Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (Mac Games)

Game-play is seamless for a game produced in the amount of time produced and at the time produced. The story-line is little lacking but does drive the story ahead very efficiently. On-line game-play is a little laggy but other than that, it's a great place to meet new people, interact with existing friends, and try different strategies. Like all the games produced by Blizzard, it's a real winner. You cannot and will not go wrong when purchasing this game or any other game by Blizzard.

Although it was hugely successful both commercially and critically, the original Diablo was criticized for its relatively short single-player game and solitary dungeon setting. Diablo II is set in a much larger gaming world, and its action isn't isolated to a single locale. Divided into four distinct acts, each with its own setting, Diablo II now permits outdoor exploration in addition to a predictable series of dungeon crawls, although the outdoor areas aren't terribly interesting in and of themselves. The overall goal of Diablo II is exactly the same as it was in the first game, namely to hack through hordes of monsters to gain items and enhance your abilities so you can confront and speedily dispatch the resident Lord of Terror, Diablo. This time around there's a better story to serve as the framework for the slaughter, as each of the game's acts is linked together with impressively produced and lengthy cinematic cutscenes. The quests you receive are no longer random, as they were in the single-player version of the original game, and collectively the tasks in each act are loosely linked together to make the overall story more cohesive. Diablo II's primary focus is still on action-oriented gameplay, but the more sophisticated presentation of the cutscenes and the additional plot depth give the action context and more relevance than in the original game.

The actual gameplay still consists almost exclusively of killing monsters to gain treasure and experience points. Since your character constantly gains more and more formidable abilities and weaponry, that relatively simple style of play proves to be just as addictive as it was in the original Diablo and in other games that have since exploited the same formula. It's difficult to extract yourself from a game that always keeps you on the verge of being rewarded for another achievement.

Early in the game, that otherwise effective blueprint is overused, since swarms of weak creatures are hurled at you. The game is so easy until the end of act one that it gets tiresome wading through crowds of pathetic beasts, several of which are less fearsome versions of counterparts from the original game. The lack of resulting tension is noticeable, especially since the first Diablo increased its difficulty very quickly by requiring relatively inexperienced characters to battle behemoths such as the Butcher and the Skeleton King. There isn't a similarly difficult showdown in Diablo II until the very end of the first act, although there are plenty of challenging confrontations after that point in the game. Blizzard has always seemed intent on producing games that are extremely intuitive for new players; with Diablo II, the developers may have been concerned that neophytes would find all of the new character skill choices intimidating and accordingly structured the game so that the early stages would give you a less stressful opportunity to get accustomed to the new character development system. In addition, since the graphics for the creatures and areas at the beginning of game were also created quite early in the game's development, they are substantially worse than those that appear further into the game. The first act of the game is generally not representative of the quality and challenge of its remainder.

Early in the game, that otherwise effective blueprint is overused, since swarms of weak creatures are hurled at you. The game is so easy until the end of act one that it gets tiresome

Love this game; completely wore out my first "Lord of Destruction" disk. Glad I could find another.