You knew this day would come. You've seen all of the spells of the various character classes in action, your favorite character has achieved level 99, can summon a small army of minions, and whips Diablo in seconds at 'Hell' difficulty. You are skipping the video clips between the acts, and also most of the NPC narratives because you know them by heart now anyway, and you finally noticed the good-bye letter your girlfriend left you on the breakfast table months ago. In other words, the hitherto unimaginable has come to pass: Diablo II has finally started to feel a wee bit stale (There. I said it--and immediately feel like an ingrate).
Fortunately, the good folks at Blizzard have been laboring for this day with great foresight, and the insanity can begin all over. Just pick up a copy of 'Lord of Destruction.' You may think that the price tag is a tad steep for an add-on, and even though the new chapter features stunning new locales, interesting and fresh NPCs, and challenging new monsters, you would be right, if it weren't for the fact that LOD is also an add-in. Once you install it the entire original game is updated with new features (you'll probably want to read about the details elsewhere, like on the Blizzard site, but let me just quickly mention more gems, more unique items, new item classes, some of which are class-specific, jewels and runes you can insert into socketed items for special powers, and on the whole more sockets in a lot of items), all of which are interesting enough to go back and explore the original acts once more with one of your old characters. A particularly nice touch is that you now have the option of running the entire game in 600x800 resolution--provided your machine is reasonably powerful--which not only makes the game look substantially prettier, but allows you to see more of the battlefield at once, which can be a tactical advantage for ranged attacks.
You also get two entirely new characters, the Assassin (a martial arts specialist somewhere between Jet Li and Darth Maul) and the Druid (think Grizzly Adams with unique summoning skills and way cool shape-shifting abilities--he morphs into a werewolf or werebear with special bonuses in each form). Only characters that have already defeated Diablo at least once in the original acts can access Act V (go back to the Pandemonium Fortress and speak to Tyrael once more), so you will have to start from the very beginning with your Druid or Assassin, but their skill sets are a lot of fun and you really want to develop them, so it feels like a whole fresh game.
So, considering all the cool stuff that LOD delivers in addition to just one more act to tack on the original game, it's well worth the price. Just don't get another hamster, job, or love interest before you're done playing this expansion set.
You knew this day would come. You've seen all of the spells of the various character classes in action, your favorite character has achieved level 99, can summon a small army of minions, and whips Diablo in seconds at 'Hell' difficulty. You are skipping the video clips between the acts, and also most of the NPC narratives because you know them by heart now anyway, and you finally noticed the good-bye letter your girlfriend left you on the breakfast table months ago. In other words, the hitherto unimaginable has come to pass: Diablo II has finally started to feel a wee bit stale (There. I said it--and immediately feel like an ingrate). Fortunately, the good folks at Blizzard have been laboring for this day with great foresight, and the insanity can begin all over. Just pick up a copy of 'Lord of Destruction. ' You may think that the price tag is a tad steep for an add-on, and even though the new chapter features stunning new locales, interesting and fresh NPCs, and challenging new monsters, you would be right, if it weren't for the fact that LOD is also an add-in. Once you install it the entire original game is updated with new features (you'll probably want to read about the details elsewhere, like on the Blizzard site, but let me just quickly mention more gems, more unique items, new item classes, some of which are class-specific, jewels and runes you can insert into socketed items for special powers, and on the whole more sockets in a lot of items), all of which are interesting enough to go back and explore the original acts once more with one of your old characters. A particularly nice touch is that you now have the option of running the entire game in 600x800 resolution--provided your machine is reasonably powerful--which not only makes the game look substantially prettier, but allows you to see more of the battlefield at once, which can be a tactical advantage for ranged attacks. You also get two entirely new characters, the Assassin (a martial arts specialist somewhere between Jet Li and Darth Maul) and the Druid (think Grizzly Adams with unique summoning skills and way cool shape-shifting abilities--he morphs into a werewolf or werebear with special bonuses in each form). Only characters that have already defeated Diablo at least once in the original acts can access Act V (go back to the Pandemonium Fortress and speak to Tyrael once more), so you will have to start from the very beginning with your Druid or Assassin, but their skill sets are a lot of fun and you really want to develop them, so it feels like a whole fresh game. So, considering all the cool stuff that LOD delivers in addition to just one more act to tack on the original game, it's well worth the price. Just don't get another hamster, job, or love interest before you're done playing this expansion set.