Diablo II
Tags: good versus evil

Plot synopsis:
Diablo II takes place after the end of the previous game, Diablo, in the world of Sanctuary. In Diablo, an unnamed warrior defeated Diablo and attempted to contain the Lord of Terror's essence within his own body. Since then, the hero has become corrupted by the demon's spirit, causing demons to enter the world around him and wreak havoc.
A band of adventurers who pass through the Rogue Encampment hear these stories of destruction and attempt to find out the cause of the evil, starting with this corrupted "Dark Wanderer." As the story develops, the truth behind this corruption is revealed: the soulstones were originally designed to capture the Prime Evils who were banished to the mortal realm after being overthrown by the Lesser Evils. With the corruption of Diablo's soulstone, the demon is able to control the Dark Wanderer. The soulstone of another demon, Baal, was united with the mage Tal-Rasha, who volunteered to absorb Baal's spirit in his own body and be imprisoned in a tomb.
As the story progresses, cut scenes show the Dark Wanderer's journey as a drifter named Marius follows him. The player realizes that the Dark Wanderer's mission is to reunite with the other prime evils, Baal and Mephisto. The story is divided up into four acts:
Act I - The adventurers rescue Cain, who is imprisoned in Tristram, and then begin following the Dark Wanderer. The Dark Wanderer has one of the lesser evils, Andariel, corrupt the Sisters of the Sightless Eye (Rogues) and take over their Monastery. The adventurers overcome Andariel and then follow the Wanderer east.
Act II - While the adventurers search the eastern desert for Tal-Rasha's tomb, the Dark Wanderer gets there first. Marius is tricked into removing Baal's soulstone from Tal-Rasha and the Archangel Tyrael charges Marius with taking the soulstone to Hell to destroy it. The Dark Wanderer and Baal join with Mephisto, open a portal to Hell, and the Dark Wanderer sheds his human form and becomes the demon Diablo.
Act III - The adventurers find the seat of the Zakarum religion at the Temple of Kurast, where the portal to Hell is located. They defeat Mephisto, who was left guarding the entrance, and take his soulstone.
Act IV - The adventurers slay Diablo in Hell and destroy the soulstones of Mephisto and Diablo on the Hellforge, preventing their return.
In the epilogue, Marius, speaking in a prison cell, indicates he was too weak to enter Hell, and that he fears the stone's effects on him. He gives the soulstone to his visitor. The visitor reveals himself to be Baal, the last surviving Prime Evil now in possession of his own soulstone. He then kills Marius and sets the prison cell on fire.
The story continues in the expansion Diablo II: Lord of Destruction where Baal attempts to corrupt the mythical Worldstone on Mount Arreat. Upon returning to the Pandemonium Fortress after defeating Diablo, Tyrael opens a portal to send the adventurers to Arreat.

Review: Got a spare 3 months??.
At least I think that's how long I spent playing Diablo II in every spare moment I could find, I'm not sure, I kinda lost track of time for a bit.The concept behind making Diablo II so popular is ridiculously simple.
Make an engine that can generate nearly infinite numbers of uniquely different magical items and people will play until the end of time trying to obtain a sword or a suit of armour that's just that little bit better than what you already have.The stories and cut scenes that drive the game forward and link the various Acts are superbly done and contribute in some way to dispelling the "nothing but a clickfest" label that the Diablo games have been cast as.Many spells and abilities are only available at level 30 or above and to fully appreciate these players are encouraged to move on to nightmare and hell modes in order to fully develop their characters.
Indeed, the most powerful weapons and items are only available in these harder game modes and because of this Diablo2's replayability factor is very high.The 4 character classes are both well balanced and varied enough that strategies that prove effective for one character class often prove disastrous for another.
While Necromancers and Barbarians are traditionally the dominant classes, Blizzard has gone some way to leveling the playing field with their patch.
The introduction of the D2 expansion pack also promises to introduce more characters and levels.
The future certainly looks bright.Diablo II is disarmingly addictive and it comes as a breath of fresh air in a crowded field of first person shooters and real time strategies that after a while begin to blend together in mimetic mediocrity.Just remember to give your mouse hand a chance to recover every couple of hours.....
Made everything from the first one even better!.
There's not much bad to be said about this game.
It takes all the elements from the first game and makes them better.
Better graphics, story, sounds, levels, characters, weapons.
I remember playing this game for the first time for about 12 hours or so.
It's hard to stop once you start.
It excelled on every expectation I had for it.
The ending really stuck with me.
It is very bad ass.
The difficulty I found challenging, but not impossible.
The most addictive part about the game is the level building.
There's nothing more satisfying than building your character up super strong and mowing down some demons in hell.
