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I remember oh too well sitting in my room in the frat house, attempting to get my Ph.D. in Molecular Biology when Diablo hit the street. Oh well, so I didn't finish school, I got computer skillz to pay the rent. Man, did Diablo make me one antisocial, completely worthless, pale skinned, frightened by the light, burden on society. Nothing has come out yet that IMHO can compete with the pure addiction and fun that came with that title. Darkstone is attempting to dethrone what I consider the best action game in history. Does it? In some ways yes, in some ways no. Everything works right, the game has depth, it doesn't get boring, but it just doesn't have that nice addictive quality of great games. It definitely falls in my "Damn fun waste of time" category but not quite to my "Oh hell my life is shot" category.

Here are the basics: There are 4 character classes to choose from, and both sexes to choose from. Each class has different versions for the different sexes for a total of 8 classes to master. I started out with the Warrior out of habit and have tried my hand at all 3 of the others. Each is fun to play in its own weird way, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. I won't go into each, but here is the list: Warrior/Amazon, Wizard/Sorceress, Monk/Priestess, and Assassin/Thief. Take your pick, they are pretty standard.

So what are the differences between this and Diablo? On the game side there are a few. Your character ages, you have to eat, you can rest, you have outdoor areas to explore, far more quests, and the graphics are very different. Let's get in to more detail.

The game play itself is a little odd. It is enjoyable but has some major flaws. There is an abundance of quests to deal with, more than I could keep track of. These quests are given to you by the random inhabitants of town. Just find what they are looking for and give it to them, or kill something for them. You can easily scroll back through conversations to see just who wanted what after you have found it.

Your character actually ages in this game. I haven't gotten old enough to see what happens when I hit 60 but it sure should be interesting. Another neat aspect is hunger, you have to eat or you will starve to death. Let me tell you it isn't any fun to get stuck in the wilderness without food and die at the gate to town, DON'T LAUGH, this really happened to me.

The dungeons themselves are random, as are your quests, so just like Diablo things will change each game. Why improve what already works? On top of dungeons you have wilderness areas around each dungeon and some outdoor regions to explore as well. There is plenty of game play here. I only had one problem with the game play, or maybe it isn't really a problem. I found it far too easy to kill damn near everything, nothing is really a challenge. The only times I have died is when I wasn't paying attention for a half hour or so and all the little losses of hit points added up. Nothing I ran into really was a challenge. I have noticed that starts to change around Dungeon level 15 or so though, so don't worry, consider them freebies. For some reason it just wasn't as addictive as Diablo, I really don't know why because it should be.

On the multiplayer tip you can play it on Heat.net, but I didn't bother with Heat because I hate that service. I have run a few LAN games and believe me they are quite fun. Oh yeah, you can choose to have two characters on a single player game, but you can only control one of them. Save your gold and do it by yourself coward!

For some reason I just didn't find this nearly as addictive as I found Diablo. I hate to keep mentioning that game but the designers clearly aimed at that market and "borrowed" a lot from it. I will play this plenty, don't get me wrong. I just know that as soon as a certain sequel comes out I will forget about this one. Until then there isn't anything else I have found as fun lately. It is definitely gonna hang around a few months.

I found nothing wrong with the controls. How can you go wrong with point and click? The inventory and map interfaces are clean and easy to manipulate. The only complaint is the heads up display in dungeons, it is a little too distracting to leave on all the time. Another nice feature is a list of local locations, pick one and your character will automatically run for it, no getting lost or trying to find somewhere important, just pick it and go. Add in a rotating and zooming camera angle and you are in good shape. No points lost on controls except for that dungeon map that is a little too distracting.

One thing lacking in Diablo was great accelerated effects. The game itself was beautiful, but would have been even more amazing with nice effects. Darkstone does fix that problem with ease. The spell effects are beautiful, definitely nice acceleration. Unfortunately I also ran into one thing I couldn't forgive here. All of the objects and characters (yours included) are entirely too angular and based too heavily on large polygons. It just looks a little cartoonish to me. That might just be me but I would have preferred a little more realism there. As far as dungeons and landscapes go it is great to look at, trees and textures look great. Nice job there. Too bad about those polygon people though.

The sound is fine. The music isn't distracting or annoying, nothing special here. A few things I did like was the dialog has a funny sound too it. Not funny bad but funny funny, I liked it. Just a hint, don't give money to the minstrels!

Easy install is the word of the day. I suggest you go into the custom option and install the whole thing though, it only takes about 350 MB to pull a full install. Set up a character and go. Easy as pie.

Overall this is one fun game with a few flaws, its godsend is the fact that the flaws don't ruin the game itself. Baring the few minor problems that I mentioned earlier this is one fun game that I can't wait to finish and play again.