Diablo is not really a game series you see making a good comic, but Sword of Justice is a pretty decent one compared to all the terrible or mediocre adaptations I have been reading lately. The story follows a boy named Jacob, who is part of the Barbarian tribe guarding Mount Arreat. However, one day his father executes his mother in a fit of rage about justice and law. It turns out that there’s some sort of rage and blood curse pouring out through the Barbarian tribes, and this specific tribe has isolated itself from the others, claiming they are better due to their righteous laws and justice.
Of course, this leads Jacob to travel the world trying to find a way to stop all this, and this is when he runs into a mage who helps him along the way. He picks up Tyreal’s sword of justice and tries to stop this blood curse. Without spoiling anything, the 5-part series does a good job bringing out the characters and fleshing out an interesting story in just a meager 100 pages. The art is fantastic and dark, and each character feels unique and likeable in some way.
What I love about this series is that it takes a small part of the Diablo timeline and shows you what these people are going through on a daily basis due to the demons from the Burning Hells. The onslaught is never-ending, and what Jacob has to go through is something that would break most people.
With that said, if you can find it, Sword of Justice is a fantastic comic series and does Diablo justice.
This is my review for Diablo III when it first came out. You can read it to get an overview of the original game, but here I will focus on what’s new. While the console versions are still pretty much the same, a lot has been balanced, and the game is overall more comfortable on consoles. The UI and controls have been tailored for controllers, and they work very well. Each button is mapped to an attack or a shortcut. Outside of this, the difficulty has been better balanced than normal and is actually quite easy. The game runs at a smooth 60FPS at 1080p on the PS4, and it looks gorgeous. There is so much content here that you will have dozens of hours to play.
Now for the Reaper of Souls expansion. My biggest complaint is going to be that it’s quite short (can be beaten in less than 5 hours) but is a lot of fun. All new enemies, bosses, and a continued story that was so great in Diablo III. New armor and loot are also welcome, but overall, it’s still the same game behind it all. I wouldn’t drop $40 on this by itself, but the inclusion in the $60 package is a fantastic deal.
Diablo III on consoles is worth every penny. You get the fantastic Diablo III, along with its expansion and all the other fixes and balances from the PC version. The hand-tailored controls and console experience are done very well. This is by far the best RPG and/or dungeon crawler you will find on next-gen consoles.
The PC mainly had better ports of console games this year with DirectX 11 visual upgrades. There were some solid PC exclusives this year, probably the most next to the handhelds. The best PC game usually has amazing visuals or is just extremely unique and something you can only get on PC.
Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2 is just amazing. The game looks fantastic and the fact that you don’t have to pay a subscription is a huge seller. The combat system is enjoyable, and the loot, abilities, and combat are just superb. This is an MMO experience that shows years of dedication and time can perfect a series.
Diablo III is one of the most long-awaited games in history. StarCraft II and Duke Nukem Forever are in the same boat, but Diablo III is something else. Everyone who played the last two games was either in high school or college at the time and is now in their 30s and 40s. 12 years in the making with so much turmoil and history to write a novel about. Now that the game is finally out, is it any good? Blizzard surprised us with StarCraft II and how good that game is, but can they do it twice in a row? The answer is yes. The game has its fair share of problems, but they were mainly during launch with a plethora of glitches, balancing, and server issues. Most of the major problems have been patched now, so I won’t spend time complaining about that because I didn’t experience any issues apart from the occasional server error.
The story in Diablo III is fairly good, but only people who played the last two will truly appreciate it. I found the middle of the game to be pretty uneventful, but the ending was great, with a few plot twists. You play as one of many hero classes who are trying to stop the Prime Evils from taking over the world. Not just Diablo, but Azmodan, Mephisto, Belial, and many others. One of the best things about the game is the many different locales, from indoors to outdoors. The art style is absolutely beautiful, leaving you with plenty of great scenery to look at.
Of course, a dungeon crawler isn’t one without a lot of loot, and Diablo III has an endless amount. The best loot is at higher levels (60 is the cap) and on Nightmare difficulty. This is really a game for people who want loot. You can blow through the story and reach around level 30, but it will take another play-through to get the best loot. Why do you want this loot so bad? To sell in the auction house for in-game gold or real-world cash. That’s right. Cash. People can bid on it or buy it outright, but don’t expect anyone to bid on the crappy stuff. Only level 60 loot is really being fought for. I tried selling dozens of rare items throughout my playthrough and only sold one for $1.25. Really sad.
The best loot comes from bosses, which are highlighted in gold. Main bosses give you the best stuff, but they can be tough as nails. Some bosses were pretty easy, such as mid-level bosses or blue sub-bosses. There were a few that just kept killing me, but I didn’t die all that often. The penalty isn’t very severe, with just 10% durability of all your equipped items taken away, but you can always repair it at a town center. One thing I didn’t do at all was buy items. I always found the best ones as drops rather than at shops. I didn’t even craft any items, which is a shame. I found this to be sorely wasted. I did like the new gem ability, which will raise the stats of items significantly. Weaker gems can be crafted into more powerful ones as well.
