Editorials
‘Diablo III’ Review: Demons, Dungeons And Daddy Issues
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It took over a decade to get here, but the undisputed king of the dungeon crawlers is back, and oh my fuck does it taste good. Being a fan of this game is like being in an abusive relationship. You’ll invest your time, heart, and soul into this game–possibly ruining your social life in the process–and in return you’ll get one of the best gaming experiences available, peppered with the occasional Error 37 and a mean case of carpel tunnel. Head past the break for my tale of delicious terror.
Odds are many of you never played the original Diablo or its sequel, since both released back in that glorious time when the Power Rangers weren’t ninja samurai dinosaur hunters, and long before Michael Bay and George Lucas had proceeded to rape our childhood. Diablo is all about kicking demonic ass with your friends, all with the hopes that when that ugly bastard finally falls he’ll drop something valuable.
In the decade after its release, I’ve returned to Diablo II at least once a year. I’ll go a year or so without playing it, then I’ll go at it hardcore for a few months, then take a break until the shakes and sweats remind me I need to get my Diablo fix.
It’s still too early to tell if Diablo III will have the same staying power its predecessor did, but it certainly seems as if it will. The highly addictive gameplay, loot-grinding and incredible co-op are all better than ever. On top of that, everything has been streamlined to make it more user-friendly and easier to play for hours on end.
Diablo III is a stunningly beautiful game. Its beautifully crafted environments and the twisted creatures that inhabit them are gorgeous. The hand-painted textures are easy on the eyes, and thankfully, you don’t need a top of the line computer to fully enjoy them.
If incredible art doesn’t tickle your delicate eyeballs the same way it does mine, then perhaps the music will. The sound a demon makes as you plunge your sword into its neck is satisfyingly squishy, almost as satisfying as the sound they make when you electrify, burn, freeze, or poison their scaly asses. One of the great things about the series, other than the plethora of ways you can beat down the hordes of monsters that are thrown at you, is how different each of the character classes are from each other. You have two familiar faces: the Barbarian, the tank, who can mow down pretty much everything that’s unfortunate enough to get in his way, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, the Wizard, a glass cannon who wields devastating power but limited defense.
In Diablo II there’s a good chance you’d find me in the shoes of the Necromancer, casting Curses from behind my army of skeletons, or zipping through the battlefield at lightning speed as the Assassin. Both have been replaced by spiritual successors of sorts, with the Witch Doctor and the Demon Hunter. The former can summon a smaller army of Voodoo inspired creatures and the latter is like a mix of the Assassin and the Amazon from Diablo II. She wields traps and can dual-wield crossbows. The final class is the Monk, who replaces the Paladin and offers a lighter side to an otherwise dark cast of characters.
This series has never excelled in the story department. Essentially, what you need to know is there are demons and there are angels. They’re fighting, and unfortunately, humanity is stuck in the middle. The standout character is Leah–voiced by the incredible Jennifer Hale, who also voices the female Shepard in Mass Effect 3– a woman who’s left with the burden of figuring out this whole prophecy thing before time runs out and humanity is eradicated by the seemingly endless legions of hell.
The skill system has seen the biggest changes, as you no longer have to grind through enemies so you can level up your character to try out their skills. It doesn’t take countless hours to craft the perfect warrior–now you can quickly choose your skills and bonuses and change them on the fly. The Runes have been changed to alter skills, rather than equipment. They are unlocked every couple levels, and each skill has a unique set that alters its function and even the way it looks when used. For example, the Summon Zombie Dogs skill’s original effect is to summon three dogs to fight for you. If that’s not quite awesome enough for you, you can use a Rune to make the dogs rabid, which means they spread poison between the enemies they attack, or even set them on fire. Now if flaming zombie dogs isn’t awesome enough for you, you’re officially dead inside.
Despite a rocky launch and some absent features like PvP and the real-money Auction House, there’s still plenty of content here to enjoy. Having to be online to play the game, even if you’re playing alone is unfortunate as it can result in lag in your single-player game. The campaign is meaty enough, and offers plenty of incentives to return to it a second (or third, fourth, fifth) time. The environments aren’t entirely randomly generated like they were in Diablo II–rather, their borders remain fixed while the things that go on inside them can change every time you play the game. This means you might run through an area and see nothing the first time, then your second time through there could be a short side quest you need to complete or dungeon that needs exploring. Fear not, that level of unpredictability is still here, it’s just not quite as obvious.
Many games have tried to recreate Diablo’s magic. It’s a delicate balance of finely tuned gameplay, loot, and dungeon crawling that makes this series so special. Other games have come close to crafting something very similar, like Torchlight, while games like Borderlands have taken some of the best things about the series and woven them into other genres. Despite this, Diablo III remains untouched. Its reign as the premier dungeon crawler has been a long one, and it doesn’t look to be losing its crown anytime soon.
The Final Word: The wait was long, but it was worth it. Diablo III is a stunningly beautiful game that will please longtime fans and newcomers alike.
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This review is based on a retail copy of Diablo III, which was provided by the publisher.
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Editorials
Finding Faith and Violence in ‘The Book of Eli’ 14 Years Later
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Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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