Tag: Diablo II

Here comes the new boss

It’s always a little surreal for me, when a piece of news takes the world by storm, and I personally end up finding it hard to care less. Nothing against those who do, but when all everyone’s talking about is some British monarch getting married, or some celebrity having a baby, and I’m sitting here with my life not having changed one bit, it’s just…weird. It’s the same thing with the new pope. But since it’s functionally the only piece of news for the day, I figure I may as well use it as a lead in for another word.

zealot, noun – a religious fanatic

Learned from: Diablo II (PC, Mac)

Developed by Blizzard North

Published by Blizzard Entertainment (2000)

Okay, okay, put down the pitchforks and stop building the pyre, because–plot twist–this word is not in any way a direct commentary on the new or previous pope. Francis seemed like a genuinely kind, compassionate person from what little I read about him in the news, and while Leo, the new guy, might get less glowing reviews from the LGBTQ community, he doesn’t sound too bad overall. If nothing else, any prominent figure who pushes back against the policies of the current US government has to have something good going for them. Because honestly, the red hats seem to embody zealotry far more than Pope Leo–his followers might actually hold him to certain standards of conduct.

But enough about real-world cultists; let’s talk Diablo II. Act 3 of the game takes you to a sprawling jungle, filled with ruined temples, sodden caves, and enough dead-ends and switchbacks to make it my least-favorite section simply due to all the backtracking. But amidst all the tribes of poison dart-spitting pygmies and swarms of giant spiders, you’d find bands of crazed followers of…I think he was a fallen paladin, or something? It’s been a pretty long time, but I remember having to cut my way through swathes of zealots at various points, to press forward. That, and the fact that they were about the only things in the entire bloody jungle that weren’t poisonous in some way, shape, or form.

The fact that I have so few solid memories of Act 3 is a testament to how little impact it left on me, despite being one of the bigger parts of the game. But even the bad parts of Diablo II can still be pretty fun…sometimes.

Dimly lit, full of dead-end paths, broken up by rivers that make progress take even longer…I can’t defend this. I’m not in a cult.

Trouble’s a-brewing

A fun thing some friends and I do when we’re hanging out, and we’re not sure where to eat, is to pick a competitive game with a lot of characters, assign a restaurant to each one, and play (or watch) a round, and let the winner determine where we go.  The first game we did this with was Overwatch, but lately we’ve been setting up 32-man AI tournaments in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.  It’s actually a really clever idea, and a lot of fun…until Diddy Kong wins, and we end up at Taco Bell.  It took a little longer than usual, but Taco Bell is doing what Taco Bell always does to me.  Which brings us to today’s word.

fulminating, adj. –  volatile or explosive

Learned from:  Diablo II  (PC, Mac)

Developed by Blizzard North

Published by Blizzard Entertainment (2000)

Diablo II improved upon a lot from the original game.  Though I missed some of the more random elements from its predecessor (shrines with mysterious names, whose effects were unknown until you activated them, quests that wouldn’t show up in every playthrough, etc.), the sheer variety of new material made up for it.  One of these additions came in the form of offensive potions: green for poison, and orange for explodey-types (including fulminating potions).

These were kinda neat in the early game, as they gave even melee-focused characters a source of elemental damage, but there were only a couple “levels” of each type of potion, and they didn’t scale with your character’s level.  So, as the enemies you faced kept getting stronger, the damage inflicted by these potions became less and less useful, until it became a pain to find them in item drops.  A cool idea, but ultimately one that wasn’t used to its fullest potential, so that it might’ve been more than a novelty.

fulminating

Don’t let the screenshot fool you; fulminating potions would be hard-pressed to cause that kind of carnage in the early game.  In the later stages, you’d be lucky to give the monsters a sunburn.