort ( not directly) dungeon siege was famous for.At least their physics helped immerse you even further.

I get people are miffed over the ability tree stuff, but they did their best to accommodate PS3/xbox3 etc. users. Come on people, this is the 21st century, and if you can't adapt, you will be assimilated. This is Blizzard we're talking about. They did Diablo 2, and while this isn't the game you remember in its entirety, its most definitely a game worthy of the company. To say otherwise , makes me wonder how many of you are Torchlight bearers, bringing forth hate to usher in your games success. Yeah right..I don't like cartoons anymore sorry, I grew out of that a couple of years ago ;) That isnt to say the idea for MOD's isn't a wonderful thing; I love doing it myself, but Im sorry, the graphics, no- I don't care that its $19.95, not going there. That's what I mean about D3's grahpics. Masterful, and especially for D2 players whom willl feel right at home.

Whiners need not apply. I loved D2's leveling up mechanics as did my very good friend with whom I played 100+ hours online with, but in no way does that diminish , or prevent me from enjoying the fruits of the blizzard teams work to continue the legacy they stared with D1.

It's just a game folks. ADapt , or read the box next time more carefully before asking for a refund and acting like total children on forums/comment threads. Oh wait,some of you are, and some ( apparently a huge number of you ) of you actually liked the game and understood the challenges the team faced in bringing their products to this decade and beyond.

The game itself is great if you can get past the developers consitant errors in patching each week, the downtime on Tuesdays while they bring the servers down for maintence during 6:00pm onwards Aus time, the lack of quality loot drops on harder difficulty settings. Game play out of 10 is 8. Having to rely on internet access to play a single player game with Group play option.

Im being forward about this. I suggest reading through the D3 forums before making the choice. Find out the full background before making the final decision to get D3 or not.

Im posting this here as being in Aus, trying to log into D3 on a Friday morning and unable to due to D3 getting stuck on an infinate loop with the patching, ill be personally looking forward to GW2 in 2 months to leave behind D3 for good.

Personal Thoughts/Comments on D3.

I'm pretty happy with D3 all round, everything I hoped it would be, can see myself playing for many months to come.

When will reviewers stick to reviewing what something is, rather than measuring their vision against a product, and then listing what something isn't.

The Mona Lisa doesn't have monster trucks in the painting, so therefore it's crap? I think not.

This title still looks, smells, and feels like Diablo. It's familiar. It has better graphics. But you seemed to expect something different. I just expected the next Diablo, and I got it.

I guess it's hip to cut tall poppies.

well my take not reading every other comment is as such

Crappy loot, Crappy crafting
Storyline is ok, though i was dissapointed atleast in the first 2 acts, there's only 1 Blizzard worthy movie scene the others are just views of a map

The voiceovers are fine, the graphics are nice enough, the sound is abit like DVDs, too quiet in some bits and too loud in others even with adjusted sound settings.

Point and clicking to move is very old school but is annoying when you are combating and trying to move which uses the same system.

The character creation is awfull since you have no control other then gender and choice of class.

The combat gets really old really fast, and though you do pick up some good skills the rest are just either the same thing or pointless and only being able to slot certain skills by default is annoying (you can change this with a game option but it's still rather mind numbing)

The combat in general (once again) is too much hack and slash or rapid mouse pressing firing off skills that aren't on cooldowns.

Difficulty is hit and miss, most of it is too easy and then some bits when you get surrounded you can't move so it's furtile to fight back and you can't change difficulty til you beat the game on the previous level anyway and as OP said the only real difference seems to be morale of the bosses everything else is more or less the same.

Overall the game is still playable in spurts of a few hrs but then you move to something else til you get bored again.

while i do agree with the review on a few points, 6.5 is way too harsh. i find it hard to take the author seriously when he has given such high scores to other games such as: MW3 9.5, homefront 8.5, heck even fear 3 got a higher score then diablo 3.

