Why Walk On Water When We've Got Boats; Video games

Finally found the time for a new blog, and I haven't properly written about video games yet, which I hold a great interest in not only playing but discussing the mechanics of the gameplay, interface et cetera. So, first things first.

VIDEO GAMES

NOTE: A few bits of terminology those not of the gaming persuasion may not understand.

Build: Character build, involving the way you distribute talent points and what abilities and gear you choose. Essentially, what kind of character you go for.

Spec / Specialisation: Specifically choosing a certain talent tree / build, which involves heavily specialisation in that area and that area only. Can lead to very powerful builds, but often lacks versatility. Although in most RPG's, speccing is necessary to be powerful enough for the end game. Also a way of adding more variety in terms of gameplay.

Skill Tree: A tree of talents and abilities, that are unlocked with points earned every time your character levels. The term 'tree' is used as often to unlock higher level abilities, you have to have earlier ones unlocked.

Loot: Items dropped by monsters.

Mobs: Monsters / hostile NPC's

NPC: Anyone who isn't a real person, stands for 'Non Player Character'

Enchantments: Exactly what it says, adds stat bonuses to weapons and armour.

DPS: Damage per second, when used as a noun it refers to a character who specialises in dealing damage.

Tank: A character who specialises in taking large amounts of damage, often so weaker characters (weaker in terms of health and defense) can deal damage without worrying about their health.

Support Character: A character who doesn't directly deal damage, but instead either offers support by means of healing, buffing, or debuffing enemies. They will have some damage spells, and often have minions that deal damage for them.

Buff / Debuff: A spell that 'buffs', giving a positive bonus, or 'debuffs', giving a negative one.

DIABLO II
Suprisingly, I have only recently begun playing Diablo II. Suprising as I consider myself a fairly avid gamer, and it is amongst the most influential games of one of my favourite genres; RPG.

My first impressions were relatively favourable; a very dark fantasy atmosphere, fitting for the impression I held of the game. The control system and interface are fairly average, a bit clumsy and outdated, but that is to be expected of a game only a few years younger than me. The lack of a one click inventory management system and the difficulty in utilising multiple skills and abilities simultaneously are downsides, but with a little time you become accustomed to them. My biggest initial issue was the lack of a minimap; yes it has a map overlay, but it feels a little intrusive to me, and I found myself constantly pressing tab to have a quick glance, then getting rid of it. But the positives, a very nice atmosphere and decent combat (doesn't feel too point and click, even though it is) were the overwhelming feeling.

A little way into proceedings, I'm beginning to find the large variety of loot and enchantments very interesting. There are a massive range of different enchantments and level of said enchants you can get on your gear, which it makes it very interesting trying to come up with the best gear combination for your character. Also, the tiered loot system makes searching out and defeating tougher mobs rewarding, as harder mobs drop better items. However the complete lack of an easy way to fairly distrubute loot in a party is very annoying, as every time you defeat a large group of mobs you have to stop, and make sure everyone gets the gear they need manually. Another exasperating issue, resulting from the pure amount of loot dropped versus your relatively small inventory, is the constant need to port (town portal scrolls are used to 'port' back to town) back home in order to sell / store items. The fact different items take up different amounts of inventory space is an obvious attempt to balance the amount of gear you can carry, but frankly it's a poor effort; your inventory is too small, or the items are too big, either way the weighting is completely off.

Moving on to your individual character, and the options are very impressive; it's probably the only RPG / Dungeon Crawler I have ever played in which I didn't feel the need to specialize completely. Each class has 3 talent trees, each of which result in a very different style of play for you character. For instance, the possibilities resulting from the Druid's skill trees are huge; a DPS spellcaster (elemental), a tank / dps melee (shapeshifting) or a spellcasting support character (summoning). Or maybe a combination of the above. The talents and abilities again lead to an interesting choice in how to build your character; speccing (specialisation) leads to more powerful high end talents, but combinations of the trees offer interesting and often powerful builds in themselves. A major annoyance however is the poor balance of characters in multiplayer; it is fairly obvious that this game, first and foremost, was designed with single player in mind. All the abilities and stats of the classes are weighted such that they can solo the game. They only attempt to balance this when more players are involved, is to make the enemies a little bit stronger, and it simply isn't enough. No healing class, classes mismatched at different points in the game, no challenging bosses (as far as i have got in the game) and a tendancy towards certain classes feeling very over powered lead to a much diminished multiplayer experience.

Well, that is the extent of my review so far. I haven't experienced enough of the game (only the first of five acts) to make a fair judgement overall, but so far the judgement is very positive. A very good game, just outdated, which reads very well for the forthcoming sequel.

I've run out of steam now, so thanks for reading people. Peace.