PC Games of 1997: Diablo

Welcome back boys and girls for Day 5 of PC Games of 1997 and I had to save the greatest time waster of them all.  The penultimate of dates broken, ladies unloved and meals missed.  From a company’s humble beginnings as Silicon & Synapse (sounds like a firm specializing in breast and brain augmentation)the years of Battle Chess and Castles  to the company we better known as Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.  Creators of such games as: Warcraft, Warcraft II, Starcraft, The Death and Return of Superman and Justice League Task Force came a hack and slash adventure game to the likes we had not seen with graphics and excellent voice work.  So grab your mana and health bottles, sharpen your broadsword and prepare to do battle with those denizens of Hell.   This is Diablo.

 

Um... there is a plot device scrolling over our heads.

Uldyssian: Damn you!

Lucion: Thank you, I already am. Shall we go spoil?

In the world of Sanctuary, beneath the town of Tristam lurks Diablo, the Lord of Terror. Eons ago the war between Heaven and Hell raged on. Angels and demons slew one another by the hundreds until the demons were exiled to the mortal realm.  Three terrible Lords of Hell sought victory over mankind through temptation and influencing their decisions, sowing the seeds of distrust and hatred amongst the humans of Sanctuary until a gathering of mages trapped the lords in soulstones.  Diablo’s soulstone was buried deep under the ground in the land that would be known as Tristam a large monastery built over the wretched soulstone to guard and keep the stone from ever seeing light.

Screw doing good.  I'm gonna loot!!

Many generations later the monastery sat in ruin and Tristam was raised up over the ruins and the monastery was leveled for a cathedral.   It would have been nice of the ancestors to leave any notes, scrolls or etchings on the importance of the monastery.   Slowly Diablo gains power over the town and proceeds to warp the good king Leoric and creates terrible wars all the while filling the caverns and catacombs underneath the former monastery with horrible, formidable creates to guard Diablo while he regains his power.

With no king, law or even an army to defend this once happy and prosperous town many of the villagers up and left this township of terror. 

The standard classes of adventurers are pretty limited to Rogue, Warrior and Sorcerer.  Each powerful in their own right but require improvement throughout the leveling.   All items give off a certain color scheme glow to establish how they can be used and by whom.  The colors are white for the normal items, blue for the magic items and gold for the unique items.   They also show how durable each item is and how they can all wear down from too much use and the weapons show all the pros and cons of each melee, blunt and range weapon.  

While this RPG hack and slash is primarily a single-player game it was set up for a LAN (local area network) Multi-player of up to a whopping 4 players and had its drawbacks.  For example: Kill parties laying in wait for that poor noob that greets fellow players so they may kill him/her and strip the body of its belongings.   Also the Cheat Engine (a game editing program) was commonly used to overamp one’s character to make him/her an impossible level and have a wide array of weapons for the sole purpose of killing off fellow gamers, I.E. game killer or jerk off.

While slaying the undead, various monsters and demons is a boon and the story was sound I am certain many friends and families were worried to the gamer that was camped at his/her computer for hours at a time but then again it was not EverQuest (The Silent Killer).

Ahh glad I went without breeches in Hell.