mark wrote:

Played a bit of Diablo 2 again the other day. I suddenly had the urge to raise stats, so I installed it and the expansion and started up a new character on BNet (I had never played a necromancer before so I decided to give him a try). I've enjoyed the experience although I have found it somewhat confusing -- I have no idea why this game is so fun.

I found Diablo really slow and never really liked or got into it. When the sequel came out I assumed it would be stupid and bad. But actually, aside from the terribly dull 3rd act, this is one of the greatest timewasters (out side of solitaire) in the history of gaming. I think it's interesting that this game is so compelling as it bucks at least half the big trends in gaming for the last 10 years or so. It's 2d. It has very marginal graphics (although, somehow, the 2nd and 5th acts look really good despite this). It is not mod-able. There is no emergent gameplay. It is completely on a rail. Like an old arcade game, you play the same set of levels 3 times in a row. I tell myself its just an epic battle of min-maxing... and, while I know that it is, getting a team together and beating the shit out of Diablo or Baal or the Council is awesome.

I'm not really sure how it wrap this up, so I guess I'll just mention that SB hates Diablo 2 and also destroyed this website once or twice.