Diablo III, Act 2 (Normal Difficulty)

We at Stage Zero supposed that once we unlocked more character abilities the gameplay would get interesting. And then the unlocking happened, along with something else: the new enemies were much stronger and had more abilities than their Act 1 friends. All these unlockings led to combat finally having enough depth to almost call fun. Now the clicking needs to be faster; sometimes it even needs thought behind it. Now Diablo III feels like we're playing a game and not just clicking on things until they die.

In fact, in Act 2, we died five whole times! This is a significant increase from Act 1's death rate of once. Our math powers tell us that this is something like a five times increase in game difficulty.

We also like the desert palate swap. There's something exotic about deserts, especially when comparing them to Act 1's swamps.

We also like the new, flashier boss fights. Although, to be extra fawning to the new Blizzard, all of Diablo 3's boss fights thus far have been more interesting than Diablo II's (though also much easier, for good design reasons which we'll discuss in review). The bosses' levels themselves involve some depth. Their arranged differently from each other and make it so you can't just stand around and click on the boss until you or the boss goes down; in one level, parts of the floor have a tendency to catch on fire; in another, seemingly random parts of the floor attract smashings of the gigantic boss. And unlike Diablo II, you cannot just spam the potions buttons to victory, for there are no potions buttons! There's just one potion button, and this potion button has a cool down, JUST LIKE DRINKING POTIONS WOULD BE LIKE IN REAL LIFE (minus the part where it's consumed instantly).

Act 2 makes us a bit and finally excited for what comes next. There are still so many abilities to unlock. On our side and the monster side.

Yet the game remains nothing special.