Diablo III is its no-cutting-in-line “normal” mode, you haven’t played the better game Blizzard wants you to. That one involves epic boss fights, crafting killer gear, questing for legendary item sets and plying your wares on a stock market-like auction house. It’s like World of Warcraft stripped to the frame — just the pruning and dress-up parts. You’ll get there shortly after Blizzard unlocks “nightmare” mode, blinking you back to the starting line with all of your skills and loot intact.
But until then — it’ll take most players a dozen hours their first time to finish all four story acts — you’ll have to slog through a functionally dull, much-too-easy game, schlepping impotent gear and whacking away at stuff that arrows toward you like the robots in Stern Electronics’ 1980 coin-op Berzerk. For all the talk about games like Moria and Angband, that’s Diablo’s pedigree, and the nitty-gritty hasn’t changed much three decades on (it’s alternately like Asteroids, only you can build a better ship and the stuff barreling toward you doesn’t break into smaller chunks). And when you die, you don’t really, your gear just loses a fraction of its durability, which if you biff it often (you won’t) only means you have to teleport back to town and pay a craftsman pennies on the dollar to insta-fix everything. It’s a polite little slap on the hand, a not-really penalty Blizzard asks you to pay as if to wink and say “Remember when games used to be hard?”
Blizzard has unleashed a pretty hefty post explaining some of the early “Diablo III” gameplay metrics and potential changes to the design that will come in the next patch. Say what you will about the always-on DRM, but having access to everyone’s game certainly allows the team to monitor stats like these and continually balance and improve the gameplay.
•••• Some more nasty fallout from the 38 Studios debacle that kind of got swept under the rug, as Polygon learned that some employees homes that were supposed to have been sold on their behalf in a relocation program may not have actually been sold. So, no paycheck the last couple weeks? Check. Company goes under essentially overnight, immediately laid off? Check. Own two mortgages, one of which on a house your employer said they sold for you? Check. Worst month ever.
Out This Week
Nothing! No really, there is slim pickings as far as new releases of note this week. Given all the great games that have already come out this month, though, what more could you need? If you are a PC purist and haven’t dipped into the waters of “Max Payne 3” yet, your moment comes on Friday. The title that has already dazzled 360 and PS3 players will be available on Windows June 1st.
Free Mobile Challenge
“Hide The Fart” is a game about farting. If you’re still game at this point, you won’t find anything too objectionable in this simple game of trying to disguise your flatulence with street noise. However, “Hide The Fart” is somewhat limited in features and is littered with annoying pop-up ads. It also raises some questions like why is there no ‘cropdust’ feature? Why does the stranger next to you get so mad as to kick you if he hears you fart? Why aren’t you concerned about the lady hearing your fart? Does smell not factor into this at all. Alas, we’ll have to wait for the sequel (or the Zynga clone) to address these uh, pressing issues. Our high score was 5 farts.
No comments:
Post a Comment