Diablo III Review Part I: Your Quest Begins

Over the next week we'll be reviewing Diablo III in a series of posts which explore the basics of the game from an outsider's perspective. This first review shows what its like to play Diablo III from the beginning having only a rudimentary knowledge of what Diablo I and II were like and how the crossover hit World of Warcraft works in practice. Our first run begins with the character class "Monk" and takes on this world of demon fighting in a mostly visual sense.

The game Diablo III is an extremely scalable one made to work not just on the most powerful gaming towers, but your slightly less powerful laptops as well. Blizzard has been relatively good about keeping their online games able to both tend to those players who wish to visit the game every once in a while without too many frills on their mid-tier notebooks as well as those players with the massive mammoth machines they've made themselves – packed with detail. We on the other hand have been checking the game out on both an Alienware M17x gaming notebook and a 2011 MacBook Pro 15-inch notebook with Core i7 processor aboard – both having shown the game to be played with ease.

Starting our journey with the Monk class, we opted for the first of two available genders: Male, and were on our way. Immediately a new user understands that they're in a birds-eye-view of a dark and foreboding world where they must attack their gruesome enemies or be destroyed right off the bat. Less than 30 seconds into the game and you've got little slimy beings crawling towards your character – and they're ready to kill. These first few enemies are the tiniest of the game, of course, able to be beaten quickly so you can learn the basics of the game with ease.

Once you find your way down a winding path, you come upon an encampment by the name of New Tristram – a place you'll find later on reflects the tiny camp past games revolved around. Characters in this camp provide you with information on the perils they face, gradually letting you in on the idea that it's not just for them you'll be fighting, it's for the whole world – or realm, if you wish to call it that. Darkness befalls you as you move toward boss beast bosses that would have your head.

Keep your allies close or get strong quickly, as this game does not allow you to run through it the way some do. You must gain experience and add skills to your arsenal as you collect newer and better gear to equip yourself with as well. You'll find that this environment is cramped in some places such as caves, and massive in others – holes in the earth spewing forth skeletons and leading down to hell and cathedrals filled with venomous green light.

Without a doubt, this is a game you can very easily get lost in for hours on end. Keep a clock close unless you want to get trapped.

Stick with us here on SlashGear as we continue our adventure into the pits of who knows what here in the third and most grand installment in the Diablo saga with Blizzard Entertainment. Also explore our Diablo III portal and timeline below to get all the info you could possibly desire!