Diablo III Previews

Three more previews of Diablo III have reached the ‘net, courtesy of the game’s showing at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo.

An excerpt from That VideoGame Blog:

The interface is familiar but dressed up, and item names appear over drops as normal. Two things that are very different that I noticed in the small demo were checkpoints, and reviving teamates. When I died in the demo, the game waited to see if a teammate was ready to revive me with a skill or potion and when no one did, I was resurrected at the last checkpoint which was close by. This is markedly different from Diablo II, in that I had all my equipment and did not need to worry about whether I dropped a portal or had to walk to my body from town, I just got right back into the action. I don’t know if this is a positive change or a negative one just yet, I am really biased to Diablo II, and I am not sure if those checkpoints persist when the game is turned off. One thing is for sure, it’s fun.

A paragraph from Co-Optimus:

The game was incredibly easy to pick up and play, perhaps because I am a Diablo vet. At one point I found myself surrounded by 60 or so enemies. As they quickly closed in I cast a spell which stunned everyone around me. I then executed a technique called the Seven Sided Strike which launched me around the pack that has surrounded me in what looked like a scene from a kung-fu movie. Finally rounding out the combo I did a an Exploding Palm Technique. Mind you, this was all done simply by tabbing and clicking the controls through my skills. The end result? A gigantic explosion of enemies and blood, and a combo bonus of 1500xp – as well as a new record on the machine, 67 kills at once.

And a sampling from TopTenReviews:

We spent some time with the newest class in the Diablo series, the Monk. The Monk focuses more on hand-to-hand combat, but it doesn’t have a lot of hit points. That means you can’t just rush in and start swinging or you’ll die quickly. The Monk requires a little more finesse and a lot more strategy, deciding how to draw out enemies, when to retreat and when to attack. The monk also has a few combo moves that allow you to deliver many attacks without staying in the same spot. One has you slashing back and forth through an attacker from many different angles. It actually looked like a move from Street Fighter or an anime movie rather than a Diablo move, but the Monk is like nothing you’ve seen the Diablo games anyway.