Of course, you can take a buddy with you, but you really don’t have to. This is only recommended for Nightmare difficulty, but most people will probably want to take a long break from the game and come back a few months later when the game feels a little fresher. After I finished the game, I felt I needed a long break because you are just clicking around madly while using 1-4 keys for your attacks. I sure wasn’t disappointed here because there are plenty of abilities to learn; I just wish you could hotkey more of them instead of just four. I even wish there were some better AoE attacks because the last two acts throw a ton of tough enemies at you, and you are constantly boxed in. I managed, but it would have been nice.
At the end of the day, you are just clicking around furiously at everything that moves and trying to find the best loot in the game to sell in the auction house. This is a game for people who are dedicated. Sure, you can enjoy the single-player mode, but if you really want to experience the way Diablo was built to be played, you must continue on with a second playthrough on a harder difficulty. Sure, the game has good voice acting, some of the most beautiful pre-rendered cutscenes I have ever seen, lots of abilities, and tons of loot, but in the end, this is all this game is about. Looting, clicking, and selling. If you don’t like that, then you will hate this game.
My biggest complaint would have to be that the layout of each level is nearly the same. There is a fog of war on the map, and you have to discover where everything is. There may be some side quests, hidden chests, and sub-bosses, but I found this tiring and kind of boring. What’s here is great; I just wish there was a little more variety. Another thing I will complain about is the game’s DRM. You need to be online at all times, or it will boot you and you will lose your progress. I hated this more than anything, but Blizzard has successfully sidestepped pirates, and I applaud them for that. It’s probably the only video game ever made that isn’t pirateable. Other than this, the game is great and well worth a purchase.
Author: Mel Odom, Robert A. Knaak, Robert B. Marks
Release Date: 7/8/2008
MSRP: $18.99 (Paperback)
Pages: 752
Recommended Audience: Young Adult
The past four Diablo novels culminated in this one large tome called Diablo Archive. It consists of four novels from the start of the series, based on the first two games back in the early 2000s. You can read each individual review for details on each one, but overall, this giant 700-page tome was disappointing. The best of the four was the short story Demonsbane by Robert B. Marks. The other three felt stretched thin and kind of boring. The Black Road was the most interesting of the first three, but it still didn’t have memorable characters or anything worth talking about. The first three novels weren’t even memorable to begin with and didn’t really feel like anything familiar with Diablo. It mentioned a lot of things from the series but didn’t feel like it.
This book is worth a purchase for fans, but if you are on the fence, just stay away. I had a hard enough time getting through this monster book, and each novel felt like a chore. If you have to just purchase Demonsbane and enjoy this excellent short story, don’t even bother with the rest. I expected each book to tell a tale of fighting hordes of demons and then facing off against one of the three prime evils. None of that really occurred in either book. There was an original tale spun in the Diablo universe, which I didn’t like at all. The Kingdom of Shadow was probably the most boring of the four, and I almost gave up on the book because I couldn’t feel attached to any characters or the plot.
Overall, Diablo Archive is a decent read for hardcore fans only. If you love Diablo III, just pick up Demonsbane separately and enjoy this novel for an excellent night’s read because of its short length. Every other novel is personal taste, and it didn’t taste very good to me. Because of the disappointment of these novels, I will no longer read any other Diablo books. If three of them feel boring, unexciting, and most of the time a chore to read, most likely the rest are. Then again, it could be that Mel Odom and Robert A. Knaak are just not that great of authors and have poor writing styles.
The fourth and final Diablo novel in the celebration of Diablo III is Demonsbane, which is, sadly, the best of the four. Being only a meager 82 pages long, this short story was more entertaining and felt more like Diablo than all three books combined. The story kept all the boring filler out and just let us follow Siggard to find out about his mysterious disappearance from the battle of Blackmarch against demons and his Vizjerei companion. Each chapter is a little bit of an adventure as he makes his way toward Assur. The story actually felt whole and complete without the need for boring filler, which shocked me.
How Robert was able to pull this off is beyond me, but the formula worked so well. It felt like a quest from the game where he discovers a magical sword, finds a companion, travels around a bit, and fights a huge war. I do hope authors take note of this novel and pick up on this style for video game novels. Sometimes a long, drawn-out novel isn’t the best, and for the Diablo series, it isn’t working very well. This short, but sweet, book will make you want to jump back in the game and slay some demons. Even the characters were more interesting than in the other novels I have read in the series. Not quite memorable, but certainly more interesting to read. I read the entire story in one sitting because of how well Robert sucked you into the story.
Overall, Demonsbane is one of the best Diablo novels out there, and it’s only 82 pages long. The whole story is fulfilling, entertaining, and quite exciting, and it feels more like a Diablo quest than a boring, drawn-out generic fantasy novel. Fans of the series should pick this book up for the small price for a good night’s read.
