A Guide to the Classes in Diablo III
Diablo III is finally here and if pre-orders are any indication, many of you are probably already playing it. With five separate classes that each have their own unique playstyle, you may be having trouble picking which one to play first. Luckily we’ve got a guide to choosing which class is right for you so you can start facing Hell’s most powerful demons as fast as possible.
Demon Hunter
Great if your favorite Diablo II character was: the Amazon or Assassin. Diablo III’s Demon Hunter is probably the most complex character to play, at least in the early going. With two separate resource systems to manage (Hatred and Discipline) and a fairly small health pool, the Demon Hunter tends to punish mistakes. However, the high damage output and multiple abilities to get yourself out of trouble makes it an ideal class for people who like playing as a frail but powerful character. If you enjoy the thought of destroying everything on screen before they manage to touch you, the Demon Hunter may be the class for you.
Wizard
Great if your favorite Diablo II character was: the Sorcerer. Diablo has had a spellcaster in all three of its iterations, and Diablo III’s Wizard feels like a natural progression. It has the same frenetic feel as Diablo II’s sorcerer while adding in some new tweaks. While the Sorcerer could occasionally feel starved for resources while constantly casting (at least until you got to higher levels) the Wizard starts off as a magic-casting machine. While this means the Wizard’s attacks aren’t quite as powerful as the sorcerer felt early in Diablo II, it solves the “hurry up and wait” game Diablo II could sometimes turn into while retaining the flashy effects and damaging spells players loved from Diablo II’s ranged spell slinger.
Witch Doctor
Great if your favorite Diablo II character was: the Necromancer. The Witch Doctor is Diablo III’s summoner character class. If you like creating tons of minions to do your fighting for you then the witchdoctor’s collection of spiders, demon dogs and other abominations is just what you’re looking for. The Witch Doctor’s main downside is that it’s tough to say how it’ll play at higher levels; many of the Necromancer’s summons ended up feeling like they were made of paper toward the end of Diablo II, and we don’t yet know if the same will be true of the Witch Doctor.
Monk
Great if your favorite Diablo II character was: the Paladin. Diablo III’s other melee class is also the one that grew on me the most during my first few hours with the game. In the early levels the Monk plays a bit like the Barbarian with more area-of-effect attacks and some self-healing abilities, but it also felt a great deal like Diablo II’s paladin in that you’re constantly building up the holy energy needed to unleash a devastating attack that can demolish your enemies.
Barbarian
Great if your favorite Diablo II character was: well…the Barbarian. The one returning class from Diablo II plays very close to its Diablo II counterpart. If you loved the Barbarian for the ability to leap into crowds of enemies swinging your weapons wildly at anything that moves, then Diabo III’s Barbarian is only going to give you more of what you enjoyed. The new rune system means you’ll still need to spend a little time re-learning the class but for veteran Diablo II players looking to get that old feeling back, the Barbarian is the easy choice.
We’ll have more information and a full review of Diablo III once we’ve had a chance to play through the full game, but for now check out our thoughts on the game’s beta and our guide to getting ready for Diablo III.
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Diablo III Launches at Midnight: What You Need to Know
Gamers around the world are getting ready to mouse-click the night away with the midnight launch of Diablo III.
The action RPG, first announced in June 2008, will be available for PC and Mac at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time on May 15 in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia. Other launch times for Diablo III will vary by region.
If you’re itching to start slaying demons, grabbing loot and leveling up as soon as Diablo III launches, here’s what you need to know:
Download Now, Save Time Later
Publisher Blizzard is allowing players to download and install Diablo III ahead of time. To do so, you’ll first need a Battle.net account, which you can sign up for online. With account in hand, you can fork over $60 for the game, then download a 7.8 GB installer. Starting at 8:01 a.m. Pacific time on May 14, you’ll be able to install the game, troubleshoot problems and download necessary patches. (Blizzard offers a full downloader walkthrough on its Website with detailed instructions.)
