Since the beginning of the trilogy, BioWare has delivered a fantastic story that is driven by player choices. Mass Effect 3 promises a story that can be enjoyed by both longtime and newcomers alike.

The plot focuses on the galaxy’s resistance to the Repears’ arrival. It begins with Shepard leaving Earth while it is being attacked to gain allies and to build the Crucible, which is supposed to be an effective weapon against the threat. Along the way, the story provides resolutions to long-standing conflicts within the universe, such as the genophage. The beauty of the story is that the details of these resolutions are dependent on player choices. The resolutions can vary wildly.

The writers have incorporated elements from other sci-fi epics such as “War of the Worlds,” “Stargate” and “Battlestar Galactica” to create engaging story.

It also helps when you have a talented composer, Clint Mansell, to elevate the already emotional scenes to downright beautiful. Unfortunately the ending of the game is lackluster at best and idiotic at the worst.

I wish I could say that the ending does not take away from the overall story, but we get an unsatisfying ending that leaves us with more questions than answers.

At the end of the day, Mass Effect 3 might not have a good ending, but is an amazing journey. It is an excellent game that has a well-written story.

Just brace yourselves for the ending that will leave you speechless. 

 

The action option has no dialogue options, but harder combat, and the role-playing option provides the same control over play as previous installments. The problem with the system is that action option gives you no control over the story, while the story option gives you combat that is not challenging in any way.

The role-playing option gives you full dialogue options and allows you to change combat difficulty, rendering the last two options useless.

diablo 3 also has a multiplayer aspect. Unfortunately the multiplayer is a tacked on horde mode, with an annoying card system to unlock new weapons and characters.

Though it is incorporated with single player in a novel way, the actual multiplayer gets old after just a few hours of playtime.

The story has always been one of the most important aspects for the franchise.

Since the beginning of the trilogy, BioWare has delivered a fantastic story that is driven by player choices. Mass Effect 3 promises a story that can be enjoyed by both longtime and newcomers alike.

The plot focuses on the galaxy’s resistance to the Repears’ arrival. It begins with Shepard leaving Earth while it is being attacked to gain allies and to build the Crucible, which is supposed to be an effective weapon against the threat. Along the way, the story provides resolutions to long-standing conflicts within the universe, such as the genophage. The beauty of the story is that the details of these resolutions are dependent on player choices. The resolutions can vary wildly. 

 

With the finish line of our long wait at last in sight, the Diablo 3 community forums have been both buzzing and hopping; behaviors annoying in insects and over-caffeinated younger siblings, but quite admirable in game discussion forums.

I was remiss in mentioning it last week, but DiabloIIIChris won our long-running, semi-official, Guess the Diablo III release date forum thread. I’m not going to count up all the entries, but there were hundreds — the exactly-accurate winning prediction was made in post #722. The winner said he chose the exact middle of Q2 once that was the target window, and he was more magnanimous than most of us would have been in his Nostradamian shoes, refusing any offered prizes, including D3 beta access. Congrats to him, and thanks also to Mad Mantis for making regular updates to the predictions list in that thread for the past three and a half years.

Hardrock has created a very useful thread that compiles all of the SuperUnique elite bosses found in the Diablo 3 beta, and even includes screenshots of every one. These are the special, purple-named boss types, with special abilities and flavor texts. (Regular bosses have yellow names and random boss modifiers, as do the blue-named champions.) So how

many special Elites are there? More than you think; in addition to the 8 quest bosses you get every game, there are 3 others that spawn if their semi-random quests turn up, and

19 more than appear randomly (some very rarely), throughout the dungeons. That’s 30 in just the first 1/3 to 1/2 of Act One! Imagine how many we’ll see in the full game? 

 

When speaking with CVG, Blizzard COO Paul Sams shed some more light on the possibility of a console release, indicating that they are very interested in a console project. However, Blizzard will not go ahead with a console port Diablo 3 if the project doesn’t meet their strict standards for quality. At the end of the day, Blizzard’s primary focus is gameplay and a quality gaming experience, not profits.