First review I've read for D3 that I completely agree with. Pretty good writing too though I did spot a spelling mistake ;)

Also, good job not being paid off and writing what you actually see.

Gotta point out though, I really like Diablo and I hope they fix the issues they've got at the moment.

An exceptionally accurate critical review. It expresses my sentiments exactly. These are the types of reviews we should demand, not deride.

Now don’t get me wrong, the game itself is great. It’s fun to play and I probably will be playing it for some time. But it could’ve been better, far better.

@Skillet37 you sir deserve a ban at least from this comment thread. But then again you have given the an excellently succinct example in each sentence of why comments like yours are not appreciated why, because they contribute nothing. Please just look at what you said for a second.. ok about a minuite and put it into context. Oh ok I will do it for you first sentence: Good Game excuse my paranoia but this screams troll given you have dug up the past I need say no more; it was two words, first sentnce. "Throw more at it" yes we get what you mean but surely you can elaborate here all i can make from your entire comment is you like it because it "keeps you occupied" how and why is this a good thing I am sure you mean this to be a good thing. "Call me stupid or whatever, but it's the best money i've spent lately, and relative to other games in it's price range recently..." I actually dont mind this comment its about the only thing I have heard about the games price tag and calling you stupid would be stupid in itself becuase I dont know yoy for starters. "While it had the "potential" to be a superb game...so do most games these days. Get over it." This last remark is why you should be banned. It started well and just ended. Well Floppily.

Good Game. 42 hours in and still expected to throw more at it. Call me stupid or whatever, but it's the best money i've spent lately, and relative to other games in it's price range recently...it does a good job at keeping me occupied.

While it had the "potential" to be a superb game...so do most games these days. Get over it.

Those people attacking the mods for removing their comments should know that other people can see their comments just fine, and you didn't have a leg to stand on in the first place.

Not having played or been interested in this game, the review seems to reflect all the concerns I had for the game pre-launch. So thanks for the no bullshit approach, Joaby. It's why I come here.

The funniest thing about these comments are the people bashing Joaby for reviewing more than just PC games in the past, as if D3 is some kind of bastion of PC excellence (instead of everything that's wrong with it) and worse still, as if it wasn't modified to suit the decidedly consoley 4 button control scheme during beta. Those familiar with the betas already know the gameplay mechanics showed some promise during the first stage, only to get completely dumbed down during the second stage, which is what we've been left with. As these comments show, Activision have done a superb job of attracting 'dumb' in droves.

Sykotic - RE Comments disappearing - a bug in our comments system was doing that, this used to be for user reviews and we amended it to be for comments later. It's rectified now :)

RE spoilers - I will admit the Act 4 Mini-Boss fault, and have edited it accordingly, though I suppose that I didn't think much of the reveal at the time because after countless playthroughs of D2 he meant very little to me. That's not an excuse though, and I admit my error.

The 'Secret Level' is a tongue-in-cheek name given to Whimsyshire, not an actual description. A better title would be Not-The-Cow Level, and if you google 'Whimsyshire' you'll see a number of sites have posted guides on how to get there and more. We'll have to agree to disagree on this point.

I'm surprised that you haven't been having issues with the game's lag, as you're honestly the first person I've seen say this (in Australia). I know multiple Americans who are having issues, in fact. I'd love to make a hardcore character but I couldn't bare to watch my character die thanks to rubber banding. It's a spectacular issue. Also, hell, last night Blizzard scheduled maintenance during Aussie peak time.

It wasn't review crunch that had me trying to play as much of the game as possible in as short a time possible - I just wanted to play the game all day for four days straight (taking breaks responsibly as I did yada yada yada).

I think that, without some significant changes made by Blizzard, my other issues with the game will demonstrate the weakness in the foundation. The issues with loot, the problem with stat itemisation, the misfire in eliminating a proper death penalty, the inevitable failure of the early game economy and the lack of world PVP - these things will exacerbate over time and diminish the longevity of the game.

