The Sandbox

In 1996, Blizzard Entertainment came out with the Action RPG(Role Playing Game) classic Diablo. Diablo was not the first of its kind but no real-time RPG before had such a galvanizing effect on the gaming community. Indeed, Diablo featured one of the most addictive reward rhythms in the history of digitized gaming to that point.

Since Diablo, many pretenders have sprung up with varying degrees of success. To name just a few: Nox, Darkstone, Champions of Norrath, Kingdom Hearts, Divine Divinity, Dungeon Seige, Sacred, Titan Quest and Silverfall. Of course, Diablo 2 arrived in 2000 and is still considered by many to be the gold standard for the action rpg genre.

Those of us who loved the Diablo games have a great appreciation for their use of sound in combat. The thunk of an arrow hitting an enemy. The meaty slashing and slushing of swords through a swath of gibbering, drooling foes. The frizzle and boom of massive AOEs lobbed like grenades into the midst of unsuspecting hordes. Sound helps make carnage delicious, indeed, and forms one of the key components of smearability.

Finally grabbed Bioware's first major RPG (let's not include Bioshock here) since being swallowed by Microsoft.

If anyone has played the Knights of the Old Republic games, he/she will feel an immediate and continuous sense of deja vu. The feel is almost exactly the same, if the gameplay has significant differences.

The Good:
-- Excellent animations, especially in conversation modes; the lip sync is phenomenal
-- Strong writing and voice acting
-- Deep story elements and character interactions
-- Interesting and ultimately satisfying combat system (although difficult to get into)
-- The sense of really being a part of a larger universe
-- Fun character development
-- Good role-playing options