“We get a lot of questions about why we haven’t made a game for consoles before and I tell them the same thing I tell them about business models: we don’t let business models or platforms drive our decisions. Those are secondary to what’s the most important aspect for us which is the gameplay.”

Sams also mentioned that there are a bunch of hoops to jump through when bringing a game to home consoles. Some of these hurdles require the company to pay significant sums of money, and make them stop and consider if bringing the game to PS3 and Xbox 360 will be worth it. Surely Blizzard can pay these fines with no problems, but if the game isn’t a “Blizzard-quality product,” then paying that money will be a waste.

It’s this dedication to quality that makes Blizzard one of the best game companies in the world, for fans who have the patience to wait for their products. The company is willing to go to great lengths to bring a spectacular game to the masses, by any means necessary. They even went as far as to remove the PvP component of Diablo 3 because it didn’t live up to their standards. Even with the removal of PvP, Diablo 3 is in great shape, and is on track for its May release.
 

 

  

 

Blizzard COO Paul Sams sheds some more light on the possibility of a ‘Diablo 3′ console port, stating that the port will not happen if it isn’t a Blizzard-quality product.

In just a few months PC and Mac users will finally be able to get their hands on Diablo 3, leaving interested console players wondering when they’ll be able to get in on the action. One Blizzard executive has confirmed that if (because they’re still pretending it’s not a sure thing) Diablo does come to consoles it will be just as awesome as any PC experience.
Earlier this year, news that Diablo 3 was coming to consoles was prematurely leaked by the company’s Community Manager, Micha Whiple. Blizzard then issued a response saying that this was not official confirmation and they have not made any final plans to bring the game to consoles, even though director Jay Wilson mentioned a few months prior that Blizzard would build such a game from the ground-up and not simply port it, while also explaining that Diablo 3 plays better on an Xbox 360 controller.

When speaking with CVG, Blizzard COO Paul Sams shed some more light on the possibility of a console release, indicating that they are very interested in a console project. However, Blizzard will not go ahead with a console port Diablo 3 if the project doesn’t meet their strict standards for quality. At the end of the day, Blizzard’s primary focus is gameplay and a quality gaming experience, not profits.

  

 

Fans of the game aren’t used to maneuvering with a controller, and this could prove to be a difficult adjustment. The PC controls work on a click-to-move type basis, and “No way am I going to bother with a console version,” one fan wrote in a “Diablo 3” message board on BattleForums. “There is no need. Plus the mouse/keyboard is way too intuitive to give it up. Controllers are pretty poorly designed, and I saw that for all the modern ones.”

2. Tweaks and changes. “Diablo” is a series that was tailored to fit the PC prototype. This means that the new game would have to be redone and tweaked in certain aspects. One of the most obvious changes would be the controls, but in order to fit with consoles “Diablo” could find itself competing with other major players, such as “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” and “Mass Effect.” This is a factor that wasn’t a priority to Blizzard before.

3. What about Battle.net? One of the landmark features Blizzard gaming has to offer is the convenient connection between players. Battle.net allows gamers to unite in multiplayer missions and socialize, and has become a staple of titles such as “Diablo,” “World of Warcraft” and “StarCraft.” So how would that work with consoles? Will fans be content with switching to Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network for their “Diablo” multiplayer needs?

  

 
Time to get your muse inspirin’! Blizzard Entertainment launched another Global Writing Contest following last year’s, which produced one grand prize winner and seven runners-up. For those aspiring authors, screenwriters, and literary gamers this is not to be taken lightly.
Whether you’re an accomplished writer or you simply fancy writing as a hobby, we encourage one and all to submit their creative works to our judges of official Blizzard writers and masters of lore. Their eyeballs are glistening and ready, their ocular fortitude intensified by the 2009 Blizzard Global Writing Contest.

