First, I have to preface again that I’ve never been much into console game play before. The main reason is that I’m not actually a serious gamer (by that, I mean owning and playing a ton of different games). I’ve mainly been into a very small genre of games; namely hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers and even fewer modern day RTS games like Starcraft (I barely played SC2 though compared to SC1). I used to enjoy old RTS classics like The Ancient Art of War which made it a natural transition when Blizzard first introduced Starcraft I.
Consoles tend to have a much wider selection of games from other genres though or have to had to make most dungeon crawlers, play from a first person perspective (that sort of game play always has a nauseating effect for me though which is why I’m not into first person shooters). Most RTS’ game play wise do not translate well onto console due to very limited control in terms of UI.
While the original Diablo was released on the Playstation 1, I never really had an interest in getting a console. Yes, I know there’s a lot of fun arcade style games as well but as mentioned, outside of a few ARPG’s, I’m not big into gaming in general.
When Diablo III was first announced for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, I still didn’t have an interest in actually playing the game on console (not enough to compel me to consider purchasing one of those consoles anyway at the time). But I did end up ordering the game (for PS3), created a PSN account (to redeem the pre-order bonuses just in case one day I did end up deciding to play it on console), and that was about it.
The price was inconsequential to me (and aside from issues with the PC game, I always felt the console team did and continues doing a bangup job with making the game play work fairly well on console platforms). Furthermore, it seemed like insanity to do the same thing all over again.
Fast forward to the actual announcement of the Ultimate Evil Edition. By this time, I personally was despising the way the development was going on the desktop side (documented fairly well on this blog) to the point where I really no longer wanted to be an enabler (by rewarding mediocre results via continually putting money into Blizzard’s coffers).
But I already knew that the only way folks like myself would see offline play was to play the game on a console. So I ended up purchasing a used PS3 (250GB slim model) and went from there. Outdated hardware is outdated especially when you are used to a certain standard of graphics. But what I wanted to experience first hand was the actual game play on a game controller.
As a non-console player, it took a little bit of getting used to when it came to the controls, but after awhile, I really came to like how well it was mostly all done. My biggest like turned out to be the direct character control. My biggest dislike was the fact that they had to limit the graphics (textures being the biggest) as well as monster density since both of these would’ve overwhelmed the capabilities of both the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Furthermore, by this point, playing through the campaign yet again (just on another platform) and farming the game that way, was just stale. So once I hit level 60 on the classes, I didn’t really play the end game the way I did on the desktop version.
For the Ultimate Evil Edition, I held off on pre-ordering until the very last minute. Number one, I wasn’t going to buy the game for the PS3. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get a PS4 (though it was clear that these newer consoles, were narrowing the gap between console and PC gaming).
But a few weeks ago, I bit the bullet and got myself a PS4 and finally hit the checkout button for the UEE preorder. Yes, I knew there was no native backwards compatibility and games were still fairly limited (a lot of new titles coming out closer to this Christmas though). And yes, I know I’m being an enabler by purchasing the game yet again on another platform.
Both the PS4 and UEE weren’t bad decisions though. 60fps for this game is actually incredible even though the actual textures aren’t as high as it is on the desktop version (when played on its highest graphics settings). The texture detail quality is between the lowest settings and highest settings on a PC (the lack of detail is most apparent in the faces of the characters). For players using laptops without a dedicated graphics card, the console graphics will look much better. But those of us used to playing the game on a desktop at the highest settings, will notice the drop off in this area.
Outside of that though, 60fps makes the graphics is sharp. smooth and crisp (much better performance compared to D3 on the PS3). And the actual game play itself is exceptionally smooth when not subject to the sort of latency that is inherent in a server/client environment. Direct character control as well as feedback from the dual shock controller makes the game play feel far more immersive. It’s as I mentioned before; this is how Diablo should be played.
Probably the most “difficult” part of the game play is pin point targeting. There is an auto target toggle (L2) where you can generally point towards (using the joystick control used to move your character) to lock on to specific targets in that general direction; it isn’t as accurate/precise as a mouse pointer though when talking about single target sort of skills. AOE skills though don’t require that much precision and work a lot better.
Something like Teleport or Vault for example can be more challenging to use when talking about pin point accuracy. I’m using my hydra build for example and exact placement of your hydra isn’t really possible. It’s also why the console developers slowed the monster AI’s (they don’t aggro as quickly) compared to the desktop version since they had to make allowances for how the controller works in cases like this. Characters also play much faster in terms of moving around and attacking as a means to keep the couch experience, a faster paced one. Overall, the game play experience is very engaging and feels far more natural compared to a mouse and keyboard (yes, I know – sacrilege).
So what about the downside of offline play when it comes to exploiting/hacking? I already gave my take on that before. Some folks will take extreme liberties in this area, but are going to make the game far too boring to enjoy over the long haul. That’s their personal choice and while I do realize that it does make online public games a crapshoot, it’s just as easy to leave those games and block those particular players.
Drops on the console version aren’t as anal retentive as on the PC version (again, to keep the couch playing aspect engaging) and since most everything in the game isn’t account bound (except the bonus addons), one can trade/gift items. Yes, I know about the dupe hacks with force quitting the game before it autosaves, but that sort of stuff was expected to happen (as well as character save editing).
The friend gifting system (not talking about the ability to also mail items to friends but the system that provides a chance for a legendary drop to be gifted to a friend while you are playing and they aren’t) itself is probably one of the most fun ideas the console team came up with and is something that stands a very low probability of ever being implemented on the desktop platform because they don’t want the same sort of RMT and economy problems that occurred with the game before the auction house was removed. It’s way too fun and not “serious business” for the PC version.
And that is the operative word (fun) which I’ve mentioned often before and is a direct contrast to how the PC folks handle their game design objectives by taking the extreme ends of the spectrum (which is ironic considering how they want classes and skills to be generally balanced). One simple example is pre-2.0 versus 2.0; full on auction houses and free trading to account binding everywhere with restrictive trading (as opposed to finding that middle ground).
One of the other benefits with the offline aspect of the console version is that it allows one to go back and play certain builds which no longer work on live. That is probably something I’m going to do later in the future with the original D3 on the PS3 (like trying to find gear to re-create a perma-archon or Critical Mass perma-freeze wizard – which is also ironic since these weren’t builds that I used on the live servers). It’s more for that nostalgia aspect like when I periodically load up and play Diablo II.
Overall, the UEE has given me a better appreciation for console gaming in general as well as the work which the console designers did with making the game work as well as it does. It shares the same name and much of the same game play objectives, but is also different because of the user interface as well as key changes to loot.
