Friday, midday at the Blizzard Headquarters in Irvine near Los Angeles. To be seen on the screen are firewalls, monster-beetles, illuminated magic arrows and the corridors of dark dungeons, What is bringing the monitor to heat up is the long awaited follow up of the software of the year: Producer Bill Roper has just installed a oven fresh version of Diablo 2. We were able to explore 2 of the 4 worlds and 4 from the 5 characters. the dark Necromancer having just joined them. now the graphic guys are tending to the fine work on the barbarian.

Even though the deadline pressure is pushing down on the Blizzard artists they are still adamant: Diablo 2 is still dead on course for release in the third quarter of this year.

When the goods land at the checkouts, even the bad will profit from it. Beaten thinking Diablo would be re-animated, when new evil was needed for the continuation of the game. In the case of the follow up the demonic underworld creature diablo is a comeback easy to explain. At the end of the first version, Diablo was able to win control over the hero from a short period of time, who was actually cut off as Diablo was killed. This great evil now spreads unstopped across the whole fantasy world and if that wasn't enough this force reactivates his hellish Brothers Baal and Mephisto. The player now slides into a brand new Hero that carry on the hunt for Diablo who fights through 4 very different and extremely large scenes (acts)

3D for the paper basket

As Diablo was released in January 1997 the RPG scene was clinically dead. Blizzard created a surprise hit using the RPG basis (building up characters and improving your equipment) and so much animated mouse-click action that the dungeons rocked. ( bad translation but it means the same 'dampften' means 'steaming' in English and sounds silly =) ) And so an addictive game was born, which has to date sold around 1.5 million copies worldwide, And with so much success nobody should be surprised when the look and feel of Diablo 2 doesn't differ all too much from the first version.

When you ask producer Bill Roper why creating such a similar follow up is taking so long, he puts on his Diabolic grin and says: " You shouldn't let yourself be fooled, the Diablo 2 engine is completely new ! We haven't carried anything over from the first version" And why does one stay with an isometric view instead of of using modern 3D techniques ? Bill say's " Voxel, Polygons we tried all possible 3D engines, but nothing of what we saw impressed us very much. So everytime we ended up coming back to the isometric view from our previously changed Sprite-Animation from the first version. Here we are able to achieve the right angle on details and speed that the game needs."

It is foreseen that the end version of Diablo 2 will fill 4 CD's, each containing one act from the game with it's own regions, enemies, quests and it's own city/town. each one of the 4 acts should be larger and more flexible as the whole of the first version of Diablo, when you then had the choice of 3 characters , you now have 5 the Barbarian, Amazon, Necromancer, Paladin and the Sorceress.

A hero with cash

Movement and the graphic style seem as familiar as your favorite sweater, in that you feel comfortable straight away. that is not to say that the follow up is lacking any innovation. shortly after the first test game you notice that quite alot has been done in the land of Diablo. Next to the familiar marching pace you now have the ability to run, with which it's possible to escape some of the over powering monsters, however beware some monsters also have this ability. Your luck at being able to sprint will however not hold forever, heroes kitted out with heavy armor will soon be out of breath compared to others that are traveling lightly. The ability to climb is not in planning but rather the ability for all characters to be able to throw objects. By training your talent at throwing, no not flowers or confetti but poison and fire balls you are able to hit monsters at a safe distance. Also with the kick technique you are able to throw your opposition back a small distance. which is also an ability of all characters. Diablo veterans with strained wrists will be pleased with the further tuning of the games interface: now to continuously hit on a monster you only have to hold the mouse button pressed down, instead of the hysterical single clicking. Hotkeys can now be used for favorite weapons along with being able to change weapons in the middle of a battle at the push of a button. Even the inventory is hard to miss, with the option to blend in info windows over the various objects. The End