MOOOOO . . . Huh? [Diablo III Spoiler]

The COW level!!

I still remember the first time I heard about the cow level in Diablo II.  Was it a myth?  Was it a reality?  Was it the delusion of a few folks who had eaten one too many steaks?  I really wanted to find out if it was for real.  Like so many things, the cow level piqued my interest because it was different, unique, and undiscovered.  I really think I would have enjoyed being an explorer (if there was money in it, and if I never had to traipse through the jungle, the desert, the tundra . . . ok, maybe not such a good explorer.)

Anyway, after playing for quite awhile in D2, I finally found the cow level.  It has been more than a decade since, so I don't really remember how one would go about finding the cow level or how you would get into it, but I do remember spending a lot of time there farming drops and killing the Cow King over and over.  Back then, the cow level looked like this . . . 

The areas outside Tristram, but this time filled with cows wielding halberds instead of zombies, skeletons, etc.

That brings me to this morning when a couple of my friends told me they had opened up the "Cow Level" in D3!  I was amazed; I was excited; I immediately wanted to see it!  They invited me to their group, and I clicked on the flag to teleport to them.  And, this is what I saw . . . 

What the . . . ?  This was the "Cow Level"??  Actually, it isn't called the Cow Level anymore.  Now, it is called Whimseyshire, and it is made up of rainbows, fluffy clouds, unicorns, and flowers . . . that attack you. This was the perfect level for anyone who wanted to kill all of the stupid levels in Super Mario Brothers or any other platformer with clouds and flowers . . . 

and rainbows!  Lots of rainbows!  In the words of Cartman, "I hate rainbows!"

This level was pretty amazing as you were able to run through and chop unicorns in half!  That's right, look back at the first picture . . . the unicorn split in half . . . lengthwise!  Amazing!

No, this ain't your daddy's cow level.

Diablo III Impressions

Now that I've played Diablo III for a bit, I thought I would put down my initial impressions of the game.  I will start by saying that I haven't experienced any of the frustration that many other folk have experienced.  I played DIII for the first time around 4:00am on Tuesday morning, and it worked well, installing without hesitation and logging me in immediately.  I played some more last night, again with no problems whatsoever.

I decided to create a Demon Hunter for my first character.  I don't really have a good justification for this choice other than that's the one that appealed to me more when I made the decision.

Positives:


1.  Voice-overs - Ever since SWTOR, I think quests should be voiced rather than simply read.  This adds so much more realism to the game, so I'm glad to see that Blizzard went with full voice-over in this game.  So far, the voices are pretty good and believable for the character being portrayed.

2.  Simplicity - So far everything I've done has been fully explained with tooltip pop-ups, and I've had an easy time with the learning curve.  I'm sure there will be more complexity as the skill progression develops, but this is definitely an easy game to pick up and start playing, even for someone who hasn't spent much time with the Diablo series.

3.  Stays True to its Roots - This game is very reminiscent of DII and even DI.  Obviously Blizzard went with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality as they made this game.  It holds true to what Diablo has always been,  a great dungeon-crawler.  I felt right at home in this game having played extensively in the first two.

4.  Gothic - DIII also stays true to the dark, gothic feel that was established through the first two.  So far, I've not been through much of the game, but I especially enjoyed the set-up of the old cathedral with its decidedly gothic decorations along with corpses and smeared blood.  All-in-all, appropriately chilling.

Negatives:


1.  Not Enough Newness - While Blizzard did stay true to their roots with this game, I'm not sure they've provided enough of a difference from DII for this to be a truly awe-inspiring experience.  It is a solid game so far, but it is so much like DII that it could almost be an expansion of that game.

2.  Graphics - They are good.  Everything runs extremely smoothly, but with the incredibly detailed rendering of other games on the market right now, the graphics presented in this game just don't stack up.  The environments so far have been pretty well portrayed, but the character models, especially monsters have not been very impressive to me thus far.  Maybe when I get to a point later in the game with larger, more intricate monsters I'll feel differently.

3.  Not Enough "WOW" Factor - Don't get me wrong, I think DIII is a solid game, but I simply haven't had that point where I do in most "great" games where I sit back and think, "wow, that was awesome."  The play overall has been more like "meh, not bad."

Overall, I think Blizzard has offered a solid game that stays true to the past games.  So far, nothing extraordinary about the game.  It is fun, but I'm not sure how long I'll stay with it, especially with so many other games out to catch my attention.

A New Day

At 3:30 this morning I decided I just couldn't sleep.  So, I get up and shuffle to my computer to mess around on some game or another until the alarm goes off for work.  I sit there for a few minutes trying to decide what I want to do with my time, and I have already clicked on the icon for TERA when it dawns on me . . . Diablo III drops today!

Now, why wasn't I already thinking about this?  I played both Diablo I and II extensively.  I've always enjoyed Blizzard's products, but for some reason, I'm just not that stoked about DIII.

Maybe it is all the focus on the real-money auction house instead of the game itself.  The AH is a feature I really can't see myself using.  I don't have any illusions about being able to work the AH for profit, and I'm not really interested in spending much of my real money for gear, etc.

Maybe it has just been awhile since I've played any Diablo type game, and I'm not really remembering the fun I had with them.

Maybe I simply have too much on my plate already with WoW and TERA both going strong.

I'm not sure what my reasons are for not being excited about the release of DIII, but I'm still going to try it.  In fact, it's downloading right now.