You'd think 19 minutes of a trailer would get boring, but in this case, it doesn't! Gamevideos.com provides a copy of this video, featuring a guided tour of gameplay (taken from the Blizzard site, which is understandably a bit hammered at the moment). Our initial impression? HOLY CRAP! Catch the video, and our more detailed impressions of it, after the break. I'll be right back, I have to go change shorts.
A few initial impressions about the trailer:
- The art style, though different, seems to be a natural extension of the franchise. DIII is gorgeous, to put it quite simply. Even a simple axe swing looks epic, to say nothing of the skills and abilities.
- Large numbers of enemies on screen all at once really heighten the drama. Just after the start of the video, when the Barbarian is on a bridge, surrounded by a swarm of horrors, with more crawling up every second, really got my blood pumping.
- Particle effects on the weapons are quite well done. Between this, the custom look of each armor sets, and male and female versions of each class, no two barbarians or witch doctors should ever look the same. This is a nice change from the earlier games.
- Fully destructible environments are probably the largest change. Pulling down walls on enemies and similar feats will allow for much more strategy than just "click faster".
- The creepiness of the enemies is absolutely over the top. A corpse that spawns glowing blue maggots? A demon born from the blood of slain angels? Yeah, that is sick and disgusting. We love it!
- The pop-up cinematic window is a nice touch. Gives the long dungeon sections a bit more continuity in the story. And the return of Deckard Cain! "Stay a while, and... "
- The Witch Doctor looks fantastic, a perfect crowd control class. Starting in Diablo II, all the classes really felt unique, and that trend looks to continue. Witch Doctor/Barbarian might be one of the better class combos in the game. I'd guess you can count on Necromancers being out, though, due to the similarity to the Witch Doctor.
- Did the last boss rip a barbarian in half? Yes, I think it did! Consider what fighting Diablo or Baal might be like...
Plus, co-op gameplay was mentioned! It just doesn't get much better than this, folks. If only Blizzard would give us a release date, we could know how long to wait. As it stands now, we'll be pining away every day for the release of Diablo III!