Diablo III is for real

[Maitre]

I was a huge fan of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. From the little I have seen of Diablo 3 I feel its a natural evolution of the graphics. I felt a shiver when I saw all of those monsters climbing and swarming over the landscape to the barbarian. To me it was creepy as hell and very close to the jumps I would get in Diablo 1.

Actually, when I watched the game-play movie, I thought 'Gee, it looks like they've tried to graft Diablo onto the graphic engine from Titan Quest,' and it seemed that the landscapes were a natural graphics evolution from that game, instead of DII. The perspective scroll, and stair climbing especially, made me feel like I was looking at an adaptation of the TQ graphics rather than Diablo. With regard to cartoonish feel, I agree that the barb shoulders, not to mention the girth of some of those monsters, are ridiculous. In this case I'm reminded of the differences from Westwood's C&C:Red Alert to C&C:Red Alert 2. C&C:RA2 was clearly a game with cartoonish graphics, cinematics, and plotlines: it had none of the 'realism' that C&C:RA had (sound effects, unit types, etc), but as an RTS title, it was still a lot of fun to play.

I think the biggest problem DIII has at this point is the title: it includes the word Diablo, and it's made by Blizzard. Had this game-play video come been released by some other developer, and been called "generic adventurers fight demonic evil" we would be discussing why blizzard couldn't make a game this good and call it DIII. Instead we're concerning ourselves with how this title doesn't live up to the franchise. I'll make my purchase decision when it's finally on shelves (6-8 months after the third postponement, when reports surface about people buying the game, and waiting for 20 minutes to download the 1.3 patch upon installation). Until then, naught but eye candy.