Rating: 
Summary: Bigger, Better, and Badder
Review: Diablo, Lord of Terror, is back, and this time he has even larger hordes of hideous powerful minions out to get you. Diablo II (Blizzard Entertainment ...) is the long awaited sequel to Diablo, one of the most popular hack-and-slash PC games of all time. The wait is over. Keep your sword sharp and your reflexes honed because Diablo II is a nonstop battlefest with the forces of the darkness. The game is based upon the same formula as the original. The gamer plays a hero who battles through many levels until a confrontation with the Diablo at the conclusion. The gamer may choose their class of hero from Amazon, Barbarian, Paladin, Sorcerer, or Necromancer. While each hero has a preset starting attributes, the gamer may customize the character as they gain levels, weapons and different powers and abilities. By the higher levels each character, even those of the same class, can be very different. The game does have a plot, and some impressive cinematic cutscenes between segments, but those efforts are easy to forget in the nonstop action. The major changes in the sequel deal with scope and size rather than the playability. There are far more levels, more monsters, and more heroes from which to choose. Diablo II is about four times larger than the original. Diablo II also has an improved multiplayer option including a feature that allows play with and against others on the Internet. The remaining changes are minor improvements, like changing the interface so that the player does not need to wear out the computer mouse. If you are looking for an intellectual challenge, you have come to the wrong place. Diablo is grim, violent, graphic and not intended for the young children or the faint at heart. Even the battle hardened may feel a tinge with the lights down and the hordes of undead approaching.
Rating: 
Summary: AWSOME!
Review: I think the tittle sums it up
Rating:
Summary: Good decision
Review: After MUCH deliberation, I finally took the plunge and bought Diablo 2. I was unsure at first because there were so many mixed opinions, I'd find a review with five stars than one underneith with one! Well, am I glad to have made the right choice. The game is the biggest thing since AD&D in RPG's. I'll admit that the plot is not as engrossing as Baldur's Gate (which I also have, highly recommended) but it is very methodical with the quests and how everything is tied it. I like the idea of having five characters to choose from, and the skill tree is an awsome idea. To me, the graphics are awsome, the blood, movement, and environment are very realistic. True this is not a complete RPG, it still has all the elements of it, making Diablo 2 one of the most innovative, and challenging RPG's out there. I have a DVD ROM drive and I had NO problems with the installation or playing the game. The sound and graphics work great on my Dell. If you like RPG's you will probably love Diablo 2, my suggestion is to download the demo before buying, or make sure it is returnable, just in case! Overall, D2 is a fabulous and entertaining game my pick for Game of the Year 2000!
Rating:
Summary: Great fun, the best game of it's kind.
Review: This game is without a doubt, one of the most addictive games ever released. The enjoyment you get from developing your character and watching as he or she kills all of the evil creatures is indescribable. With this game you have more options availible for your character with five classes and thirty skills for each. Also, when you complete the game once you are given the option to play in nightmare mode which is harder, but much more powerful items are dropped. After that, there is Hell mode which is VERY hard and there is even better weapons and items. All of this on top of terrific multiplayer adds up to very good value for your gaming dollar. The only flaws in this game are the less than spectacular graphics, which aren't horrible, but they could have been better. Also, the hardcore RPG crowd might not like this game as it is more action oriented and doesn't have the intricate character customization that "true" RPG's have. If this was a review for that type of game it wouldn't have gotten five stars, but taken for what it is, which is action/rpg, you can't find a better game.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointed in defects
Review: We have not been able to play the game. There are several quirks that need to be worked out. The blizzard tech support has listed them, but does not have the solution as of yet...quite disappointing to spend so much for a game we cannot play. No, its not our system. We justed upgraded. Oh well!
Rating:
Summary: Fun, but not much of an improvement
Review: Diablo 2 is no technical marvel. It is limited to 640 x 480 in 256 colors, and doesn't have a customizable character, it has sort of limited itself. The gameplay hasn't improved much from the original, as far as I can tell. Diablo 2 simply doesn't match up to the standards that Diablo 1 helped to set. I wish I had waited until the price came down. This is not [worth the $], in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Diabolical
Review: Diablo 2 is in many ways the same game as Diablo 1. They did add some pretty cool features, but didn't upgrade the graphics at all. I would definitely not recommend this game to beginners. If you thought Diablo was hard, this is definitely a step higher. Hardcore gamers will, however, definitely appreciate the pure unnerving difficulty this game posseses. If you liked Diablo, of course you'll like this sequel, but maybe not as much as you might hope.
