Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition
For those of you who’ve never dabbled, Diablo is an action RPG that revolves around slaying hordes demons such as skeletons, goat-men or zombies, and collecting the mountains of loot that pour from them upon their demise.
You’ll spend your time powering up your characters as well as trying out new spells and ability combos. You’ll always want “five more minutes...” to see what legendary weapon or piece of armour you might collect. This version of the game is based on two years of constant refinement; all the bug fixes and gameplay tweaks that have been incrementally built upon come as standard and as such, the whole package feels incredibly slick.
Playing with friends is definitely the best way to experience Diablo III but don't worry if you can’t find any fellow adventurers, you'll still have a blast. For those who do have friends ready to journey into the unknown – Diablo III deals with matchmaking and local co-op in a really smart way through the Apprentice Mode.
If one of your friends is level 30 but you’re only 15, your stats temporarily increase when you play together – this means you’ll have a good chance against the higher-level enemies you’ll be fighting. It just means that you can have fun in your own game and then team up without having to worry about Dan who's been playing it every weekend solid and levelled up an ungodly amount.
The included Reaper of Souls expansion extends the narrative to five acts and adds a great new class called the Crusader that loves to deal and soak up damage. If we were to nit-pick, the transition between Diablo III's final boss and the expansion could have been dealt with a lot more elegantly – it just feels a bit tacked on.
Once you've completed the main story you can also delve into Adventure mode which randomly generates dungeons using the same areas as in the story mode. These endless bounties allow you to power up even more through Paragon Points and provide yet more chances to collect legendary items. Nephalem Rifts throw the kitchen sink at you in terms of high-level monsters but also offer tantalising rewards.
The PlayStation 4 edition features a Last of Us themed Nephalem Rift that’s full of clickers, bloaters and stalkers. Another fantastic feature is the Nemesis system that sends forth the monsters that have defeated you into your friends’ games to terrorise them. Each time the monster defeats someone it takes the names of the person who fell – it really is an adrenaline rush to take down the high level fiend who has been dogging you and your friends.
All in all, Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition is a joy to look at and play. It's been lovingly dolled up for the new console generation, and is ready to flood your senses with 1080p loveliness. Sure, it may have some pretty hammy voice acting and a tenuous story but it’s hard to get away from the fact that this is the definitive version of Diablo III and a joy to play for newcomers and veterans alike.