I am in the mood for a Diablo-like game. What I mean by Diablo-like is:
It’s an RPG.
Not too much strategic or tactical thinking really required.
Decent, interesting story not required.
The interesting part of the game is planning for character development along various skill trees and so on.
I am aware of Titan’s Quest, and from the demo it looks like exactly what I’m in the mood for. Unfortunately my system won’t handle it very well, and I’d rather not spend a whole fifty bucks anyway.
What I’m looking for, then, is somethig you might call an “oldie but goodie” in this genre.
I already have Sacred. For some reason it’s not grabbing me. I also might give Dungeon Siege a try.
I am not really interested in multiplayer.
(I also have Morrowind and love it but it’s not what I want to play right now. Too much reading. I want mindnumbing pointy-clickiness.)
Other than the games I’ve named, then, does anyone know of any other decent games of this sort? Esp. maybe ones that are a little older so they aren’t too expensive? Or alternatively, have I exhausted the list given my rather severe constraints?
Um, diablo 2? I haven’t played the original, but Fallout 2 was great, not too much to worry about in battle as opposed to something like Baldur’s Gate (which is excellent btw and Baldur’s Gate 2 is better). It’s not fast paced like diablo with all the hack and slash and whatnot.
I’m not a fan of the Diablo style games, so I can’t recommend any, but I can recommend ones to avoid if you don’t want something text-heavy: Baldur’s Gate 2 (and probably the first one as well, but I haven’t played it), the KotOR games, Planescape Torment. I’m not sure about the Fallout games.
You might like Neverwinter Nights, because you can skip the story and you probably wouldn’t miss out on much.
Neverwinter Nights is nice, and has a couple of expansions to keep you interested. Available for a fairly low price (I think it’s $30 at Target for all the expansions) and fun single-player RPG goodness. Try to get one of the NPCs to fall in love with you - I had the spymaster eating out of my hand before I moved on to MMORPGs like EQ and WoW.
Fallout is pretty text heavy. You might like Fallout Tactics, which is a squad-level tactical simulator with RPG elements. Although if that sounds interesting to you, Jagged Alliance or Jagged Alliance 2 would be a better bet, as they are superior examples of the same genre.
Oblivion, the sequel to Morrowind, is also very good, although you’ll need a real beast of a PC to run it. It’s not nearly as text heavy as its predecessor.
If you’re looking for Diablo-style gaming, I suspect the Fallout games or NWN would be a little borderline; they’re more classic RPGs rather than clickfest action-RPGs. I’ll second the recommendation for Dungeon Siege. You might also want to consider Fable, and if you want to go for an older game you could consider Nox. You miiiight want to look into Divine Divinity too (I haven’t played the sequel, “Beyond Divinity”, so I can’t comment on it).
There’s a fantastic Diablo-like game out there called Fate. It’s produced by a small developer called WildTangent, and is only available for download on-line. It is very cheap for what it is – lovely graphics, diverse options for character growth (and thus different ways to play), a skillion magic items to equip… Basically, it’s like Diablo, but less “gritty.” I believe you can download a free trial from their website.
I played it for quite a while, and thought it was as good or better than Titan at half the price.
Second the recommendation - DS is the most pure successor to Diablo I’ve run across. The one note of caution I would sound is that I found the magic system to be badly balanced, in that there’s a ten level region where your mage will be kicking rumps and taking names and your fighters feel utterly superfluous. Unfortunately, this region ends about halfway through the game: thereafter, the only reason I bothered getting a mage out was for healing. If you don’t mind playing a fighter or an archer, all shall be well - if you like mages, you might want to think again abotu the first DS. I never played the sequel.
I’m not a genius of gameplay or anything, so it’s possible I just chose my skills badly, but I found the above to be true in two single-player campaigns and a multi-player campaign.
Icewind Dale II is pretty much point->click->kill with a smattering of story thrown in for good measure. It’s old enough that any machine should run it.
I’m drawing a total blank on the name of a game that came out as a filler between Diablo and Diablo II… ah. Darkstone. It’s an oldie-but-not-baddie, and I stopped playing it immediately when Diablo II came out, so YMMV.
I don’t know if D&D Online is enough like what you’re looking for. It also gets kind of harsh on single-player.
Dungeon Siege doesn’t just not require a lot of thinking… it’s likely to draw the IQ level of anybody playing it to the level of a cockroach’s eggs. All you do is hit stuff, hit stuff, hit more stuff and then you go and hit stuff. Oh, and sometimes you sell stuff. That’s about it.
Oh, that’s overstating the level of interaction a bit. Mostly you just click on bits of the map where your characters haven’t stood yet. They go over there and do stuff for you. Then you find somewhere else to click.
I once had a friend complain that he’d wandered off to use the bathroom without pausing the game and his characters had completed the level for him.