Rating:
Summary: Diablo 2 - not all it's cracked up to be
Review: On the overall scale of things, Diablo 2 is a very good game. However, lovers of the original Diablo may be in for a disappointment. One area of disappointment is the graphics. The artists do not seem to have been as careful or inspired as those for the original Diablo. To some extent, this is compensated for by effective use of the new 3D accelerator cards; unfortunately, many users have reported that the game does not run in 3D mode with their graphics cards, so you may have to switch to 2D mode to play. Perhaps a bigger disappointment is that single player mode is essentially gone. What is called 'single player mode' for Diablo 2 does not actually save the game state, so the next time you play, all the monsters you have killed come back to life. This pretty much ruins the game for those looking for a good story line. Local network play is also a step down from the original Diablo, as the game goes away when the game creator leaves. In the original Diablo, a network game stayed around as long as at least one person was still playing. Not a big deal, but still an annoyance. The one promised improvement in Diablo 2 is as yet undelivered. On Blizzard's battle.net servers, use of hacked characters and software cheats dominated play of the original Diablo. Diablo 2 uses a different architecture, and offers 'realms' play that keeps the game mechanics on Blizzard's servers, preventing many of these methods of cheating. Unfortunately, Blizzard's servers are currently so overloaded that it's difficult to actually play a 'realms' game, so one ends up playing open games with the same old hacks and cheats. But once Blizzard gets their server capacity up, the game may be worth the price of admission.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of fun and variety
Review: With this sequel, Blizzard has kept everything that I liked about the original, and reworked and improved most of the things I disliked about the original. Probably the best thing about this game is the new selection of characters and the skill system. With the Amazon, will you focus on close combat with jabbing weapons (and some ranged attacks from throwing them) or will you go for all ranged attacks with bow and crossbow? Will your Necromancer specialize in summoning many undead and other monsters to do his dirty work for him, or will he take more of a direct role by using curse spells on his enemies? Every character class faces lots of choices like these, which to me really boosts the replay value. Some people have complained of technical glitches. I have found Diablo II to be one of the smoothest, least buggy games I've played. Zero problems so far. I don't doubt that these other folks have had problems, but my experience has been different. Some people complain that the quests require no thought to solve. They're right, but I don't think the quests are intended to be puzzles. They help link the action into the backstory, and they provide some variety and build suspense (is Andariel on this level? how hard is she going to be?). Being able to hire followers (or summon them if you're playing a Necromancer) is very cool. They're pretty smart about staying with you, way more useful than the sidekicks in Daikatana or the golems from Diablo. Some people have complained that it's too much like the original Diablo. Well, duh, excuse me, this is a sequel, folks. If you didn't like the original, you probably won't care for this game either. One reviewer complained about spending too much time chasing down monsters that ran from him. To that, I say two things. First, most of the monsters are very in-your-face and try to swarm you, except for the ones with ranged attacks which very smartly try to keep their distance. Second, that guy must not be very good at the game - you have to be able to deal with ranged combat situations as well as close combat, you have to work the terrain to your advantage. Sounds like that guy got unhappy as soon as his only strategy hit a spot where it didn't work. There are a few things I wish I had done better. I do wish that they could have improved the graphics resolution, at least optionally for those of us with high end machines. Using way stations and town portals is a little unnatural. The way stations are like permanent town portals in specific places, but if you use them to travel, the monsters in that area repopulate. Town portal spells, meanwhile, don't persist when you save and quit; and quitting while out in the wilderness drops you back in town/camp. This makes it so there are times when I'd like to take a break or need to shut down the game, but I'm reluctant to. Restarting from the saved game would involve fighting my way through areas I've already done, so sometimes I wind up pausing the game for hours until I can get back to it. This is silly to make us jump through hoops like that.
Rating:
Summary: click
Review: Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. That is the game in a nutshell, but with a cool plot.
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