If DVD installation is your only option, many GameStop locations are holding midnight launch events. Plug in your zip code at Gamestop’s Website to find participating locations. But keep in mind that Diablo III requires a broadband Internet connection to play, so a DVD won’t help if your computer can’t get online.
Diablo III System Requirements
Blizzard has posted minimum and recommended Diablo III system requirements on its Website. I won’t re-post them all here, but most desktops and gaming laptops released in the last few years shouldn’t have a problem with the game. The game will run on Windows XP or newer, or Mac OS X 10.6.8 or higher. Again, the game requires a broadband Internet connection to play.
Diablo III in a Nutshell
Diablo III tells a typical fantasy story: Players must fight against a demon onslaught with a hero from one of five character classes–the slow but powerful Barbarian, the crossbow-wielding Demon Hunter, the quick close-ranged Monk, the minion-summoning Witch Doctor and the spellcasting Wizard. Players can also fight alongside a computer-controlled follower in single-player, or in cooperation with other players online.
The game is controlled mostly by mouse, with players pointing and clicking to move and attack the enemy, though many keyboard shortcuts are available. By killing demons and completing quests, players earn new items and skills to make their character stronger. For a detailed look at Diablo III’s ability system, check out David Sirlin’s excellent rundown. In short, Diablo III lets players change their special abilities at will, a departure from previous games that allows for lots of experimentation with new powers.
Outside the actual game, one of Diablo III’s more interesting additions is Auction House, a place where players can buy and sell items from one another. Players can use in-game currency on the market, but a separate section of Auction House will allow them to trade with real-world money.
Diablo III Reviews: It’ll Be a While
I’ve heard from other writers that Blizzard didn’t offer early Diablo III review copies to the press. That means you won’t see any reviews of the finished game for at least a few days, as critics grind their way through the game along with the masses. You may see some reviews based on the beta, which only allowed characters to reach level 13. For more detailed reviews on the later stages of the game, be prepared to wait.
Follow Jared on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ for even more tech news and commentary.
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Free Game Friday: A Tiny Wizard and Wolfenstein 3D in Your Browser
This week’s Free Friday has two new browser games with interesting twists on some old gaming formulas along with a game that’s two decades old and now free to play right inside your browser.
Mirror Rays
Mirror Rays is yet another puzzle platformer with a twist. This time your character will be given mirrors that allow you to reflect parts of the level horizontally or Vertically which lets you place normally stationary platforms where you need them to grab a key and escape the level. One last quick tip: when the game tells you not to press D, believe it.
Tiny Wizard
Tiny Wizard is light on story and heavy on action. It plays like an old school arcade action game with a modern sense of fun. You play a, well, tiny wizard making his way up a magical tower you use WASD to move and your mouse to fire magic spells at whole throngs of skeletal foes.
Wolfenstein 3D
Finally we’ve got a game that doesn’t just play like a classic, it is one. In honor of the 20th anniversary id software and Bethesda have ported all three of the classic Wolfenstein 3D games onto the browser, and besides some minor control alterations the games are just how you remember them. Check ‘em out and get a taste of the good ol’ days, when men were men, Nazis were evil and everyone kept their valuables behind three feet of solid stone.
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Free Game Friday: A Modern Spin on Asteroids, A Platformer Where You Make the Platforms and More.
This week we spent most of our time by looking for games that were overlooked from recent game competitions like Ludum Dare and the Molyjam. Even though these games might have been overshadowed out of the gate, they’ve got a lot to offer; give ‘em a shot and let us know what you think!
Astro Break
Astro Break is a fun little game that plays a little like a combination of Asteroids and later arcade shooters. You play an astronaut trapped on a tiny planet shooting up at a collection of asteroids that will kill you if you ever collide. But destroying the space rocks gives you access to a number of powerups to make your asteroid destroying life easier and more fun. It may sound simple, and it is, but it’s also fun.
stack::tracker()
Next we’ve got a short platformer I’d love to see expanded upon. The stack::tracker() game has you playing as a sentient bit of your computer that needs to add and delete functions to escape a program, but that’s really just the hook for a new spin on platform games. Instead of jumping from one platform to the next you’ll need to collect new platforms and construct them to move your player across the gaps in the level.
