Kor'kron 501st

Over the weekend, I played local co-op Diablo III with my roommates on PS3, finishing the first act. I went into it expecting that it would be fun but inferior to the PC version. I was wrong. This is the better version.

Of course, the number one aspect is that it allows local co-op. It was a ton of fun to play with my roommates together like that. Each player gets a different colored circular indicator at the bottom of their hero so they can easily identify themselves. Sure, there were times at which I was looking at the wrong character, but it wasn’t a huge problem. If one player isn’t moving and the others run to the right, the one who wasn’t moving will run along with them. If that character gets trapped, it’ll teleport to the party. This is just fantastic. It was easy to eat and have a good time and not worry about stopping the group. If you’re actively in control of your character, it won’t happen. It works flawlessly.

There are a few other changes that I really liked. Not only did they remove the auction house, but they increased drops to compensate. It’s much better. I want to look for loot on the bodies of my enemies, not an auction house. The inventory system was also changed. Instead of having a grid and requiring inventory-Tetris, the inventory now has 60 slots, and each item takes one slot. You can carry much more, and you don’t have to worry about the size or shape. In addition, it shows if an item is an upgrade or downgrade in a few key stats when you select it. You’ll easily see whether or not the new weapon does more damage for example. Of course, you can view the full stats too and make your decision.

The only downside is that you now have to aim with a stick rather than target with a mouse. It’s not a deal breaker, but you do lose some accuracy. Blizzard did a surprisingly excellent job porting D3 to consoles. Console gamers are into a treat, and even if you have the PC version, if you like local co-op, you’ll love this.