Techtite's PC Game Reviews!

Diablo 2 Expansion Set: 

Lord of Destruction

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A Techtite Review

This product is Mac-compatible!!!

While I'm reluctant to admit it, sometimes the biggest compliment must begin with brutal honesty. That said, I never saw the need to buy the expansion set for the original Diablo. The game, as-is, had everything I was looking for, with not enough in the expansion to warrant the added purchase. The same cannot be said for the expansion set for Diablo 2, sub-titled "Lord of Destruction." Better Graphics Resolution, added storyline, and much more game options are just a few of the features to make this the must-have expansion pack for both PC and Macintosh owners.

Similar to the expansion pack for the original release of Unreal, the enhancements are for single-player game play as well as multi-player. This is of particular interest to people intrigued --or perhaps even a bit miffed-- at the "finale" to Diablo 2. To make a long story short, all your quest is relatively worthless, because one last bad guy got away. This is a loose story thread that must be resolved, and, much like Unreal's expansion pack "Return to Na Poli," this expansion resolves that loose end in a very big way. It even adds two new, well-animated CGI cinematics, to make a nice finishing touch to the Diablo 2 storyline.

Of course, the addendum to the story is just icing on the cake for an expansion set. This CD also adds two new character classes to the mix; the Druid, and the Assassin. The Druid is sort of an elite sorcerer, whose expertise is in shapeshifting (he can turn into a wolf), summoning (he can call bears and wolves to his aid), and elemental spells (creating a volcano, in the center of a whole garrison of enemies, is particularly cool!). This is just one small taste of this character's "skill tree," which much like the prior game can be filled as you see fit. A similarly intriguing skill tree is found with the assassin, who can perform various martial arts skills as well as shadow and illusion spells. Both these characters are played in the original game's missions as well as the new areas of the expansion set.

You may ask what new areas this includes. Well, essentially, Baal, Lord of Destruction, has escaped to the icy regions of the North. A small village there is cut off from the outside world, and as you may have guessed, you are their only hope. You will first explore outside their village, then explore icy caves, and finally confront Baal in his lair. To give you some idea of the size of this new area, there's about 8 "waypoints" (gates within each new map), and about twice as many total maps to explore. This is not including the occasional random "mini dungeons," which are also fun to find.

Even playing the game from the beginning (with the original missions) should show many enhancements made to the game as a whole. Magic items are more frequently found. Your "stash" box in town is larger. Best of all, graphics resolution is improved, with a game engine that can now handle 800x600 resolution, and not just old-hat 640x480. However, in this higher resolution, some lesser 2D graphics cards may have a few complications. Even on my high end 2D/3D card, with 64 MB of video RAM, one dungeon slowed to an occasional crawl. However, it only happened that one time, and it was basically because there were too many animations on screen at once; the bubbling lava surrounding the bridge, the spells being cast, and nearly a dozen animated characters themselves. Elsewhere, however, the new resolution is just what any Diablo gamer would want. Even better, it can be shut off at any time --just by using the Options menu after pressing the Escape key-- so it's more than worth it to give the new resolution a try.

New heroes also means new enemies; 12 of them, or so the box claims. Among the ones I experienced for this review, are zombies that often re-animate, even if you've "defeated" them (hint; they cant reanimate if "shattered" by an ice spell, or the like). Another creature has a tendency to become combustible, only to get close to you, and explode! Weaponry of the enemy includes giant catapults which hurl huge spell balls (fire, ice, poison, and so on), from nearby areas of the game map; you must destroy these catapults if you wish to proceed easily. Such adversaries are fun to fight with the new characters, though old characters are fun to re-play as well.

One thing I liked in this expansion is the intriguing detail. This frozen wasteland is not as lifeless as the original missions, and is not without its fair share of soldiers, who you may fight alongside for a while! Another mission has you freeing some of these warriors, making for an intriguing quest. Much like the saving of Deckard Cain in the original, you must save a woman in town, from a block of ice! This is actually one of six separate missions that the townsfolk will send you on; each totally unique from the others. Rewards for these missions are often quite intriguing, and included a blacksmith who would "socket" any weapon for magic jewels (even one already imbued with magic), and the aforementioned woman, who will "personalize" any item you wish (Your favorite weapon can now be known as "Techtite's sword," for example).

I must admit, while I did give Diablo 2 a high grade, it was only barely eligible for that high rating, due to disappointingly low resolution, and a so-so ending. By now, both of these complaints have been eliminated, with this expansion set. I was very disappointed with the expansion pack to Voyager Elite Force, and I'm very pleased to say that this expansion set is not disappointing at all.

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You may also be interested in : Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Official Strategy Guide