@Veector - I apologise for my knee-jerk reaction to your comment. The reason I didn't dive deep into the core mechanics of D3 is because on GameArena I have already spent 5000+ words discussing those details - this review was more of a critical analysis of the game beyond those elements, shaped by my experience with it.

@Joaby - I don't see my comments posted, so it's unreasonable to defend my comments unless they're posted. And the comments were not directed as "personal attacks". They were comments regarding the structure and quality of the review. I explicitly said, I don't necessarily disagree with any of your points.

I don't know how you're managing to reply to my post when apparently it's been removed (for reasons which I cannot fathom, as it was critical but not at all defamatory of you-- this action on its own is abhorrent by the moderators).

As to spoilers, carefully re-read your review, and tell me what it reveals about the final Act and the major plot twist that surmises the entire story. Hell, the fact that you even MENTION the second Act 4 mini-boss, which is a clearly a throwback surprise for those who loved D2, is obscenely inappropriate. This was one of the most endearing surprises for me, and if I had read your review first, it would have been spoiled completely.

By the same token, the Secret level IS, prima facie, a secret and any credible news-posting site and 'gaming blog' has seen it fit to encapsulate any mention of it, or how to get to it, or what it looks like, in the confines of spoiler warnings (which are usually hidden completely). You conveniently ignore that point in your reply to me. I'm urging you kindly, please remove spoilers from your review.

You are a writer, and a talented one at that. If other writers can find ways to write extensive reviews without revealing the minutiae of the story, then I'm sure you can too.

Remember, you are marketing your review towards players who are YET to buy the game or who are on the fence about it.

As to your other remarks, I'm just stunned really at how dramatically different your experience has been to my own. I'm from Melbourne, stayed clear of launch for a couple of hours (knowing what it would be like) but definitely played from about 7pm onwards on launch night. I have never encountered any lag, but was disconnected about 3-4 times. I've had to wait out 2 maintenance periods since launch.

And that's it.

That's the sum total of my problems with D3. Maybe it's because your reviewer crunch put you square in the firing line of the US peak-hour, I don't know. But everyone I've been playing with since launch (who tend to play after work until the wee hours) have not had a single issue. And anecdotally, you'd have to think this would encompass the majority of Australians.

Disgrace to video games. Blizzard surely knows how to milk the retards, and it's getting worse. Almost everything went wrong with this game. +0.5 for nostalgic sounds (though I'm not writing this review as nostalgic) and 0.5 for cool effects. If you bought this game, you should feel bad. I feel bad.

I don't want to have a go at you or anything, I respect your opinion as a gamer and critic, but you can't review and score a game based on the concerns you hold for it's future.

You're reviewing what you have and the experiences you have had, and I feel that your speculation as to what will happen too the game is affecting your review, which isn't fair for the developers of the game and your readers. I understand that a purchase of a game is an investment in the developers and the games future, but still, that's not the game you have right now and that's not the game your reviewing. Perhaps if you wrote another review when the patch releases, your opinion would be different as there is also the chance many of the technical issues would be solved.

As for the other things you don't like about the game, (that aren't technical) I understand,
don't think I'm on the developers side here, I don't like the way the game looks, it doesn't have the eyrie feel that previous Diablo games had. Let's just say I had some sleepless nights after only watching someone play Diablo 2 while Diablo 3 reminds me more of Torchlight. I hope people understand that it is your point of view, a point of view that others may or may not share, so I hope you would urge them too seek opinions other than yours.

I bet if I go look at Diablo 2 which scored the same metacritic score as Diablo3 is scoring now and Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction which has one point lower than D2 and D3


I will find this same stupid deep south hicksville website scoring them a 6.5


Bro I hate to break it to you but tyreal might not be caucasion... (o snap, shouldn't have told them that now it'll be a 3.0)


Great publicity stunt. Now still nobody cares about your site and you just did the equivilent of taking off your clothes and lighting your farts on fire in the oval office.

Add a comment