The final thing I like about this game is it fulfilled every want I had for the series.
There is no need to continue further.
This game and it's expansion should be the end of the series in my opinion, but they are that damn good..
It was a bestseller for a reason..
This game is one of the best games ever made.
This can be played both singelplayer and multiplayer.
I played sp for a least about a year before I went online.
This game is still very good and a lot of people play it..
it's about 4 years old and people still play it A LOT online.The game is just so perfect that I can't think anything to complain about.
It's like you are drinking beer but never getting full.
The best RPG out there.If you haven't played this then you really need to get it.It's very cheap since the game is so old.
There are about 50k players always in b.net.
This game is very addictive, start now!
Lived up to it's name.
The original Diablo came out in 1996, and generated ALOT of hype, some calling it the best PC game of all time.
When Blizzard Entertainment announced Diablo II, it was expected to deliver.
In 2000, it burst onto shelves and millions of hard drives.
Yet again, the next chapter in the Diablo saga shattered sales records.
Not only does it have a compelling Single Player mode, but Blizzard's FREE Battle.Net service, hosting Millions of gamers each and every day, with as many a 600,000 per hour..
One of the Best RPG games ever.
When Diablo 2 was released in 2000, it didn't quite live up to most critics initial dizzyingly high expectations.
But for me the proof of the games' star quality is in its longevity.
Diablo 2 is still very popular almost a decade after its release with a huge following on Blizzard's battle.net.
Given the fact that this was the first RPG game I've ever played and that I didn't play it until 2009 I wasn't burdened by high expectations and thoroughly enjoyed this game and spent many happy hours playing Diablo 2.
Although Diablo 2 is far from perfect I give it a 10 for its ability to entertain and engage you for many hours.The addictive hack'n-slash gameplay along with the ability to customize your character to suit your playing style is Diablo's 2 strongest points.
You will spend most of your time just clicking on various monsters and your character will do the killing, this simple way of playing is oddly addictive (to most people anyway).
The interesting part of the game is building up a character with various skills, strengths and weapons to deal with the progressively stronger monsters you will encounter as you progress in the game.One of the games other strengths is its very forgiving learning curve, allowing a new player plenty of time to get into the game and build up a strong character before having to face some serious opposition.
The game appeals to a casual player like me because you don't have to explore every aspect of the game to complete it, but have enough depth and intricacies for the hardcore players to explore who want to do more than just kill Diablo and watch the end movie.A few things bothered me about Diablo 2.
The one thing (that bothered a lot of other people as well) is the low quality graphics, even for a game released in 2000 it's just not up to scratch.
The graphics were improved somewhat with the expansion pack so install the expansion if you want to play Diablo 2.
The other is that I found one or 2 of the end-level bosses were disproportionally difficult to kill compared with the rest of the monsters in Diablo 2.
There is no way to cheat to get past a difficult boss so you really can get stuck after spending many hours building a character who is just not good enough to get past one particular monster.Overall, if you for some reason never played Diablo 2, it's still not too late.
Pick it up from a bargain bin and give it a try!.
Years of fun.
A great classic, though the graphics may be out dated, the item graphics are superb and there's always something to do, either finish the quests you missed or get better armour.
5 Different character classes to choose from (7 in expansion) such as the Barbarian, Amazon,Necromancer,Paladin and Sorceress - they have three skill trees each, either make one skill powerful or work on many different skills.
There is so much to do and it will last you a long time - There's also Blizzard's Free Online Battle.net, which will keep you playing for years to come, meet friends, help each other, and duel.
This is a classic game that i advise you pick up..
Are you a High Fantasy freak?
Do you enjoy CRPGs?
Diablo 2 is for you.
A milestone..
A milestone..
Legend with a reason!.
The simplicity of Diablo is one of so scary addictive things that just makes you wanna continue "for five more minutes" game is simple but then again repetitive value of the game, thanks to random generated dungeons is HUGE!
Even now more then ten years after it release it is one of the few games that I consider fully worth their whole price!
And with my personal opinion only game that could do some damage to Diablo II popularity is Diablo III (since Blizzard did said that they aim for early 2012 for release of Diablo III, I do hope it comes soon) Action elements and also reward elements in this game are huge!
This game is surely one of games that marked action genre of hack and slash (well technically first Diablo game did that) From me it gets 10 out of 10.
Best game ever.
I would say Diablo II is the best game ever...
14 years and still alive.Wish they would still care about this game less dupes and spambots but still a great game, also found a nice forum with trading http://joopit.org/ friendly community.Diablo III took a long time to come out and it did not come out as expected...
I played diablo III when it came out quit and came back and it never got better..We need another diablo II Expansion!!!