Words and Physics
This short game brings a new spin to the world of physics puzzles. In Words and Physics our goal is to move text off of the screen by interacting with various text fields in the level. The twist is that what you type matters. Typing moveleft will drag the textfield to the left for instance, taking anything on top of your text with it. The puzzles get more complex as the game moves along but the hook remains engaging. Yay words!
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Why You Should Play The Walking Dead: Episode One
I can’t stand zombies. Zombie movies are boring, and games with zombie antagonists are a dime a dozen. Between Plants vs. Zombies and Left 4 Dead, I think we’ve hit our zombie quota for the foreseeable future. I’m ready for something new.
I know that’s tantamount to geek heresy, but I want you to understand where I’m coming from when I tell you that despite my zombie fatigue I loved the first episode of The Walking Dead game, and I think you really ought to play it. Regardless of whether you’re a fan of the AMC television series, the comics or completely unfamiliar with either, this game is worth playing if you love a good harrowing adventure.
And adventure is exactly what you’re in for if you shell out $5 for the first episode, titled A New Day. See, Telltale Games (of Sam Max fame) developed The Walking Dead as a game spanning five monthly episodes that tells a new story in the Walking Dead universe while staying true to the grim tone of the comic books. But don’t let Telltale’s history of creating point-and-click adventure games like Tales of Monkey Island and Puzzle Agent fool you into thinking The Walking Dead is just a series of logic puzzles. You’ll spend some time fixing radios and finding keys, but the constant pressure of surviving in a post-apocalyptic Georgia makes even simple problems feel challenging and meaningful to overcome.
While you must solve simple puzzles in order to progress through the game, you’ll spend the lion’s share of your time guiding protagonist Lee Everett through tense verbal exchanges with other survivors. Naturally, these conversations are interspersed with frenetic attempts to fend off undead attackers by quickly clicking them before they can take a bite out of Lee or someone he cares about. These action sequences are easy to complete successfully, but the time limits (smash the zombie before it gets you!) make every encounter feel tense and thrilling to play.
Combat is quick and brutal. Remember, always point and click for the head.
But zombie attacks aren’t the only reason to think fast in the world of The Walking Dead. Lee Everett has a complicated past, and you choose how much he shares with other characters by selecting his responses from dialogue trees that sprout up throughout every conversation. Most of these choices have timers, and if you run out time Lee is left speechless, so playing through tense conversations really feels stressful because you risk slipping up and saying the wrong thing. Let another character catch you in a lie, and they’ll hold it against you throughout the rest of the episode (and presumably the series). Choose to save one character’s life at the expense of another, and the survivor will support you throughout the rest of the episodes while the dead character disappears from your game.
Watching your choices change how the story plays out is the best part about playing The Walking Dead games, but know that no matter what choices you make, bad things will happen. The world of The Walking Dead is grim, and you will have to make decisions about which characters live and which characters die. Diehard Walking Dead fans will recognize a few characters that Lee meets along the way (Glenn makes a cameo in A New Day) and explore a few landmarks from the comic series, including Hershel’s farm in the first episode.
The Walking Dead game pays further tribute to Kirkman’s comics by emulating the pencilwork of Charlie Adlard, the current artist of the Walking Dead comics. But where the comics are stark black-and-white affairs, the Walking Dead game is full of colorful characters and lush, vibrant landscapes. The game’s camera is fixed in place during every scene, and while that occasionally makes for some frustrating navigation problems it also ensures that Lee navigates through scenes like a protagonist pacing through panels of a comic book. Playing through The Walking Dead feels like flipping through the pages of an action-packed Choose Your Own Adventure comic book, and I think fans of Kirkman’s work shouldn’t miss this experience. But even if you’ve never seen an episode of The Walking Dead television series or flipped through one of Kirkman’s books, you should check out The Walking Dead game because it features an engaging cast of characters and a geniunely emotional narrative. The worst thing I can say about this game is that we have to wait a month to play the next episode, and five months to see how the story ends.
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