Almost ten years have passed since the release of Diablo II, Blizzard's fantasy based action RPG. Its successor, Diablo III is one of the moment's eagerly awaited PC games, tipped for launch over the coming year. With Diablo II's decennial on the way and the anticipation for its sequel rising, I figured now is as good a time as any to take a look at this sturdy warhorse of hack and slash gaming. Click here to read more.

The basic premise of Diablo II is that the wanderer, the hero from the first game who defeated and imprisoned within himself the title demon, has begun to lose the battle to contain his infernal flatmate. With Diablo, the Lord of Terror, once more loose upon the land, his chthonic minions rise and begin to attack human settlements. Who will come to the aid of the inhabitants of this beleaguered land?

Flourish of trumpets; the curtain rises with gusto.

The audience looks on expectantly.

A barbarian wearing ring-mail armour enters from top stage left and bows to the crowd.

The Barbarian gets acquainted with the locals.

The lacklustre answer to this question is you, or you and some friends, preferably the latter. Diablo 2 has a nice selection of characters to choose from, numbering five in total. There are two melee characters, the monstrous barbarian who specialises in brute force, and the paladin, a holy warrior who can generate auras which provide bonuses to his party. The first of two magic based characters, the mage, wields the power of the elements, namely ice, fire, and electricity. The necromancer has the ability to raise the dead in his service, alongside a host of death-based spells. Somewhere between these two camps is the amazon, a sort of militant proto-feminist with a penchant for bows and spears.

In Diablo II there are no moral decisions to be made and the path is more or less linear, albeit slightly different every time. Effectively there are only three elements to Diablo II, these are fighting, levelling up, and acquiring better equipment. The controls are simple and responsive. Combat is satisfying and it doesn't really feel like grinding; there are a decent variety of enemies including the undead, demons, feral beast, and boss creatures. As you kill monsters you gain experience, equipment, and gold. Levelling up gives attribute and skill points with which to improve your character, and there is always a better sword or suit of armour just waiting around the corner. There is a huge array of equipment available. Types of armour include chest plates, helmets, gloves, and boots, which are made out of increasingly tough materials. In terms of weapons you can choose from daggers, swords, axes, bows and staffs. If the enemies in Diablo II are cats, there are a good many ways to skin them. There are four general categories of item, regular (white), magically enhanced (blue), unique (yellow), and set items (green), so the possible of configurations are practically endless; furthermore, equipment can be enhanced by adding gems or runes. It is also possible to buy and equip helpers to aid you on your quest, but be sure to patch the game, otherwise they won't level up with you. If you haven't already played the game you might be inclined to ask, 'Doesn't it get repetitive?'. On some level it probably does, but for the most part I found myself not noticing. It seems that the vast diversity of enemies, equipment types, and options for customisation feed into one another, creating a synergy which manages to stave off this potential downfall.

Diablo II is divided into four acts, the locations range from the desert, to tropical regions, to hell itself. At the end of each act a powerful guardian, often a prime or lesser evil, must be defeated to allow passage to the next. Once you beat all four acts on normal difficulty, which should take 20 - 30 hours, there are two harder game modes, hell and nightmare. Did I mention Blizzard know how to tell a yarn? The story of Diablo II is epic, and although it hasn't been developed to the same extent as for example, The Lord of the Rings, it certainly provides similar scope and feel; the characters Tyrael and Deckard Cain are nicely concieved. At end of each act you are rewarded with a cut-scene which advances the narrative. The game probably could have benefited from fleshing the story out a little more, maybe by providing two cut-scenes per act, but what is present is top rate.

Don't get too close! The basic resolution, escpecially on larger screens is a bit of an eyesore.

In terms of presentation, Diablo II was pretty damn hot at the time, but obviously quite poor by today's standards. As is often the case, the graphics are considerably more out-dated than the audio components, which have stood up well to the test of time. Unfortunately it is only possible to play the vanilla game in a resolution of 640 x 480, which looks terrible on the gargantuan monitors of today. But there is light at the end of the tunnel; a number of enthusiasts have created mods which enable higher resolutions, often up as far as 1600 x 1024. This significantly enhances the graphical quality, breathing life back into a weary game. With the higher resolutions enabled Diablo II almost looks as good as Titan Quest, which was released in 2006. There are some minor graphical flaws with these mods, but ultimately they add much more than they take away.

Multi-player can be played over LAN or Blizzard's service, which is called Battle.net. Diablo II contains some player versus player elements, but the focus is largely on player versus monster. If you intend to use the patch with enables a higher resolution on Battle.net it is my understanding that you risk being banned as it gives an unfair advantage in PVP.

The town of Tristram, your base of operations in the original Diablo, has seen better days.

To conclude, Diablo II, and its predecessor largely defined the fantasy hack and slash genre, and it is questionable as to whether Diablo II has ever been bettered at its own game; furthermore, it served as a sort of prototype for World of Warcraft, which is the world's most played MMORPG. After all these years, largely as a result its vast diversity and excellent storytelling, Diablo II is still worth playing.  If you are new to the action RPG genre or a fan who is looking for some way to while away the hours until the release of Diablo III, look no further.

Please note, that for the purpose of scoring the use of a resolution enhancer is assumed.