Hey Amanda,

Actually, one of the criteria of submitting reviews here is that we’re asked to talk about *our* experiences with the game, what made them interesting to *us* as individual gamers. If you’re looking for a dissection of game play without any interjection from the person who played it, I guess you’re reading the wrong reviews here.

I’m not sure what you regard as cliche, but the sample of the review you gave doesn’t particularly smack of it, to me. Again, I’m sorry you got bored with the review but the piece you gave as an example there, to me, seems to be a clear-cut description of how the game works, like you wanted.

Lewie, the site’s owner, approves all this work before it goes live, and I make changes to it when he deems it necessary. I wasn’t complaining about not being paid, either – I do this because I enjoy it. I only mentioned that point because you seemed to be implying that I hadn’t given the game a proper look, was restricted to some schedule etc, which is not the case.

I’m open to criticism, but I don’t see that you’re correct in these cases. Thanks for the comment, regardless.

o I want to read about the game, not about you. I mean, who are you, anyway? Don’t bother answering. Not interested.

o Find out why this sort of writing sends people to sleep:

Rather than making a choice of Class at the beginning of the game, you are free to select up to three Heroes, the requisite amount which comprises a squad. These chosen few will be who accompany you through the game’s levels, though only one will be active on the field at any given moment and you must swap them on the fly. If you ever find yourself tiring of a character during the course of an RPG, this mechanic may be the solution. You’re free to mix and match heroes however you choose, and the… blah blah blah

Anyway, I Just wanted to point those things out. Thanks for reading.

Ben

Thanks for the long reply, Duskwolf. The game does seem worth a punt to a Diablo fan like me. I picked up a copy.

Savvier gamers than me should wait, oh, a month, for the price to halve.

Yeah, it is. It’s also how you can tell that some reviewers haven’t played it for more than a couple of hours, it’s sort of like the Age of Conan expansion fiasco all over again, because this game has a slow start, and it seems that the only amount of time a reviewer has to allot to a game these days is 1 or 2 hours, 2 hours max, then they have to move onto the next game. It’s how they get paid.

But the problem is is that that’s not a good indicator of how the game plays, once you get into it it really starts picking up, and countless more options of customisation open up to you, and the game shows complexity that isn’t originally visible on the surface. This is something that a lot of reviewers didn’t realise due to their time spent with it. But if you read the 1up or Gamespot reviews, they say pretty much the same things, they have played it for an extended period of time.

Some reviews, like the RPS and Eurogamer (not Italy) reviews show that they didn’t allot much time to the game at all. It was sort of like how RPS handled New Vegas – they did a quick speed run through it, spotted the bugs, declared the game to be crap and ‘phoned in,’ and then moved onto the next game. This is why I don’t trust many professional reviewers these days, it’s all about being paid or getting clicks for their site and not about actually playing the game.

There are a few good reviews though, and this review isn’t bad, either. And there are a couple of good ones on Youtube, too, where they’ve been playing them for a while. But yeah, if you don’t have issues with immediate gratification and you’re not strapped for time, this is a slow burner. And in my opinion, aside from some inventory problems as eloquently mentioned by Mr. Savy himself, I’d say that it does everything Diablo does – but better.

The heroes are compelling, they all have their own very unique, very alien look, which is nice, it’s not like Diablo where all the heroes look the same except armour, basically just walking, dead-eyed ghouls that serve as an excuse for a class and nothing more than that. So you have some great characters, beautiful animation, and the planets are incredible, the audio is… well, they made sure it sounds alien, nothing you’ll hear there sounds like anything you’ll hear on earth. It’s mesmerising stuff, and it’s always a joy to find new worlds, or new sections of old worlds, because it’s so much eye-candy.

You can really tell that a whole lot of love has gone into the presentation of this game, it can go from eye-catching to breathtaking, the worlds are filled with strange little wonders that are fun to see, and really it works as an addictive backdrop for the gameplay, which is essentially a Diablo-clone, though with the complexity that comes up later on, I’d say it’s closer to a fully fledged Diablo than something like Torchlight was, which was very much a Diablo Lite.

The story is particularly nice too, it’s got the odd bout of believable techno-babble, it’s probably harder sci-fi than most things, but due to the alien nature of it all, it also has this compellingly fantastic feel to it, so it’s more sci-fantasy. And it works for it, it’s like immersing yourself in something really strange and different for a while, and the story as read by the ship’s computer only backs that up. If you can handle strange, and you’re not just the sort of person who craves boring games with boring settings over and over, then you’ll find something here.

I’ve been ploughing through the game, and the further I get, the more often I find I have to be strategic, some critters are really nasty, like these elites which have regeneration and incredible accuracy, and you have to use your squad’s abilities to their best effect to deal with these challenges, there are characters that are a little bit cheesy that can help you get past these challenges, but considering that there seem to be well over a hundred characters, you’re certainly not spoilt for choice, you can pick whatever suits your play-style or desire for difficulty.

The only other thing I’d like to touch on is that Maxis’ post release support has been absolutely awesome. They’ve dealt with the only crash issue I’ve had (and a few I haven’t), a bunch of UI problems, and many balance issues in PvE and PvP. And they’ve pretty much said that they’re in this for the long-haul, and that their support of Darkspore will continue to be a primary interest to them. So the further time goes on, the better this game will be, it’ll only improve with time.

You’ll get some people that will tell you that this game ‘sux’ because of the lack of a town full of humans to interact with (though in Diablo I didn’t see those as humans much but more as dispensers of either services or storyline, you couldn’t really interact with them, could you?), or that the setting isn’t a boring old traditional fantasy, or that the characters aren’t average, everyday spods that you can relate to… but if you play Darkspore for a while, you realise why these are blessings, not curses.

The human town in Diablo was just an awkward menu system, nothing more, it was like the sanctum in Fable III, which we can all agree was a terrible thing. Darkspore does this better. And… I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of sick of the same old fantasy trash all the time. Ooh but it’s gritty, or grimdark, or whatever… so it’s just a fantasy version of GTA then? And I’m supposed to find that compelling? Darkspore’s setting, by comparison, was a massive breath of fresh air.

Best Diablo-like I’ve played in forever. And in my opinion, it even surpasses it, since there’s not so much great about Diablo these days compared against more modern successors. If we set aside nostalgia, then the natural evolution of Diablo in games like Titan Quest, Torchlight, and more recently Darkspore have left Diablo in their dust.

There are some nice ideas in there and I’ve heard Maxis is really listening to the community, so maybe it will get better over time, but for now it doesn’t feel like a 50€ title, since there are already games with similar quality for 15€ (Torchlight)