Lord of Destruction is the expansion game for Diablo II. This game adds another Act (Act V) to the Diablo story, adds 2 more character classes (Assassin and Druid) and many other great features to this excellent game.
In this expansion game, Baal has escaped the fate that had befallen his brothers in Diablo II, and he is now on the run and threatening to destroy entire villages. You must track down Baal and defeat him, which will mean the end of the Prime Evils.
As I mentioned earlier, there is only one Act to the expansion game, and that is one of my problems with Lord of Destruction. I would have liked to have seen it be longer, but in its defense, there are six quests within this Act, and each is pretty detailed and takes quite some time to complete. You start Act V in the city of Harrogath and work yourself all the way up into Baal's Throne of Destruction.
Gameplay is very good in this game. There are many areas to explore and find treasure. The interface and other mechanics of the game are identical to the other Diablo’s, and they are just as easy to use. I highly recommend that you load this expansion game onto your installed Diablo II game, because there are many additional features and changes that will be made to the Diablo II game, and playing Diablo II from the start with Lord of Destruction loaded makes for a much better experience. There are far too many new features to list here, but I will point out some of the better ones.
a.) You can now put equipment on Hirelings b.) You can heal Hirelings, and keep them through ALL Acts c.) You can now have socketed and crafted items d.) Two mini-map modes e.) Your Stash is twice as big f.) Ethereal items
I cannot say enough about how much more this expansion adds to the original Diablo II game. Besides what I listed above, there are more gems, more magical items, more unique monsters, and so forth.
The graphics were very good, and everything is richly detailed. As with the other Diablo games, this one also has a few movie sequences that add to the story telling. The monsters come in all shapes and sizes, and test your combat skill constantly.
The learning curve is really good. If you played it as an add-on to Diablo II, than you more than likely learned everything you needed to know when you played Diablo II. This expansion game does come with a manual of it's own, so any questions you might have could probably be answered in it. Most everything is mouse driven, so you should not have much difficulty in finding your Quest log, Menu options, and so forth.
Replay Value is excellent in this game. As I mentioned before, there are two new character classes that this expansion game offers. I think this adds to the Replay Value, and most gamers will want to come back to Diablo and play it again as a different type of character. There is also a secret "cow" level that will be revealed to you once you have completed the game. You must first collect certain items and combine those items within the Horadric Cube, but once you have done that, then you can explore this new level.
Once again, the Sound in a Diablo game is quite impressive. This expansion game has background music and thunderous battle tunes that will keep your hero charging forward through all kinds of monsters. As before, many unique voices will be heard from the NPC's that help you along your journey.
