After enduring a thirty minute process to get the console set up and all of our accounts loaded and ready to go, the four of us booted up Diablo III and began to create each of our characters for what would turn out to be a blast. After arguing over who got to play which class, the campaign was started and madness ensued. "Does anyone actually care about the story? I just want to kill things and get loot!" exclaimed one of the trio of companions. With the consent of the other two, they all looked to the owner of the copy and the one who had asked them to sit down and play. "No, that's fine," was all it took and we continued to send enemies back to their graves.
But it didn't start that smoothly. It was the menu system that all of us were worried about as we began our epic loot fest. Having to pause and look through your loot and equipment every five minutes is hardly ideal, especially with a full party. After a couple minutes though, we came to accept this as negotiations over every piece of valuable content took place with almost horde defeated. Prior to that though, we discovered that you can utilize the d-pad to quickly browse through your recently obtained items. Displaying a rough comparison to the piece that was currently being worn, the game allows you to minimize the amount of time spent digging into the specifics of the loot, meaning you're more likely to spend time playing than staring at numbers.
From there, Diablo III just continues to get better and better for those who are looking to play on consoles. With improved loot drops, which Blizzard has tweaked to be rarer, but tailored to the classes that are in the game, you'll find yourself less likely to be overloaded with useless loot. Combined with the overhauled menu system, the game is easier to understand than ever. Having played it on PC, those menu's can be daunting and it's easy to get lost, especially when taking the auction house into account. That's gone by the way, meaning the only way to get your loot is to earn it, the way it should be.
While the controls now resemble that of a twin-stick shooter, they aren't quite there with the right stick controlling which way your character rolls. However, it is a much easier system, so much so that it's almost too easy. You might just find yourself wishing you were playing on a harder difficulty, just to keep you involved in more than just utilizing the same button sequence over and over. How less precision leaves you fairing on the higher difficulties remains to be seen as getting that deep takes far too long for us to discover while delivering you a timely review.
Honestly, the biggest improvement is that you no longer have to worry about Battle.Net, Authenticators, worrying about getting hacked, and all of that. Combined with couch co-op, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Diablo III are the way to go. Sorry, PC owners.
Positives
- Improved loot drops.
- Four player couch co-op
- No Battle.Net
Negatives
- Less precise control
Am Xbox 360 copy of Diablo III was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
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