Diablo III
Overview -
Following up on the success of the first two titles in the Diablo series, Blizzard Entertainment released Diablo III on the PC first approximately 14 months ago. While many PC players expressed unhappiness with the always-online DRM policies and in-game auction house, it still received positive praise from the press as well as the gaming community. Since that time, the development team has been hard at work at a version of the game for both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.
If you are unfamiliar with the plot of the game, the narrative takes place twenty years after the events of Diablo II and kicks off with a bang when the events of a deadly prophecy start to come true. The player is something of an observer for the entire story, basically aiding the main characters in their attempt to save all of humanity in the world of Sanctuary. Molded around a handful of cutscenes, the majority of the story is told through spoken work and artist illustrations.
Video Review
Visually, the world of Sanctuary is absolutely gorgeous in high definition. While some of the dungeons start to become repetitive over time, the outside environment is varied and there's great depth in the scenery. Blizzard is quite good at tricking the player into thinking Sanctuary is a vast multi-level world when the reality is that the player is moving around a single plane. In any case, the character models are highly detailed, player animations are quite fluid, the frame rate is rock solid and the attack animations are varied as well as stunning. It's definitely an extremely colorful game and will really make the screen pop with explosive visuals.
Since this is a PC port, be aware that there's lots of text to read on the screen, both during conversations and within the menu. I tried it both on a 32-inch and 47-inch HDTV, larger screens are definitely going to be better based on the text size. Not to say that it's unplayable on smaller screens, you just have to sit a bit closer.
Audio Review
The voice acting is definitely top notch and Blizzard relies on the actors to push along the narrative. Each of the five player classes (both genders, so ten total) have a unique voice actor or actress. You may also notice that Jennifer Hale (Mass Effect 3, Bioshock Infinite) voices the Leah character. The sheer depth of recorded lines within Diablo III is impressive. Even the secondary NPC characters that mill around town have things to say. In addition, the music definitely fits the fantasy theme and the sound effects are incredibly varied.
If you picked Diablo III up for the PC sometime since the original release during March 2012, you likely aren't going to find value investing in another copy on the PlayStation 3. However, if PC gaming isn't your thing, Diablo III is extremely entertaining and a relatively unique gameplay experience among the massive library of games on the PS3. It's really tough to pull off the transition between PC to consoles when it come to dungeon crawlers, but Blizzard nailed it.
I would even argue that the game's pacing is improved over the PC version due to the real-time movement using the controller. Add in the offline mode and it's darn fun to play with a group of friends. It reminded somewhat of the N64 days when my group of friends would huddle around the television to play hours of Goldeneye. If you love get together with friends to play video games or simply want to dive into a quality dungeon crawler, don't hesitate to pick up Diablo III for the PS3.
