A rare chance to promote DL? Yay!
I believe DL CE is a great hack and slash
SP experience as well. As an indicator, it's one of the few games I've actually finished in the last couple of years. And, I've even replayed it a bit, since I find the character development system pretty engaging.
Thanks, Mike. It's nice to know my memory has a few functioning cells left. Your review tells me that as fun as it may be in LAN play, this would keep me away from single-player:
I'll have to differ from Mike here a bit. First off, there is a spawn rate setting in the Options. However, only the lowest setting is useful as the other two, as Mike points out, spawn way too often. On Low, though, I find the spawning fine, with one exception where I'd agree with Mike: when you're trying to solve a puzzle in a dungeon. It is a bit annoying to have to fight off a clump of vermin every couple of minutes while you're trying to think through a lever pattern or time a jump sequence. It would have been much better had DW turned off re-spawning in Dungeons all together. Having said that, you don't find yourself in this situation a ton.
I also disagree on the AI. I've found it to be quite good, and some of the best in this kind of game out there. I've had slimes I was sniping from above retreat out of range, I've had goblins path-find around a fairly complex maze to get me rather than just stand dumbly on the other side of an obstacle, and rats swarm me with a mob intelligence that's kind of scary, to be honest. Your oponents also often use their skills and spells quite well, making for some pretty good challenges.
The melee fighting, due to it's highly interactive nature, is very demanding. If you just charge in clicking madly, you'll often find yourself in trouble fast (if you're playing on Hard difficutly, that is). This can make the spawning seem more taxing, at times, but that's what taking a break's for.
The satisfaction I get from using straffing, well timed combos, blocking, backflips and side rolls to hack your way through a tough gang of baddies is unlike any other game I've played.
Magerette, from what I can tell, you like action-RPG's. I find it hard to believe you wouldn't like DL. It's a great action-RPG, IMO.
On the topic of MP, I'm not sure all the quest bugs have been worked out in the CE, but there's always a work around, from what I've read on the various boards. The system of save games and how SP and MP files work allows for getting around some of the issues, so keep your saves. And if all else fails, a dude over on the Gamebanshee boards has developed a rather straight forward hex editor for your save games that should get you where you need to go.
Not sure if the net code was fixed in the CE, as my group has only ever played the CE, but can tell you that over the internet, we found that the game bogs down with more than 3 players. May be just us, but I suspect not as we're all pretty adept at tweaking our setups to get MP games going. However, on true LAN (not Hamachi), I'd suspect you could get a larger game going.
