Pros: Extends Diablo II with a fifth act. Adds two new characters and new items
Cons: Only a few minor gripes... read review for details.
The Bottom Line: If you like RPGs you should give Diablo II a try and while you're at the store, save yourself a trip back and get the expansion at the same time.
Gr8ful's Full Review: Diablo 2 - Bestseller Series for Windows
The only thing worse for a wife who has lost her husband to a video game is an add-on to keep him away even longer. Fortunately I was able to get my wife to join in the fun and she now plays with me regularly with one of the expansion characters. This is one of the best expansions I have ever played for any game. The expansion adds two characters and several new items as well as the addition of runes and a fifth act to the game.
The story in a nutshell
In the game Diablo II, Diablo (Lord of Terror) had corrupted the hero who had defeated him in the original Diablo game and possessed his body and mind. He then set out to free his two brothers, Mephisto (Lord of Hatred) and Baal (Lord of Destruction). Completing Diablo II finds Mephisto and Diablo both defeated and their soulstones destroyed. The soulstones were their only link to the physical world. Baal escaped and reclaimed his soulstone from a very weak and decrepid soul who could not muster the courage to follow the instructions of the arch angel, Tyriel.
The fifth act is where you must track down Baal and put an end to the demonic trilogy for all time... or so it would seem.
Game play
The game is played the same as Diablo II. There are no changes to the user interface or to the original four acts. You use the mouse to point and click your way through the maps and basically kill everything that moves for experience points. Items can be found along the way such as armor, sheilds, weapons, magical rings, amulets and potions. You need to outfit your character with these items and gain experience to develop your character's skills and proficiencies so you will be ready for the demonic lords you will be facing.
Characters
The expansion adds two new characters to the original Diablo II line-up. The Druid, who excells in lycanthropic skills and elemental spells and the Assassin, who develops mastery in martial arts and special attacks. Both are fun to play.
The Druid
The Druid (male) can shape shift into a werewolf or a werebear and has special abilities only available when in these forms. He can also summon the forces of nature to cast twisters and tornado's as well as raise volcanoes and open chasms of fire to engulf his enemies. The expansion includes items designed only for specific characters and there are some special items only a Druid can use.
The Assassin
The Assassin (female) uses martial arts for attack and defense. Among these skills are special attacks that require "charge-ups". These are attacks that gain bonuses for each hit up to three hits. The third hit fully charges the final "finishing move". The finishing move is usually a very powerful blow that does major damage to her apponent.
Items
New items have been added to the expansion. These items can be found throughout the game, not just in the fifth act. Among these items are runes, new weapons, new icons for some exisitng special items, new sets (a set of items are different items with the same name, for example, "Sigon's Sabot are steel boots in the "Sigon's complete steel" set), and character specific items (items that only a certain character can use).
The fifth act
Diablo II is played in acts. Each act has quests that must be completed in order to advance to the next act. The original game had four acts. The fourth act is where you finally battle Diablo and after getting yourself killed a few times you will come out victorious. The expansion adds the fifth act where Baal has escaped and is in search of the Worldstone. The Worldstone is the source of the soulstones that bound the three brothers to our world. Your task is to stop Baal from corrupting the Worldstone and unleashing hell on Earth.
My Gripes
The fifth act tends to freeze on my computer once-in-a-while(which is completely over qualified to play this game). I have had a few bad experiences with certain characters becoming "corrupted". For an example, I had a 54th level Barbarian who relied primarily on the "Whirlwind" skill in large battles. The problem I ran into was that using whirlwind would cause my character to phase out of the game. I could still control the character but all the monsters would ignore me and I could not hit them anymore. I also could not save and exit the game nor could I open a portal scroll or even walk back into town. Trying to walk into town would find me stopping short at a black plane where the entrance to town should have been.
This has happened to two characters on my network so far, my Barbarian and my friends Assassin. I have not had any trouble with the game since these two glitched but both of these charcters are essentially useless anymore. This is extremely frustrating since it takes almost 100 straight hours of playing to reach those levels.
What do I think of it?
I was already hooked on Diablo II but the addition of the expansion pack just fueled the fire. I really get into this game and my friends come over with their disc's to play on my network. We sometimes spend several hours playing without realizing how long it's been. The game is very entertaining and can keep you occupied finding "stuff" and killing monsters for a very long time. If you like RPGs you should give Diablo II a try and while you're at the store, save yourself a trip back and get the expansion at the same time. Just make sure to back up your character files each day so you won't have the problem I had.
Update: 09/11/01
In response to many emails and suggestions I would like to add a few more details to this review.
Creating "Crafted" items
The addition of Runes and Jewels in the expansion also lead the way to making Crafted items. A crafted item can be created by putting a weapon or armor in the Horadric Cube with certain combinations of gems, runes or jewels and "transmuting" them into a crafted item by clicking on the Transmute button. The item you craft depends on these combinations to determnine what kind of crafted item you will create. For example, you can make items that steal life per hit, add 1 to skill levels, regenerate mana and so on.
Rune Words
When inserting runes into socketed items, you should put them in certain orders to create special items. The runes each add special attributes to an item but when inserted in certain orders they will do what they say plus extra bonuses for the "Rune Word". The words are not 'real' words but they have special bonuses for specific items.
Both the recipies for crafted items and rune words can be found in the book "Diablo II Expansion Set - Lord of Destruction Official Strategy Guide". You can find this book at Best Buy, Egghead software, Barnes & Noble and many other retail computer and book stores. It costs $14.99 on average plus tax.
Hirelings
In Diablo II, Blizzard added the ability to hire mercinaries to aid you on your quest. You can hire only one and before the expansion when your mercinary died he or she was gone for good. The expansion adds the ability to give these hirelings weapons, armor and helms as well as the ability to resurect them from the person in town who you originally hired them from. In the expansion these mercinaries will now follow you throughout the game and gain experience to grow with your character.
Another added feature of the mercinaries is when in the Pandemonium Fortress, Tyriel will resurect your slain mercinary so you don't have to return to the previous act to do this. This is most helpful and time saving.
Each act offers different mercinaries to hire with their own special abilities to develop. The Rouges in act one will develop minor Amazon skills as they gain experience. The mercinaries in act two will develop Paladin auras as they grow. The "Iron Wolves" in act three possess specail sorcerer skills like, fire bolt/fireball, ice and lightning attacks. Act four does not offer any mercinaries but as stated before, Tyriel will resurrect any slain mercs while in this act. The new fifth act adds barbarians for hire and these barbarians are very strong and do much damage but they can't use a shield unlike the player character.
Matching your character up with a mercinary that helps the best is important. For instance, if you play a barbarian and have a rouge as a mercinary you will probably have to ressurect her a lot. A barbarian gets into the mix during a fight and your mercinary will stay at your heals making this a bad combination. A barbarian would be better suited with another barbarian, ice-sorcerer or one of the soldiers from act two with the Paladin auras to help.
I hope this added information is useful to anyone playing or interested in playing "Lord of Destruction". Thanks for reading.
Since the Beginning of Time the forces of Order and Chaos have been engaged in an eternal struggle to decide the fate of all Creation. That struggle h...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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