A hidden gem from the time when Diablo 2 came out, this game was unjustly overlooked in favor of its AAA cousin. While, at its core, it is a typical hack&slash RPG, there are enough ideas of its own to put it above the crowd. First, and the most important - there are no procedurally generated levels. While this does limit replayability, it allows for more focused and clear single player campaign. The game is not a one-shot thing, though. Each of the three classes has a distinct story, with different places to visit at start and endgame, so it's worth to do a play-through for each class. Speaking of the classes, they are well defined and play very differently from each other. The warrior is an in-your-face melee fighter, while the mage (as expected) is staying outside the fray, using his spells to a devastating effect, and the Conjurer uses traps and summons in order to fight his enemies. This clear distinction comes at a heavy price, however, and this is my main gripe with the game. Class levels are pretty much locked (you usually level up at predefined locations in the story), and on leveling up you only get to select which new skill/spell to learn. There are no skill trees - by the end you will unlock all skills for your class. This means that there is no reason at all to replay the game with the same class again. Good things can be said about the engine - it looks beautiful for a 2000-ish hack&slash game, and there are nice physics (try dumping over a table, for instance). All in all, a highly recommended game for both fans of Diablo and not-too-story-heavy RPGs.