This being my third of four Diablo books for the celebration of Diablo III, The Kingdom of Shadow will be a quickly forgotten title. Probably the most disappointing read so far, the book overstays its welcome in my hands with a tale that stretches on far too long with too much filler and a plot that doesn’t really go anywhere. You follow a band of mercenaries whose leader is at the forefront of the story, along with a Vizjerei wizard. He has hired them to protect him while he discovers the city of Ureh, which has been lost to shadow and time. They find out the tale of the city, and a necromancer comes along to help them. Even though Dumond is the main character of the tale, I found Zale to be more interesting than the typical vanilla protagonist. With that said, the rest of the characters are just as boring, with really no life or soul to them.
The entire story is about these men stuck in a city’s soul that is lost in limbo while the king has them help him bring it to the mortal plane. There’s a predictable twist in the tale that is given away far too early, and the climax is unexciting and rather bland. Like the last three novels, it rarely feels like a Diablo tale but more like a generic fantasy novel with demons, spells, and treachery. This book reminded me of countless cheesy Sci-Fi channel miniseries that my mom used to watch. A lot of the time, the book bored me, and I had a really hard time getting through it. 352 pages are too long for something like this because it seems the author is just stretching the story paper-thin to make it longer. He could have shortened it up and cut a lot of the filler out, which would have made it more interesting.
Overall, The Kingdom of Shadow is a disappointing and boring Diablo novel that even hardcore fans will have a hard time getting through. The book rarely mentions Diablo or anything from the universe except a Vizjerei and a necromancer of Rathma. Richard A. Knaak is just a boring and generic fantasy author at best, so just stay away unless you are truly that bored.
Continuing my Diablo craze from Diablo III, we have Diablo: The Black Road. This book mainly feels good in parts but ultimately fails to really feel like Diablo. The main villain here is the demon Kabraxis, who uses the power of healing and miracles to create a church and new religion that brings thousands of followers to the city of Bramwell. Meanwhile, a sailor is stuck with the fate of bringing down this demon, but he also has internal demons of his own to deal with.
The overall premise of the story is neat and creative. It all flows well and makes sense, but Mr. Odom drives me nuts with his style of writing. The first 8 chapters have nothing to do with Diablo at all and just feel like a really boring pirate novel. Darrick Lang is sent to save the king’s nephew, but after getting past this part, you see that this whole part was kind of unnecessary and pointless because it breaks off with Buyard Cholik trying to open the door that has Kabraxis sealed off. After that, it starts getting good, but Mel tends to wander off during conversations between characters to explain, and it breaks focus. This became very irritating, and I got bored through several parts of the book.
The way everything else is constructed is great and entertaining; it’s just the way the author puts it on paper that can be either boring, pointless, or out of focus and off track. I also felt the ending was a bit rushed, and the battle with Kabraxis was quick and unsatisfactory. There isn’t really much action here, and when there is, it’s quick and brief and not done very well. Mel’s writing style for fight scenes is sloppy and rushed, and I didn’t really like it at all. His strong point is conversations between characters, but he breaks that up with flashbacks and backstories right in the middle.
If you can stomach these issues, then The Black Road is a great fantasy novel, even if you don’t like Diablo or know anything about it. The irritating mid-conversion flashbacks, poor fight scenes, and unsatisfying end battle make the book less than what it could have been.
Legacy of Blood is a great tale about just how powerful items can be in Diablo. This sounds lame, but that’s why people play dungeon crawlers: for the loot. Legacy of Blood tells a tale of loot more than anything else, and this will bring fans right into the story and keep them there. You follow several characters around, chasing down this armor of Bartuc that has a mind of its own. A mercenary and war veteran just so happens to accidentally dawn this armor while looting a tomb. He loses friends, makes new enemies, and tries to rid himself of the armor that has taken control of him.
The story overall is well-paced and has a perfect length. I did feel some attachment to the characters, especially the female ones, because of how innocent and treacherous they are. I also like how Knaak makes you shift feelings toward characters as the story goes on. You may like a character, hate them, and then like them again. That is what makes you keep turning the pages and continue reading. The book is full of magic, treason, power, vengeance, death, and the undead, which is all great stuff that Diablo fans love. The story also takes you across different known areas of the Diablo universe, like Aranoch, and mentions places like Tristram. The build-up to the final pages is great because, after following all these characters through absolute hell, you feel a satisfying conclusion to what happens to every character.
My only complaint is that the book did get a little boring in some spots, which made me unfocused and spaced out. Sometimes Knaak will describe things too much or cut away from dialog for so long that you feel he sidetracked himself and lost focus. Other than that, the book is pretty good for video game standards, especially back when game novels were scarce. I highly recommend this to any Diablo fan, but everyone else probably won’t care.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.