Diablo is extremely gothic macabre in atmosphere. The music theme of the town of Tristram is remarkably evocative of the dreadful and unwholesome with its acoustic guitar chords and arpeggios accompanied by a wailing wind's whistle. It's a favorite of mine. This sort of grim and spectral ambiance has always fascinated me, from Castlevania to the Book of Revelation, Dante's Inferno and the covers of Opeth albums and the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Like Anne Rice's Vampire Lestat, I can sink my teeth into this milieu.
It's the dire and woeful without the gore and gratuitousness to completely crush the subtlety that defines the mood. Diablo has plenty of gore, but then, it is an action hack-and-slash full of the rotten, undead, and demonic; in any case, the tone is never compromised by gameplay conventions.
I've fought my Warrior through the cathedral, catacombs, and caves into Hell itself, now at subterranean floor 13. It has ocurred to me that the game is meant to be played through multiple times, new game+ style, retaining character experience and items from one difficulty level through to the next. I've only reached character level 20 or so, and still don't have any gear I'd say even verges on being 'epic.' We'll see what I come across in the final strata of dungeon.
I also haven't decided yet whether I'll continue on after killing Diablo, try another class, or just move on to Diablo II. Hmmm.
11 comments:
Damn! Epic opening paragraph. I wonder if my vocabulary will be so expanded if I ever head back stateside. It's current condition borders on non-resuscitatable.
Boss fight agains Metal Gear Ray was wicked!
www.thesaurus.com, for those times when you run out of synonyms.
Fuck yes. And isn't Raiden about a trillion times more badass than in MGS2?
Yeah, he's much more bad ass. I actually want to play another MG game with his backstory between 2 and 4. Maybe a portable version?
And I'm thinking of picking up Fable from the Xbox Originals library. Wanna dip my toe in the water before it hits.
I played through the Too Human demo again. I think it could be quite good once you get used to the irregular combat.
FYI Fable on the originals section doesn't have the stuff that was in the re-release, which is supposedly pretty substantial. Plus, the re-release I've seen practically everywhere for only $10.
If you want I can try to find you a copy here, shouldn't be too hard.
Yeah, I was resigned to playing the non-souped-up version. But yeah, man, if you can score me a copy that would be awesome! Anything you want from this end?
The smell of dirty laundry surrounds me....
But this is a common problem for a lot of guys that live by themselves. Anyway, I saw the new Batman movie this past weekend and it rocks. Definitely go see this one.
Nice to hear I've got some cool boss battles to look forward to in the MGS series. Now if only I can beat the last boss in Gears of War!
General RAAM? yeah, he's a bitch.
Are you playing on hardcore? If not, hit me up on XBLA sometime and we'll do a co-op run.
Hey Nas,
Beat MGS! Killer ending! Going to dive into portable ops as soon as my new PSP arrives (GoW version!)
MGS forever!
One thing
#######SPOILER########
What was with Raiden's ability to use lightning? And why did it go away all of a sudden?
Of course I am playing on casual and I still can't beat him after like 20 attempts. I suck...
Well, I guess all I had to do was complain in a public forum. I finally beat Gears on my first attempt tonight!
Don't worry Greg, I couldn't beat RAAM solo at all. After probably 50 tries I got a friend to hop in and we killed him on the first try. On that note, I was never crazy about Gears, either single or multiplayer. Sold my copy a while back.
Yeah, Nec, the ending of MGS4 is pretty epic. No idea what was up with Raiden and his powers. No doubt it's related to nanomachines somehow. I'm looking forward to your impressions of Portable Ops. It's a very different MGS game in some ways, even though it plays similarly in a lot of ways. Good game, but whoever designed the PSP w/o a second analog should be drawn and quartered.
I'll find you a copy of Fable around here, so email me your address. The only thing I can think of that I want is a of volume of Mugen no Juunin (Blade of the Immortal). I'm missing numbers 2 and 3 (and a bunch more, but I want to fill in the earlier gaps if possible). I'm guessing the manga shops around Tokyo ought to have the series.
I'm down to floor 15 in Diablo, getting to the end. I also finally popped Mega Man Powered Up into my PSP, and I actually don't care for it much at all. They've added crappy voices and made it all kiddy-fied. Mega Man is mute, dammit! And his name is Rock, ffs, not 'Mega,' wtf, Capcom, wtf.
It's also hard as balls, but that's nothing new for old-school MM! I'll trade or sell it and pick up Maverick Hunter X sometime to see if it's got at least 'young adult' level stylings. That game is like Fable around here, going for a song.
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