The PR-Demo... sorry, "beta" version of Diablo 3 has been around for a while, tons of people have already played it and now that the actual game is rumored to be released sometime next month, I finally got access to it, as well.
I won't lie to you: I started losing interest when I saw the graphics and they've pretty much lost me when I saw all the playable classes. Long before an actual beta. That said, much unlike any die-hard Diablo fan, I have never worshipped Diablo 2 as the best game of all times. Played it till the end a few times, had some fun LAN matches with friends, that's it. That was ten years ago.
My main gripe with Diablo 3, aside from the fact that it's a brand new game that looks 10 fucking years old, is how the playable classes don't appeal to me one bit. The original Diablo had a warrior class. Full plate, kite shield, right up my alley. Diablo 2 had something rather similar with the paladin. There was also the shape-shifting druid, who could turn into a werewolf and other fun stuff. Now there's Diablo 3. No warrior, no paladin, no nothing clad in shiny full plate. No werewolves, either. Closest thing I get is the barbarian and I just don't like that guy:
He's fat, he's nude and he's simply no fun to play, but I'll get into that later. Other classes include the Wizard and the Witch doctor. Did I mention I like playing warriors? Those guys are not an option. Then there's the monk. Again. You know, (MMO)RPGs going Asia stopped being cool sometime around the days of Diablo 2. Every fucking game has their stupid katanas, ninjas, samurai helmets and bamboo forests now. As a guy who plays Korean F2P grind fests for a living, I don't find Asian-themed stuff appealing anymore.
And then there's one for the emo faction:
The Demon Hunter. Yeah. Skinny goth dude with a hood and dual crossbows. Most of his armors include a red, flowy scarf. Seriously. It's an anorexic version of Van Helsing with a borderline gay sense of fashion. I know there's a whole new generation of gamers who can't fucking WAIT to play this guy, but come on. What the fuck.
Well. Since I dislike the entire class selection of Diablo 3, I went with what I found the easiest class to tolerate and rolled a big, fat barbarian. And I'll admit it's fun to whack zombies really hard, make the screen shake with every hit, watch the corpses fly all over the place and all that. But that's as good as it gets. Barbarians generate fury with every swing, which can be used to trigger extra powerful special attacks. A bit like warriors and rage on WoW. Problem is, those fury attacks feel entirely dissatisfying. They do slightly more damage than the swings that generate fury, they're really not all that spectacular and it didn't really make any difference when I ignored them completely. To be fair, the beta ends somewhere around level 10, but during that period, playing a Barbarian was mildly entertaining at best.
They also got castrated. Remember WoW's Titan's Grip? The ability that lets warriors dual-wield two-handed weapons? The whole thing started with the Barbarian in Diablo 2, who could use two-handed swords as though they were one-handed. There's no such thing in Diablo 3. You still get to dual wield regular-sized weapons, but that's simply not as badass.
I have also rolled a female Demon Hunter. I'm not a huge fan of the play style they require: Ranged attacks, traps, speed and agility over strength, that kinda stuff. That said, I found this class pretty fun to play. Shooting arrows that split up and ricochet, hitting several baddies at once and making them explode is pretty neat. I could see myself playing one of those to the level cap in the retail version. Nothing beyond that, but it's still a good thing.
As for character customization and development, well... you no longer get to distribute your attribute points by hand. Skills are automatically unlocked as you level up and there are no more talent trees. Instead, you get to choose from three different skills per six hotkeys on your action bar and each of these skills may be boosted with various runes, which also unlock as you gain levels. Every character of the same class and level will have the exact same base stats and the exact same pool of abilities and skills, picking their six favourite ones anytime they want with only a slight cooldown in between changes.
It's easier than the old skill and attribute system, which makes sense, considering Diablo 3 goes out of its way to hand-hold people, who have never played a video game before. Onscreen hints include popups like: "You have picked up an item", "One of your equipment slots is empty" and "This is your map" RIGHT NEXT TO THE FUCKING ONSCREEN MAP!
To be fair, my bitching about this game is based solely upon my personal taste. Others might love every single one of the playable classes and some might even welcome the simplistic new character development system. I'm not saying it's bad, it simply doesn't appeal to me.
That said, I wouldn't expect Diablo 3 to be a smashing success, either. Not just because of what dear Mr. Bashiok said. Not even because of all the real money auction house drama. But simply because absolutely everything about this game has been done. When the first Diablo came out, there was absolutely nothing like it. Diablo 2 has improved upon the first one in many aspects and while there were a few diablo-inspired games such as Darkstone or Lamentation Sword, none of them had ever become anywhere near as successful or popular as the original.
But once again - that was ten years ago. Between Diablo 2 and the upcoming 3rd game of the series, tons upon tons of Diablo-inspired games have been released. And I'm not just referring to obvious stuff such as Torchlight or Dungeon Siege or less popular games like Silverfall and Mage Knight Apocalypse. We're talking about fucking Browser Games, which basically do everything you get in Diablo 3:
Yup, it's a browser-game. No client, no download, it works just like that. I'm not saying it's ever gonna be as big or hyped as Diablo - that's not the point. What I'm saying is: These games are there. They exist, they work, they're being played. Diablo 3 simply isn't as unique or special as its predecessors.
