Launch Station: Diablo III

There has no game that I can possibly think of that has been as highly anticipated as Diablo III.  Starcraft II comes to mind, but I personally believe Diablo III's anticipation trumps that of Blizzard's other franchises, Starcarft and Warcraft.  Some gamers have waited 12 long years for this one game that May 15th will be a significant date in their gaming lives.  It is not hard to imagine stores crowded and servers pushed to capacity as millions of gamers looking to play Diablo III.

Two decades after the events of Diablo II, a fiery harbinger of doom strikes the very ground where Diablo once entered the world of Sanctuary.  This fiery harbinger from the sky reawakens the ancient evils of the Prime Evils.  As a hero of the Sanctuary, you are called upon to defend humanity against the army of the Burning Hells once again.  At the beginning of the game, you are able to create your hero from five different classes.  These classes that you can choose from are witch doctor, barbarian, wizard, monk and demon hunter.  At Diablo's core, it is a dungeon crawler in the truest forms.  You accept quests, complete randomly generated levels, battle monsters and collect tons of loot.  With 12 years since Diablo II, Blizzard has had a lot of time to add new features to Diablo in its' third entry.  Some of these new features are destructible environments, in-game damage effects, the ability to pick up gold and loot by just touching it, replacing the potion bar with a skill bar, having enemies drop health orbs to replenish your health and skill runes.   There are two big new features in Diablo III that might possibly rub certain gamers the wrong way.  First is that Diablo III requires players to be constantly connected to the internet in order to play, even in single-player.  The second feature is the Auction House, which allows players to auction in-game items for real money.  Also Diablo III features co-op play and player vs. player battles with up to six players.

I can see why gamers love Diablo.  Blizzard created a game in which gamers could lose themselves in for thousands of hours, finding new encounters with enemies or new pieces of loot around every corner.  It is engaging, extremely gratifying and has an incredible amount of polish.  Personally I have never cared for anything Blizzard has developed.  I tried Starcraft, Starcraft II and Warcraft III.  After playing them, I found that Blizzard games just don't interest me or even appeal to me as a gamer.  Other than a few games here and there, I have never really been that big into PC gaming.  Sure, there are certain games like Dragon Age that I will only play on the PC, but I am not what you call a hardcore PC gamer.  Never been into upgrading my computer every couple of months.  While I might not care for Diablo III, there are certainly millions of gamers out there than do and have already bought the game and have been playing for the past day.  For those on the edge, give Diablo II a try or wait until Blizzard releases a demo for the game or see some reviews of the game.

On the Download: May 6-12

With nothing extraordinary released on the PSN or Nintendo eShop, this week's edition of On the Download highlights some iOS offerings and one big XBLA release.  For Steam users who have not picked up Valve's excellent puzzle game Portal 2, it is on sale for only 7 dollars this weekend.  A phenomenal deal if I say so myself.

Gameloft has made a name for themselves by making carbon copies of the most influential and popular games in recent memory such as Call of Duty, Legend of Zelda and Starcraft.  Gameloft's tactics have also acted as a double-edged sword of sorts.  While Gameloft may trick the casual gamers by creating extremely similar games for iOS and other downloadable services, many core gamers such as yours truly do not hold the developer in high regard.  More or less Gameloft has become the poster boy of plagiarism in video games and the punchline to many jokes.  Gameloft's third entry in their complete ripoff of Halo, N.O.V.A. 3, has just launched for iOS.  N.O.V.A. 3 (short for Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance) follows hero Kal Wardin as he returns to Earth to stop the evil Volterite Protectorate.  The main campaign spans 10 missions that take players from a war-torn Earth to the frozen Volterite City.  N.O.V.A. 3 also includes a red vs. blue style multi-player modes with up to 12 players across 6 different maps.  If you are dying to have Halo on the go with you, N.O.V.A. 3 will cost you 7 dollars.  For those who have standards, it is much easier and more fun just to play Halo.

At the end of 2011, Frontier Developments brought a great WiiWare game in LostWinds to iOS.  Now about four months later, Frontier has brought LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias, another great WiiWare game, to iOS.  In Winter of Melodias, Toku and the Wind Spirit Enril must save Toku's mother, Magdi, from the clutches of Balasar.  Toku must harness the power of Sonte, the Spirit of Seasons, to instantly change Mistralis between the Summer and Winter.  This new power allows Toku to solve puzzles and interact with the environment unlike anything he has done before.  The first LostWinds worked really well on iOS so I do expect LostWinds 2 to be the same in quality or even better.  For 4 dollars, LostWinds 2 is another game to download for your iDevice.

The gaming phenomenon known as Minecraft has finally reached consoles with Minecraft's exclusive release on XBLA.  If you do not know what Minecraft is by now, where have you been for the past year?  Mojang's open-world sandbox game has captured the hearts of millions to the point there is a whole convention dedicated to this game.  The XBLA version of Minecraft was developed by 4J Studios.  Minecraft for 360 supports Kinect and cross platform play with anybody who owns the game on the PC.  In the PC version, players have the freedom to create however huge a world that they want.  In the 360 version, they are limited 1024 x 1024 blocks, but this limit will most likely be expanded in future updates.  Also the 360 version of Minecraft is quite a few versions behind the PC version due to how easy updating a game is on the PC compared to updating a game on the 360.  Do not worry as all the features found in the current version of Minecraft for the PC will make its way to the 360 eventually.  To make up for the shortcomings, Minecraft for the 360 has a good amount of content exclusive to this version of the game such as a newly designed crafting system and control interface.  For those who skipped out on the PC version of the game to pick Minecraft up for the 360, it will cost you 1600 Microsoft Points.