Do you dare test our judges’ optic mettle, laying your ideas and dreams beneath their unblinking gaze? If so, submit a 2,500- to 7,500-word short story written in English and set in the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universe by August 23, 2010, and earn your chance to visit the Blizzard headquarters and meet the writers and staff behind the lore of Blizzard’s games and books.
The grand prize winner will, this year, win a trip to visit Blizzard Entertainment headquarters to meet and dine with the developers. He or she will also receive their choice of a Frostmourne replica or the Diablo III “Overthrown” Barbarian statue. The latter is a limited edition collectible that is currently sold out.

Seven runners-up will get personally signed copies of the Diablo Archive, the Warcraft Archive, the StarCraft Archive, and the Warcraft: War of the Ancients Archive novel collections.

Branded as a “global” competition, contestants must originate from one of 24 countries around the world. There are some exceptions in states and provinces, so do check the contest rules to be certain.

The Contest FAQ also makes an important point about submission media. 

So the design evolved, to the point where Azmodan was designed so he would attack by bending over backwards and slice at players with a crab claw. “This was really cool, but it was a little too abstract. It was pushing things a little too far,” said Lichtner. But what the team did like was the idea of Azmodan’s crab-like lower half and the crown-like protrusions around his head.
The early concepts showed off the shell-like armor that would eventually influence the final design, but Blizzard wasn’t satisfied just yet. “It just really wasn’t as impressive or as imposing as we were hoping for,” said Blizzard’s Christian Lichtner.
Because Blizzard knew they would have a close-up of Azmodan in the Black Soulstone cinematic, the team worked to create a unique facial structure for the demon. “We needed to have an interesting facial silhouette. I’m not talking about the outside of the face, necessarily, but the interior,” said Lichtner. “The placement of the eyes and mouth. We wanted to push it outside the norm a little bit more.” The main issue with this version of Azmodan was that his skirt, which though detailed, obscured the demon’s legs.

 

For Azmodan, the Lord of Sin you see in Diablo III’s Black Soulstone cinematic, Blizzard wanted to convey a sense vanity, which would eventually take the form of jewelry and ornate armor.
The early concepts showed off the shell-like armor that would eventually influence the final design, but Blizzard wasn’t satisfied just yet. “It just really wasn’t as impressive or as imposing as we were hoping for,” said Blizzard’s Christian Lichtner.
So the design evolved, to the point where Azmodan was designed so he would attack by bending over backwards and slice at players with a crab claw. “This was really cool, but it was a little too abstract. It was pushing things a little too far,” said Lichtner. But what the team did like was the idea of Azmodan’s crab-like lower half and the crown-like protrusions around his head.
Because Blizzard knew they would have a close-up of Azmodan in the Black Soulstone cinematic, the team worked to create a unique facial structure for the demon. “We needed to have an interesting facial silhouette. I’m not talking about the outside of the face, necessarily, but the interior,” said Lichtner. “The placement of the eyes and mouth. We wanted to push it outside the norm a little bit more.” The main issue with this version of Azmodan was that his skirt, which though detailed, obscured the demon’s legs.

 

We already know that Diablo 3 is set to launch on May 15th – just about a month and a half away – without player-versus-player, but what we thought would be added in a relatively short amount of time, may actually take much longer.

“PvP Arenas will only be a few months after release,” Blizzard revealed in their latest fan Q&A.  “In that time people will be trying out classes and perfecting their gear and builds.”

“When they do arrive they’ll be an awesome addition to the game, and players will be ready to face off in some awesome PvP action in a designed and crafted experience.”

Rather than delay the game’s launch, Blizzard decided to hold the PvP component itself back for further fine-tuning after it wasn’t “meeting the company’s expectations”.

Blizzard also confirmed that there will be no other way to participate in PvP in Diablo 3 while they work on the PvP Arena systems.

“There are many reasons why we’re focusing PvP into the arenas and not bringing back hostility,” they said without providing clarification.