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Love Moonraker. One of my favorite Roger Moore Bond movies. That and The Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy. Hope the game will be great.
Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland (NIS America) Rated T PS3
Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland is the third and final Atelier game set within the Arland world, and it continues the series' emphasis on adventure and item synthesis. This latest installment is the direct sequel to Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland and Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland.
Atelier Meruru adopts a mission-based game system wherein you must develop and enhance your kingdom within three years. There are a variety of quests, ranging from synthesizing and delivering items to taking on ferocious beasts, and how you accomplish these missions will contribute to the progress and storyline of the game. Completing quests will reward you with points that can be used to perform different tasks on a national level, such as creating new facilities and leveling up your kingdom, which in turn will allow you access to different areas to develop and explore.
Diablo III (Blizzard) PC
When is a single-player game not a single-player game? When it’s the exasperating Diablo III whose senselessly irritating, annoying, frustrating, infuriating, pull-your-hair-out Digital Rights Management control forces you to be online even in single-player mode. So instead of enjoying what is without a doubt the most story-driven chapter of Diablo yet, were stuck fighting with finicky servers that boot you without saving what loot you should have gained, and with lag issues from the damn thing constantly running and downloading in the background. What this means is you better have a robust internet connection to play the game. If you don’t, then don’t even waste your money. Servers were a major issue out of the gate and while things have been improved, this does not make Blizzard look good at all. So ok let me preface the rest of this review by saying I haven’t been big into computer games since the days of my old Commodore Amiga 500. I’d call myself moderately knowledgeable about computers and software and I truly despise dealing with PC game issues, unending patches, videocard settings, etc…But I did enjoy Diablo II and like many looked forward to the long-awaited third game in the series.
To start there are five character classes of Diablo III: Wizard, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, Barbarian, and Monk and the game takes place 20 years after the events in Diablo II. Whichever class you end up choosing, your adventure begins when a mysterious star falls from the heavens to the land of Sanctuary, striking a cathedral and separating the sorceress Leah from her uncle Deckard Cain. In pursuing the fallen star, you’ll unearth a treasure trove of secrets and loot, randomized dungeons, and scores of demons.
Combat is simple but fun and addicting. Your mouse buttons perform standard and special attacks and your numerical keypad can also be used to house and perform other special abilities. Easy enough for your melee classes but when using a wizard it becomes somewhat more confusing as you have to shuttle around abilities into essentially slots not meant for them. Now a wizard may not need to often utilize melee or range weapons, especially at higher levels, but this is something you’re left to figure out on your own. When you level up you gain new abilities; consisting of offensive skills, defensive skills, passive skills, or modifiers to existing skills. Unlike previous games, in Diablo III players can’t adjust natural stats when leveling up, but abilities can always be changed. This does make for a bit more trial and error to knowing how to kill certain enemies and offers somewhat more realism (you know…realism for a fantasy RPG). The battle effects are exquisite, especially the magical effects which light up your screen and give you the sense of pure power being unleashed.
What adventuring fiends will love is the random level generation in dungeons. If you play through the game in single-player, then play in co-op, the same dungeon will never be exactly the same. There will be some of the same key events but the level layouts and monsters will differ which offers a ton of replay value. The AI even adjusts to your level as well as the number of players in your party which again is quite cool.
Crafting plays a key role in the game as the more gold you invest and the better items you find, the local Blacksmith can break these down at a component level and craft customize items. You’ll find literally a mountain of loot and fortunately you have plenty of storage room for all this stuff to either sell or make use of down the road. Despite all this…Diablo III cannot hold a candle to a game like Skyrim for example in its sheer mammoth size and number of items that you can find and utilize. It’s also nowhere close to equaling Skyrim’s length, even adding in replaying in co-op mode numerous times. It’s just not.
Diablo III features some beautiful cinematic sequences that are steeped in drama giving it a grand feel. The combat and inventory systems are fantastic and I love the replayability. But after a 12 year waite one cannot help but ask the question, “Is that it?” Is this another Duke Nukem, stuck in develop Hell forever and building up unfair expectations? Diablo III is a hell of a lot better game than Duke, of course, but the stupid DRM takes what could have been at least an A minus game and drops it a full grade. And a rather short single-player campaign by many console RPG standards, leaves a lot to be desired. Grade B-
Love Moonraker. One of my favorite Roger Moore Bond movies. That and The Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy. Hope the game will be great.
Playing D3 now (well, not RIGHT now). It's.....OK. Same S*** Better Graphics.
Ok did you just compare D3 to Skyrim? D3 is more of a hybrid between a button masher like God of War and a full featured CRPG. It has always been that way. It be like Comparing D2 to Buldar's Gate.
And the game is so easy that you can with little difficult play through without dying. Heck with the Melee classes you can most likely get through to chapter bosses without even using a potion, because of the orb system. The game is clearly designed with a console port in mind, and because of that is seriously over simplified, and lacks customization, in that every skill is unlocked really, you just have to pick which ones to put on your bar.
Over all the Blizzard that created Diablo 2, and World of Warcraft (vannila) is gone.
Kaziklu...."The game is clearly designed with a console port in mind, and because of that is seriously over simplified, and lacks customization"
Really? did you ever play Skyrim? Skyrim is far larger, far deeper, with more to find, more to do, far more customization, and it takes far longer to complete. Where are you getting Diablo III is simplified with a console port in mind?
Sorry but Blizzard is flying on reputation here. Diablo III is a decent game but its not the game fans deserved after a 12 year wait.
I'm not that wild about the LRM either, but having a cable connection that's always on it's less of an issue for me, at least it's not like Half-Life 2 where you had to play through a damned Valve account and paying a monthly fee in addition to the game cost. I'm already looking forward to the expansion (you know it'll be coming) and what it may bring.
And if you are reviewing Diablo 3 you should also note the Secret "Cow" Level. Instead of large polearm-wielding bovines walking around going "moo. moo-moo. moo" you find yourself on a bright and colorful island with happy-face clouds and rainbows battling vicious My Pretty Pony unicorns and Teddy Bears. They have so got to die!
@tjanson
I dunno if you just read what I wrote with the wrong tone, but I meant that Review was comparing Diablo III to games that aren't like it. The Skyrim and D3 aren't comparable on the depth chart because they are very different games. It's like saying an Apple isn't as oval as a Pineapple.
I then state that Blizzard didn't produce as good a game as pervious blizzard games.
D3 is a good game. I agree with Kaziklu's assessment that its really not fair to compare D3 to Skyrim... that would be like comparing Tic Tac Toe to Chess. Their both bames but one is far more complicated and deep than the other. D3 is a simple dungeon hack and slash whereas Skyrim is an open world rpg with a WHOLE lot more depth to it.
I don't necessarily agree with him that it was designed with a console port in mind. I don't think Blizzard really makes games with consoles in mind... yet. I do agree it's dumbed down compared to previous versions, but I don't think this because of consoles. It was just a design descision I think to make it more applicable to a wider audience.
That said, I think I am looking forward to Torchlight 2 more than I was for D3. I'm enjoying D3, but the DRM stuff is really annoying & outside of fighting pirates, it really didn't have to be there for a single player experience.
Yeah Tim, I've grown out of PC gaming. I too tired of never ending upgrades. I don't even have a PC anymore, just a netbook used to transfer files to and from my iPad. I'm not plunking down hundreds of dollars to play DIablo 3. I'll wait until the inevitably console port (which is no so secretly in the works).
-Chuck