And now to something completely different:
Healthy living. Fuck! (Ironically, there's a pizza hut menu hidden underneath that chopping board)
I hate doing what everybody else does. I have never touched anything with Harry Potter in or on it. I hated the Matrix before part 2 and 3 came out. And I sure as fuck don't wanna be like all those douchebags on Facebook, who keep on babbling about how they're counting calories and how they cook vegetable-based sauces now. Healthy food is all the rage. But I love my bacon, extra-cheesy pizzas with 38 trillion toppings and cheese-stuffed crust and ice-cold coke. Hell, I finally live in a country where you can just buy a damn can of coke, drink it and throw it away like god intended it to be. In Germany, you gotta save the damn things for their stupid return fee! Ahem, anyway...
Turns out I love my cheese and bacon a little too much. There's a photograph of me decorating a pub in town, because I can eat more than most regular human beings. And it's reaching a point where it's quite literally not pretty anymore. My old man used to live the life of a fatty and ended up getting Diabetes. And I'm reaching a point where I have to accept that my shrinking shirts aren't just the washing machine's fault. When I had a regular day job, I'd spend all day running around, catching trains and buses and waiting for even more trains and buses, I'd be up and about all day. Now I'm parking my lazy ass in front of the PC working at home and there's simply no need to leave the house. They're even delivering the damn groceries. I don't have a car, I don't wanna walk to the supermarket 20 minutes and back, carrying the food for a week. I'm a lazy bastard.
Problem is, when you're not really doing anything all day and you keep stuffing your face with unhealthy shit, it starts to show. Huge surprise there, I know.
So I've done that one thing I loathe, done what every idiot is doing these days and just looked at all the ingredients of all my favourite dishes and started counting the calories. Holy fuck. I'm rather pleased I haven't suffered any severe heart attacks, lately.
Long story short, we've thrown out everything that is bad for our health. Cream? Say hello to fat-free yoghurt. Which, surprisingly, is still far from healthy, but it's an improvement. Cheese? Say hello to... well, fond memories of cheese, really. I can't have cheddar, plain and simple. Pork, make way for skinless chicken. Bland, dry, boring skinless chicken. Sigh.
Hey, you can still cook some awesome stuff using only healthy ingredients. A kickass curry, for instance. We've been doing the healthy thing for a week now, next week's load of healthy shit is already on it's way and we've been counting calories like morons. I'm not topping 1800 calories a day. Ever. It's not gonna make a huge difference. I won't magically shrink over night. But it's a pretty doable, easy way to eat without growing an XXL-ass in the process.
Funny thing is, I'm already feeling pretty great, physically (emotionally is a whole different story) - after one lousy week. It's probably a placebo, but I'm getting my ass out of bed much easier now, I don't feel groggy and exhausted all day and - just between us - healthy food turns into some pretty awesome shit. You know, the kind of turd that just goes swish!
Problem is, I'm having insane cravings. I'd quite happily murder somebody for a pizza. Without hesitating. Or a triple whopper with bacon. I'm a MAN, I wanna hunt down a mammoth, roast it over an open fire and wrap my teeth around it! I don't wanna nibble on a fucking carrot or some bland chicken like a total pussy.
It's all about the right mindset. When I see healthy food, I picture some academic couple. Tall, scrawny, no children, no sense of humour, he's probably a math teacher or something. They plant sunflowers and enjoy going to the museum. I dunno, man...
You see, Claire and I sit around playing video games all day. Naked. We tried clothes at home, which ended in Claire standing in front of the living room window, flashing her tits at passing cars, waiting for someone to honk. Their horn, not her boob. And that kind of lifestyle goes best with pizza. It's the law. You just don't say "Hey, let's get naked, play Call of Duty, burp like cows and eat raw cucumbers all weekend long!"
And that's the problem right there. I can get used to eating chicken instead of pork. I can live with self-made sauces made from vegetable juices and flour instead of the easy insta-crap that comes from a sachet. Takes a while to adapt, but it's still food, it keeps me going and being physically fit and taking amazing shits is a huge plus. But it doesn't make me feel like a man. Men don't roast a fucking bell pepper over an open fire. "Men" who would seriously consider doing that sort of shit are people like Jamie Oliver. I don't like modern chefs. Skinny, healthy people, who cook healthy stuff. I want a fat guy to cook for me on TV! Sigh...
Some of my friends get over that by "rewarding" themselves "once a month". You know, saying it's okay to have a weekend pizza or to hang out at Burger King every once in a while to satisfy that craving. I don't wanna do that for several reasons. First of all, we all know how "once a month" works out. It doesn't. Does anyone seriously keep track of how, when and where they had their last burger? Besides, actually treating junk food as a reward of sorts is highly counter-productive. Why do I have to be rewarded? For eating healthy stuff? For suffering through it? If I consider pizza a reward, it automatically turns healthy stuff into some kind of punishment.
And that's wrong. If I pull off this whole healthy food crap, it's not punishment. It's not even some kind of temporary diet or some means to lose weight. It's for life. What's the point in me abandoning all cheese and cream and what have you, if I do so for a month or two or even a year, only to go back to consuming nothing but raw fat and sugar all over again? That's how I got there in the first place. Realistically speaking, I can't take these things in moderation. So the only way to fix this is by staying the fuck away from them - permanently.
I don't want this to be some kind of diet. Or a phase. This is the way I want to live. I'm 30 years old now and I'd like to make it past 50. Don't get me wrong - I had 30 happy years of not giving a shit about what, when and how much I ate, but that's gonna change now. I'll be craving pizza a LOT. I'll feel like a pussy a lot. But I'll get over it. Turns out I'm craving normal blood pressure and cholesterol more than junk food.
At least that's what I'm saying right now. We'll see how I feel about this a month from now. Haha!
-Cat
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