A Commentary on Chaos Empire a mod for Diablo 2 Lord of Darkness
This is not a review.
Most people when writing a review have played a game through to completion. An act I can claim neither for the actual game, or the mod I am herein singing the praises of.
They also have a clear cut idea of both the good and bad points of the game, what works and what doesn't and so forth. The reason it's taken me so long to get around to writing this commentary, is that I'd much rather be playing the game.
Diablo 2 and it's expansion pack Lord of Darkness are (or by now were) a hack 'n' slash RPG with a very large following and a huge online community. It's predecessor Diablo 1 was beautiful to look at even if a bit blocky, had some great sound effects and haunting music and was involving enough in it's plot and gameplay to actually entice me to finish it. Not a claim I can make over many other games.
Diablo 2 is the bigger brother to D1 with a larger area, more monsters, more quests and more STUFF to find, buy and even make. I found the game utterly enticing through the first 3 chapters....and then struggled through what I think of as the 4th and 5th and due to a hard drive emergency and reformat never made it to the end of the 6th. Though I remember not enjoying the 6th which had become monster heavy to a ridiculous degree.
So after I'd put the game aside for sometime I started looking at the large modding community as there are hundreds of modification files for the game, some of which effect small things like the rate you gain experience points, how much you can carry, and even what your hero looks like. Some on the other hand modify the entire game, from plot to items, from skills to monsters. Some of these mods I've even brought up on the site. Games like Sanctuary in Chaos, Eastern Sun and Ancestral Recall, all of which greatly enhance the experience of replaying the game.
But despite the fact that I often find myself going back to play Ancestral Recall, it is this new mod, Chaos Empire, that I'm currently so taken with.
Why this one? I'm not sure, maybe it's the inclusion of both new monsters as well as old favourites from Diablo1 & 2. Maybe it's the new maps. Perhaps it's the Kinder Eggs you find dropped by monsters that you can open for various prizes, including little models of monsters, as well as using the shells in cube receipies. There are tons more drops, tons more stuff to find and make, you will see the mysterious Zod rune a lot more often (but you still have to reach level 50+ before you can use it).
The game is not perfect, but most of the niggles are minor. The only 2 serious niggles I've come across are that one of the game's integral charms doesn't interact with the Sorceress, which is a shame cause it's a nice touch for all the other characters. And more serious to the game is that the current version runs to a heavy overpopulation of a certain kind of monster in chapter 5. This latter point sounds minor but can be a real pain. Nevertheless it's not so much a hindrance that I haven't found myself returning repeatedly to the mod to take yet another character through.
The author is German and so english is a 2nd language to him and it shows in places, but thank goodness he was kind enough to put it in at all!
All in all I just wanted to say that if anyone out there is playing Diablo2 mods, then this really is very much worth a look.
DanMaggot
