Diablo Retrospective

Eurogamer has penned a brief retrospective article on the original Diablo, with plenty of praise for the title’s mechanics and atmosphere, but also criticism for its story and its not-yet-perfected multiplayer. Here’s an excerpt:

Diablo wasn’t so much a shot in the arm for PC RPGs as it was a kick in the balls and an order to man up. A fast, furious reinvention of the roguelike, it had the pace and the atmosphere of Doom, but was still built around the stats and quests of traditional roleplaying games and proved to be a dangerously addictive combination. Brought up on a genre that was heavily influenced by Dungeon Master types, I was used to RPGs being a sedate, comfortable experience, often plodding and turn-based. Diablo was like cosying into this familiar sofa once again, only to find someone had transformed it into a rocket sled.

And there’s nothing like a ride on a rocket sled to make you realise how far you’ve come. I’d imagine that Diablo’s influence on the modern RPG was almost incalculable, giving the whole genre a firm shunt towards action and real-time play. As well as your armour class and your thit percentage, there was a new factor to consider: how fast you could click your mouse. Still, it was firmly rooted in the genre and proudly showed off its roguelike influences with its randomly generated dungeons and items, as well as its wealth of monsters that you gradually came to understand as you slaughtered more and more of them.

Diablo was also one of the first games I ever played online and it taught me about that unique and unkind phenomenon that is lag, the cruel death that can defeat even the toughest adventurer. It gave me a different kind of challenge to the shooters that were taking off in the late 90s, a challenge that was much more involved than simply seeing how quickly I could move a crosshair over an opponent’s head, and it was Diablo that gave me a chance to form my first meaningful relationships with other players.

Regular trips into the game’s town to trade or sell items, swap tips or plan adventures naturally leads you towards conversation and co-operation. Back then, in my late teens, I didn’t know much about where my fellow players came from, but I did know that people over there loved games too. At the same time, the game community was riddled with cheaters. It turned out that it was far too easy to hack items and characters to manipulate their stats. Plus ça change.