Diablo III: My Obsession may have been a better title for this article. It would have been very fitting! I rarely get this obsessed about a game. I love relishing in the obsession while it lasts. And with the expansion pack just coming out, I have a lot more reasons to keep playing. Funny enough (or not funny enough – depending on your sense of humor) I was a little late buying it. I had a good reason, but it doesn’t change the fact that I got a late start. I guess with the horrors of the servers in the beginning, I might be glad that I waited a bit to get the game. At least I don’t have any horror stories or moments of insanity where I wanted to play and couldn’t.
Anyhow, the reason I got a late start is because I prefer dungeon crawlers on the PC and I wasn’t 100% sure my laptop would run it. I finally realized I could get a demo and give it a shot. Duh! About 2 seconds into the demo, I realized my laptop could not only handle it but I could play the game without turning anything down. Yay! Needless to say about 5 minutes after I started playing the game I was inserting my credit card info into the correct places and downloading the full game. It’s been a while since I have played a Diablo game but I knew from past experiences that this was not a game to take lightly–not if you are a dungeon crawler fanatic that is! This game knows exactly what it is and it does things right.
My first gaming session lasted about 5 or 6 hours, which is an insanely long time to sit at the computer … unless you are a gamer! You guys know! You might get up to get a drink, food, etc., but once a game hooks you in, you can play for entirely too long without even realizing it. Diablo III definitely had me hooked. I’ve only been able to play a handful of times since getting the game, but each time it turns into a marathon session.
I looked through the choices of characters and decided I wanted to be a Monk. I have a Barbarian chick I play as when I don’t want to progress the story but instead just want to explore the world and play a while. She is coming along quite nicely, but my level 38 Monk would eat her alive. With all the great equipment found in Diablo III, I spend far too much time deciding on what to equip my character with. Right now, she has rare items equipped that I got in the dungeons or things I made. She is setup pretty darn good, but I am sure there are lots of you out there who could kick her butt!
With any dungeon crawler the setup is ‘click your mouse and your character goes where you click as long as nothing obstructs their path’. There are onscreen menus that you can navigate as well as hot-keys depending on how you like to play. I generally use my mouse for everything except the map. I bought a R.A.T. 5 recently that is amazeballs, so I figure I should go ahead and use that for most things.
I love the simplicity of dungeon crawlers. I love that you map the dungeons out as you go so I never have to worry about remembering exactly where I have been! I don’t have to memorize the layout. Yea, we are back to the fact that I get lost embarrassingly easy while gaming. Ah well! With Diablo III, I don’t have to worry about that. If I want to backtrack and checkout a section I haven’t been to, I can pull up a bigger map and see where I have been. I pretty much always backtrack and complete the entire dungeon (field or etc) before I move on. Maybe it’s the completionist in me? Maybe I just want to drag out the play time of the game? Who knows. Either way, I love the mapping system.
Another thing I enjoy is setting up my skills and walking around slaying multiple enemies. The bonus that pops up when you kill multiple baddies not only helps with leveling up since you get EXP, it also feeds your ego/enthusiasm as you play. “Yep! I just slayed x amount of bad guys! Go me!”
I recently started playing Reaper of Souls and, while I won’t spoil anything, I’ll say this… I got called “blood thirsty” because I giggled and over-enjoyed the intro. Stick a sword all the way through a body and I get excited apparently. Who knew?!
I have a review coming of Diablo III, which will include the expansion, that gets into the technical aspects and etc in the coming week(s). Are you playing the game? If you are playing the game, what class are you? Do you love it or hate it? Let me know in the comments below!
