You can't make a classic better: Diablo 2

Yeah I reinstalled Diablo 2 on my travel laptop. I still love this game, and in my opinion over the last 9 years or so NOTHING has beat it. Nothing. Not Torchlight, not Titan Quest, not Dungeon Hunter on the i-Pod Touch.

You want to know why? 3D that is why. Fuck 3D and all that fancy crap. What makes Diablo 2 work is its look, feel and quickness. The ease of the view, the need to not zoom in, the fast attack rate, the sounds, and the overall feeling of the lighting and gear to this day still look great. I don't care what people say. Sure, on a huge screen running at 800x600 it won't look fantastic but what Blizzard did with the space they had was incredible.

I have tried many clones and I will be honest I don't like the clunky way they play. Mythos, Dungeon Runners, Titan Quest all never lasted more than 2 days with me. Torchlight? About one week and in fact it made me go BACK to Diablo 2.

Listen, sometimes fancy and 3D is not the best thing to shoot for. GAMEPLAY is. There is a new hack to make Diablo 2 run in 1024 resolution but I have not tried it yet. The game also can play with NO CD with the 1.12 patch, but there is a stipulation. After some research I found out the following:

If all required Diablo 2 '.MPQ' files are installed on the hard drive, the game will no longer require the CD to play.

For users that originally performed a 'Full Installation' and wish to run without the CD, all '.MPQ' files should be copied from the Diablo 2 CDs to the Diablo 2 directory. Most users will only need to copy D2Music.mpq from the Diablo 2 Play CD and/or D2xMusic.mpq from the Lord of Destruction CD. Mac users will need to copy these music files and rename them to 'Diablo II Music' and 'Diablo II Expansion Music' respectively.

Anyone who did not perform a 'Full Installation' will need to re-install from CD again to ultimately play without the CD. In this case, a 'Full Installation' is required, followed by file
copy step noted above.

Until Diablo 3 comes out (which is 3D yes but keeps that great vantage point) I think I will just hack away in D2 on the train on the way to work.