Diablo III Hands-on Previews

Both 1UP and Kotaku have put together hands-on previews of Blizzard’s Diablo III, thanks to the playable demo available at this week’s GamesCom.

An excerpt from 1UP’s article:

The demo area turned me loose into the desert region Alcarnus. Starting from an outpost, the primary quest was to travel over to Lut Bahadur. After a brief walk through wind-worn ravines, the scene opened up into a sprawling desert with no shortage of enemies who weren’t too please to see me there. Almost immediately, the “Diablo-ness” of this sequel came out. Over-excited by the moment, I charged into the first group of enemies and wound up dead quite quickly. Remembering how to play, I was able to settle into a rewarding tactic of luring a few foes out, freezing them in place with frost nova, moving back and blasting them with arcane orb, and finally mopping up the remainders with the more powerful spectral blade.

As you’d expect, a variety of demons and creatures came out of the sand to attack me. Some, such as the Lacuni Warrior and Fallen Overseer, had a fairly traditional demonic look with a hunched over posture and flaming swords in each hand. Others were desert creatures, like the Sand Wasp that flittered around a little ways off while launching volleys of baby wasps at me. One of the more dramatic opponents was the Dune Dervish; it twirled and spun around, and used those spins to produce a vicious stun attack with a knockback effect.

And an excerpt from Kotaku’s article:

We were also equipped with two Barbarian skills, Ground Stomp and Battle Cry. The former was hot-keyed to the “2” and, when enabled, stunned everything around the Barbarian. Helpful, when Fallen are surrounding you and Fallen Shamen are tossing fireballs your way. The Battle Cry, on the “1” key, increased our armor class temporarily. If we were playing a multiplayer game, that Battle Cry effect would have been passed on to our party members. But we were doing this quest solo.

The Barbarian’s other skill, Cleaver, was mapped to the right mouse button. Click on it, and our lady brute did a two handed attack on two enemies at once, as long as they were side-by-side. Again, handy when surrounded by Fallen and Sand Wasps. Those Sand Wasps really suck, by the way, ejecting a quartet of mini-Wasps at our hero. Nasty.