They say history repeats itself. Well, if that's true, then come the release of Diablo III I'll be sat at the PC with my eyes bleeding, suffering from exhaustion, hand fused to the mouse and listening to the birds singing outside the window as dawn begins to crack. Which is what happened when Blizzard released the insanely addictive Diablo II back in 2000. What is it with Blizzard and their addictive games, anyway? The Diablo series, Starcraft, Warcraft, World of Warcrack - sorry, Warcraft... It's like they discovered the recipe for electronic heroin, but refine it every few years to make it stronger and more powerful. If that's the case, then I'm going to start fearing for my life with Diablo III. It could kill me.

But enough of the melodrama. What do we know - what are the hard facts? Well, so far Bilzzard have revealed three of the characters you can play in the game, only one of whom is familiar so far - the Barbarian, the Witch Doctor and the Wizard. The Barbarian and Wizard are self explanatory, but the Witch Doctor seems to be a hybrid of the Necromancer (who sadly won't be returning this time around) and the Druid. Actually, I'm very disappointed about the no-show of the Necromancer, as he was possibly my favourite character in Diablo II, with his ability to summon hordes of skeletons from the ground (like that bloke with the funny beard out of 'Jason and the Argonauts') and his bone spells and poisons.

So we have the Witch Doctor who can summon zombies, toads, bats and apparently even zombie dogs, which does sound quite interesting. At some point in the game you return to Tristram, a location that has played a role in both previous games. The concept art and screenshots released of Tristram so far look amazingly bleak and atmospheric. Nothing specific has been revealed about the storyline or who the bad guys are, although I suspect Diablo, the lord of terror himself, to be in there somewhere. Audio logs in the form of diaries read out by the character who wrote them fill in bits of the story along the way, a bit like the tapes left around by the inhabitants of Rapture in Bioshock. Last but not least our old friend Deckard Cain returns for this third outing of the series and, lets face it, it wouldn't be a Diablo game without Deckard Cain to "Stay a while and listen!" to. 

From what we've seen so far, the action seems to be the usual visceral mass-combat, with over-the-top spell effects and violence: just like the first two games but with more advanced graphics. The environments look nothing short of stunning. In these days where nearly every game is set from a third-person or first-person perspective, you have to pull something special out of the bag for an "isometric" game. There seems to be a real depth to the locations as well: one scene plays out on a crumbling old bridge over what seems like a bottomless abyss, with the Barbarian fighting hordes of monsters while around them parts of the bridge fall away. The whole thing is made even better by the pouring rain and occasional flash of lightning. It all looks incredibly dramatic and, quite frankly, has got me really excited.

Another scene sees the Wizard in a dark, underground temple, cleaving masses of monsters in two with chain lightning and throwing enemies all over the place with shockwaves and various other spells. The sheer power on display is seriously impressive, although it does make me wonder if the Wizard is maybe a bit overpowered, perhaps. I guess there will be much tweaking to the game mechanics before the game hits the shops though.

My personal thoughts on Diablo III are a mixture of excitement that a series I love is coming back after almost a decade, and slight anxiety that it won't live up to the previous titles. I can't recall Blizzard ever releasing a duff game so far, though, so hopefully it's a good sign, and with World of Warcraft still going from strength to strength, the release of Starcraft 2 later this year and Diablo III to look forward to, it looks like Blizzard will reign supreme in 2009.

What is Resolution?
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