Graphics
Diablo III has been criticised apparently for having cartoon-ish graphics. Not sure we can see where that comes from. Diablo III is a great looking game with all the bells and whistles that you’d expect from an AAA title. Its level of graphical fidelity in-game is solid and there’s great lighting and special effects with no frame drops when the game throws masses of enemies at you and there are spells flying everywhere from you and your other three buddies.

Animations
Diablo III has some great animations, especially when monsters die and are blown to bits by the most destructive spells. The combat animations, the interactions and so on are all top notch in the game and there’s nary a frame that misses a single beat.

Physics
The game’s physics have a direct effect on breakables, with boxes and so on being blasted apart, heavier traps and environmental hazards can be used to take down groups of foes cutting the battle in half before it’s begun as long as you take your time to look for those physics based interactions. Usually highlighted in red. Big monsters can knock your character around like a pinball and they can be blasted around by some of the larger special effects from certain bad guys.

AI
The AI is pretty solid, it does what you’d expect on the tin with each monster type reacting based on certain criteria.

Music
Russell Brower has done a fantastic job with the soundtrack to the game and it is at once superbly atmospheric in places, mixes discordant demonic overtones with epic tracks that could well be at home in a high budget Hollywood movie. In short it’s one of the best fantasy game soundtracks since both Witcher games.

Sound
There are no problems with the sound in Diablo III. The game has a great audio set with a ton of excellent sound effects and some great combat sounds. The sound has never dropped out, popped or repeated either.

Writing
Diablo III is well written, kind of generic in places but it’s everything that we come to know/love and expect from the genre.

Dialogue
The voice work from the likes of Jennifer Hale and co is spot on, there’s a lot of time and effort gone into the acting and it shows.

Multiplayer Co-op
You and three other mighty heroes can play on the same quest and the game handles it perfectly, you play online and there are systems in place for fair loot sharing, since each player gets their own loot drops. The game is surprisingly stable and now most of the launch issues with servers seem to be out of the way it’s possible to jump in at most times. It would have been nice to have an offline mode though so that if you can’t get on a server, you could still pay the game you bought.

Diablo Triumphant
Even though it’s had some launch issues and things didn’t quite go as planned, the Euro servers have been pretty stable and we have had no issues getting a solid game experience from Diablo III at all, so we’re not taking into account the server issues that plagued everyone else, Games Xtreme won’t be marking the game down for that. Diablo III is a streamlined tactical experience that any fan should give a blast...with promised expansions on the way and the random generation of loot, dungeons and so on, the game offers tons of replay value.