Pandemonium's Full Review: Diablo II: Lords of Destruction (Add on) for Windo...
Most expansion packs, add-ons, or mission packs in the game world usually don't add enough bang for the extra buck. For example, as I stated in my last mission pack review on Rainbow Six Urban Operations, there is just not enough difference in the game to make it a worthy purchase. This is mostly true. In Diablo II's expansion pack Lord Of Destruction, this is not true.
This add on to the original Diablo II game has better graphic options, two new characters to choice from (a druid and assassin) giving you a total of seven in the game, an entire new act (act V) to play through, more interaction with your mercenaries that you hire, thousands of new items to find during your quest, and plenty of little in game differences to make this a very worthy purchase. Also, for those who have good characters from playing Diablo II will not have to start over and lose those characters. After you load up the expansion game just simply change your character(s) into expansion character and they will lose nothing and gain everything new in the expansion game.
Graphics With the expansion you have the option to run the game at 800 x 600 instead of having to view the game at 640 x 480. This does make the graphics quite a bit better but, you must have a fast enough computer to run the higher level graphics. If your computer can't handle the speed the game will be very choppy and playing multiplayer on the Internet you will experience terrible lag. In all, the graphics of the original game were already excellent and remain this way.
Act V This new act is will give you six new quests to go on after you defeat Diablo himself. The new act takes place in the barbarian highlands with all new creatures to brawl. It will also showcase some new ways to take out these monsters like having to take over fortresses, barricades, siege towers, killing imps on the back of another creature, or having to take out catapults that are doing good damage to you from afar. This act also features a new mercenary in which you can hire. You can hire a sturdy barbarian to fight at your side if you wish. In order for you to finish the game now you will have to take out Baal himself. This task is much harder then going one-on-one with Diablo. Good luck.
Mercenaries I have to mention this in it's own category because it's my favorite change to the game. When I played the original Diablo game I wished I could equipped my hired mercenary and make them better as they go up in levels with me. Well, now you can. You can equipped a mercenary with armor, helmets, shields, and weapons depending on what class of character you hire. You can also heal your mercenary without having to go to a town to perform this. Just place a potion over their picture and drop. These mercenaries will also accompany you through each and every act no matter what difficulty level you are playing. You could, of you so wished, finish the game at every difficulty level with the original mercenary you hired in the first act. And finally, when a mercenary dies you don't have to hire a new one. You can just resurrect them in town (for a healthy price of course). This add-on to the game gives the player more options then before with the items they find is a very welcome addition!
Runes and Jewels There are more items that you can place into items with sockets. These items are found throughout the game just like the Gems are and have rarity factors to how good they are. Jewels will give the socked items different magical powers then the original gems could do. The Runes will also give different magical powers then gems but, with a chance to make a huge difference beyond their original attributes. If you place Runes into an item with sockets and make a Rune Word the item will have the original changes the Runes gave it and also huge bonuses beyond that. Rune Words are formulas that you have to just try out and see if different combinations work. Here are some Rune Words that Blizzard gives you, http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords.shtml
Multiplayer The multiplayer version of this game is the same as it was in the original Diablo II game, the best. All of the new features in the expansion set is featured in multiplayer. The only notable thing that needs to be mentioned is, players that have the expansion set will only be able to play with other players that have the expansion set online. This is the same with the original Diablo II game online. If you know someone that you play with online with the original version you both must get the expansion set in order to play again with each other. The same rule applies to multiplayer as stated before about your characters that you have played with in the original game. You can convert any character to an expansion character. You just can't convert them back. The game is easy to get into online and runs very smoothly. You will find yourself never playing the game without easily logging into battle.net first. This is still the best game out there to play online in my Epinion!
Other notable changes Besides the two new characters, a brand new act V, and being able to interact with your mercenary there are some other changes worth mentioning. You will be able to alternate between two new sets of weapon/shield configurations with a simple hot key. This is great when fighting a boss and you have a weapon and shield with resistance's to their magic. Just switch over till you defeat him then switch back. You can have more items in your personal stash box. Again, thousands of new items you will be able to find. In the expansion when you die you will lose something just exiting the game and picking up your corpse in town. You will lose gold and experience points for doing this. It's worth traveling back and picking up your things where they dropped. New Haradic Cube recipes that can create new and better items, and also, new boss type creatures that will show up no matter what act you are in or what difficulty level you are playing.
The new characters The druid is the first of the two to explained here. This class of character is much like the Necromancer at first glance of his spells but has notable differences. He summons the force of nature much like the Necromancer summons the forces of the dead. He is however much stronger and uses melee attacks more than distant spells. His three skill categories include Elemental, shape shifting, and summoning skills. These abilities of casting long range spells and doing great damage with melee attacks makes him one of the most versatile characters in the game.
His Elemental skills cast fire and wind spells from a distance. These spells can be quite deadly at higher levels. His shape shifting skills are (in my opinion) the most fun of the game. You can change your flesh into a werewolf or a were bear. Both of these were creatures have their own unique and different benefits Changing into a werewolf allows you to be much more limber, faster, and more accurate while changing into a were bear makes you much more brawn doing a great deal more damage and having much better defense ratings. If you play as the druid make your decision early about which creature you want to change into during the course of the game. You don't want half your points in points creatures. Go all out in one or the other. Finally, you have the summoning skills allowing you to call on nature to help you throughout the game. Being able to call upon ravens, vines, wolves, and even a grizzly bear to religiously follow you. Having these three options makes the druid my personal favorite choice to play with in Diablo II along with the Paladin.
The new assassin character is just what the name means. Using stealth, martial arts, and traps to go about their business in the game. It will depend how a person wants to build up their assassin whether or not their assassin will use melee attacks or stealth and traps. Her three skills include martial arts, shadow disciplines, and traps.
The martial arts skills will greatly increase this characters melee abilities at close combat. Developing the right skills you will be able to actually kick your enemies like a Mortal Combat game. This being the only character able to do this. Developing the shadow disciplines will improve your defense but not just by giving you a better defense rating. As the amazon also is greatly able to use up her defense by using her agility so is the assassin by using her mind. One of the coolest abilities in the game is, the assassin's ability to clone herself. Their are also some other melee attack skills here that will help you with your weapon attacks. The third ability is the Trap ability. Developing these abilities will allow an assassin to set up traps around the playing field doing damage to your enemies as the assassin lays back or goes in for the kill. These abilities in more difficult levels will not have a huge affect on the enemies unless you place a lot of skill points in the varies traps. The assassin is not my personal choice but, she does have some fun abilities.
*Update: September 2009* If you still have never tried this game, there are still thousands of people playing online. For a game this old, that is amazing to me! Just letting you know incase you are interesting in trying this out.
Cow Level For those of you that have the new expansion and are reading about this you may not know about the cow level. To get this secret level just, pick up Wirt's leg in act one, place it in the Horadic Cube along with a town portal tomb, then transmute them. Do this in the Rogue Encampment and a new portal will appear. That is the cow level. But, you can only do this once per difficulty level and only after you have defeated Baal (in act V) in that difficulty level.
I highly recommend this expansion to the original good Diablo II game.
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