Goombd Played! - Diablo III

 Click click click *LOOT!* click click. This is what comes to my mind when I think about Diablo. It's never about the horrible demons crawling their way out of hell or how dark and gloomy everything seems to be all over. Clicking tirelessly. I'll cut my sad attempt at a dramatic interpretation for this write-up. Yes, Diablo III is here and it's once again completely insane.

The remaining demons are back, looking for revenge at humanity. Diablo is still dead, but if he wasn't coming back, this game wouldn't be named Diablo III, now would it? Surely, they have something in mind and are after relics that will help resurrect the prime evil. It will be up to a hero or two to save the day, whether they are a monk, demon hunter, witch doctor or barbarian.

Much like previous Diablo games, Diablo III plays very differently depending on which class you choose to play as. Going even deeper, each of these character archetypes offers their own branching paths in terms of setting up skill runes. New runes become available every time you level up. You don't have direct control as to where the skill points go into your character attributes, but you do get the choice as to which rune you get to use. There are many variations you can take a character in, and they're completely interchangeable on the fly, depending on the situation you are facing. For instance, a monk can be an area of effect (AOE) powerhouse, taking down huge groups of enemies in a confined space, or they can act as a healer for a group of players.

Gameplay is pretty much like previous games, you are still spending the majority of your time clicking away like a mad person, although there are quite a few keyboard shortcuts to use for your special powers. Powers can be assigned to a few number keys and can be further tweaked once you activate what's called elective mode. This mode lets you combine powers that happen to be in the same school in order to further customize your character, breaking from the mold of only using one type of ability or spell if you so wish. This mix and match system breathes some new life in what could become a tired quest of quick or prolonged clicks, giving you the chance to change your character as the situation calls, or if you are looking for something new.

Grouping up is a huge part of Diablo III. Creating a nice mix of classes is paramount in order to beat the game at higher difficulty settings. Diablo III is setup in a way that pushes you into playing in groups online, by taking cues from previous Blizzard games like World of WarCraft. Every player gets their own loot drops, and the significant equipment upgrades are only found the higher the difficulty you play, which works as the endgame content, the oh so high ceiling of "grinding" for loot.

 

Loot plays a big role in Diablo III, both in terms of character progression and how you will make it through the game as you replay it in higher difficulties.Multiple playthroughs are a must if you ever wish to reach the level cap and have access to better equipment, but they aren't your only avenue to obtaining shiny new stuff. Much like WoW, Diablo III offers on online auction house where players can throw down unwanted items for in game gold or even real money. And like 'WarCraft, the better the item, the more inflated the prices tend to get. If you are unlucky as me in your item drops, you'll have to turn to this service, which can serve both as a blessing or a curse, depending on what you are in the virtual market for.

Regardless of being a seasoned dungeon hacker or a newbie, there's no denying that Diablo III looks gorgeous. Every act in this game looks and feels completely different, whether you are treading the desert or hacking away in a lush forest. Enemies are also varied, much more than previous games, they go beyond simple color palettes although there are exceptions to this rule when you run into elite versions of some monsters. These are sometimes even stronger than actual bosses, but are worth killing if you are after the better loot drops.

Diablo III ran into some shaky grounds upon its release thanks to the form of online activation Blizzard is implementing. It that demands a constant internet connection and for weeks after the game was released, it was regularly offline, keeping players away from the game, even in single player. There are still some issues now, but Blizzard promises to iron out the remaining bugs as the game gets further patched in the future.

If any of Blizzard's games is an indication of the longevity of Diablo III's lifespan, you can certainly look forward to a lot more content to kill your way through after you are boot next to boot on top of Diablo's corpse. The already implemented and aforementioned loot "grind" is there as a wall for the endgame and only a very, very naive player would expect Blizzard and Activision to be done with the game as it is. Diablo II is still getting patched and tweaked now, more than ten years after its release, after all. Considering how different of games both StarCraft 2 and World of WarCraft got turned to post release, you can expect to keep playing Diablo III for a long damn while. |9

Goombd Played! - The Walking Dead Episode 2: Starved for Help

It's all going south as soon as 'The Walking Dead' episode 2, titled "Starved for Help" opens. We find Lee and the group three months after the events of the first episode, after having found the motel and made an improvised settlement out of it. Much expected tension is brewing from within the group in regards to leadership and everyone can agree that that should be the least of their worries: they're hungry and supplies are running dangerously low.

Human drama is one of the best developed aspects of 'The Walking Dead', in both comic and TV show form, so it's no surprise that this episode of the game series revolves around it. Granted, some of the story bits turn out to be fairly predictable and clichéd, with how quickly some revelations are made and how some characters' behaviors change so suddenly.

Behavior change is one of the reasons that got me worried about the game while playing this episode. At E3, Telltale went on to mention how deeply your decisions would affect the story and events in future episodes, and Starved for Help already starts rolling out consequences about things you've said and reacted to in the premiere episode. Those particular spots seemed really out of place in my relationship to one particular character, considering how I've been treating that person since the beginning. Their change in behavior was radical and completely opposite to what I had been building by my actions and dialogue choices. This change revolved around the only time I went partially against that person's point of view in the previous episode.

I'm curious to see how far this change will go, although considering how other inconsistencies go, it might have been scripted from the beginning. Other events during this episode make it seem like your choices only affect small elements of the plot. Case in point, the E3 demo I watched which took place right at the start of the episode - someone is rescued and something happens to them a little while later. In my playthrough, I rescued someone else and later on, the same thing happened to them, in the same manner. Will that really be the measure of how deep my decisions influence the story? Or is the big shift coming in later on in the narrative?

Hopefully my worries will be destroyed as the series approaches its conclusion. Everything else about this game is absolutely brilliant and within the style of 'The Walking Dead'. We get to see some of the best action scenes and dramatic dialog seen in a Telltale adventure game in this episode. The new characters are well acted and irregardless of the shift in tone due to time constraints of a season episode, their development is realistic, despite the circumstances are little predictable. Although that might just be my inner thriller/horror movie fan talking here.

Conflicts and character development is what makes 'The Walking Dead' most unique. You won't be left starving for zombie carnage with episode 2 and by the time you're done with it, you'll have your fill of human drama. |8