Got the gamepass deal for $1 again, somehow, different email? So I took the opportunity and holiday season to try out Black Ops 6 and Diablo 4. Obviously the main reason was to play Indiana Jones, but that’s another story…
Here are some points I noticed
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The developers expect you to know the game, no more handholding and tutorial for the 22nd game in the series, you already know the buttons to shoot and crawl and sprint crouch. Zombies mode was a revelation, insanely complex since I played the first one and the tutorial only scratched the surface
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This ties in to new mechanics, new game, new things to do right? BO6 has a grappling hook, while not new(?) introduces some sort of proof of concept and different gameplay in a couple of levels which shakes things up, in Diablo, I didn’t notice anything new, it feels like a mobile game now though.
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They have no time to chill, devs think Gen Z or whoever their audience is has no time to admire the view. In old Cod, MoH games, you could blow up some tanks and then admire the French countryside after saving the town, here its curated so tight that I don’t even think 5 seconds is allowed for you to explore or relax, its crafted like a movie, every 10 steps there must be a guard standing still for you to stealth kill. In Diablo, you go into a field and there are 20 wolves there for no reason and a bear. I thought you started with a ‘normal’ amount of wolves and then move on to ridiculous numbers in the endgame or post game. You also level up so fast and get access to the entire skill tree
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Diablo’s story is now entirely detached from its gameplay, the protag can see the villains cutscenes due to a plot device, no more clever writing to explain events after, you get rewards not from an NPC but from the menu from completing world events, and somehow there are localised areas of 100s of enemies just waiting for you to start a fight in a random spot on an open field, theres a GPS showing you the way to the next objective
Overall I played both for the story and B06 was short and serviceable and let the player control the amount of lore they wanted (they did rip a level right from Control though) The presentation was top notch and had enough themes to make things different, it was also polished to the point where there were no rough edges and dare I say no personality.
I was completely uninterested in anything Diablo talked about, the intro was interesting then it turned into a bunch of fetch quests
My short review on Indiana Jones would be the opposite of Veilguard “It’s a good game but not a good dragonage game”
“Its not a great game but a good Indiana Jones game”
Diablo’s story is now entirely detached from its gameplay, the protag can see the villains cutscenes due to a plot device, no more clever writing to explain events after, you get rewards not from an NPC but from the menu from completing world events, and somehow there are localised areas of 100s of enemies just waiting for you to start a fight in a random spot on an open field, theres a GPS showing you the way to the next objective
Diablo 2’s story is also detached, it’s nothing new lol. I’d say Diablo 3 actually had the most protag focused story besides Diablo 1. In D4, all of the cutscenes at least involve main characters you regularly interact with.
Regardless, no one plays those games for the story. They’ve always been purely about gear grinding and demon/monster butchering. D4 is probably the most polished in the series, except for maybe D3, which was a very streamlined experience, for better or worse. I like all of the Diablo games, but I still think D2 and D3 are the most fun I’ve had playing with friends. Fun is always the most important aspect, and D4 was making strong strides to improving that aspect when I last played over the summer. Not sure if that’s still the case in the new expansion, but I figure I’ll try it out when the xpac is on a deep discount.
Anytime I see someone bitching about the writing in Diablo I know they are just looking to be mad.
Diablos writing and story has been garbage and unimportant for 35 years. It’s a slot machine.
Diablo hasn’t changed since D2. It’s just gotten quicker to do hundreds of runs.
Probably a bit harsh in this post, op seems to mean it, but they clearly don’t represent the general audience.
no time to admire the view
Apparently everyone wants instant gratification and we need to be on to the next scripted moment, then the next one, and the next… No time to admire anything you see.
The best thing about Gamepass is all the non-AAA games that I wouldn’t normally get to play because there is a lot more variety in them.
D4 bad. POE2 good.
Grim Dawn also good if you’re looking for something a little more old-school.
