PixlBit

The PixlBit staff loves HD and wants to see some of their favorite franchises get the treatment.

Diablo I and II for Consoles

It’s amazing to me that it has been ten years since Diablo II was released and yet the series still seems as relevant today as it did back then.  The first two Diablo games were video game milestones, creating an intricate mythology to go along with an addicting style of play that promoted the single player experience and multiplayer equally.  For some, myself included, Diablo was the first game they played online with friends – suffering through the cankerous tones of a 56k dial-up connection that would inevitably be interrupted by another member of the household picking up the phone.

Diablo III is finally going to be released early next year, rewarding our saint like patience, and the special edition of the Mega PC game will come packed with the first two games.  There is also serious talk of Diablo III making its way to consoles sometime after the PC launch.  It would seem to me that this would be a perfect time to gather the previous titles and introduce gamers who never knew the pleasures of taking down The Butcher or raising the dead to fight their battles for them.

Diablo isn’t a complete stranger to the console market.  The original was released on the Sony PlayStation back in 1998 and was well received by critics and consumers alike.  An HD rendition of that particular title would not be a monumental task as a majority of the heavy lifting is already done. 

Of course some changes would have to be made.  The PSOne version supports local multiplayer and it would only be fitting to expand upon this to allow friends to connect with each other over the internet.  Fine tuned graphics would really allow the game to shine on the larger HD screens of today and with more room for information on today’s discs, the game could ship with an uncompressed sound track, truly bringing to life Matt Uelmen’s wonderfully understated score.

The second title would be a bit more of a challenge since it hasn’t had the console treatment like its predecessor.  Blizzard could experiment with ways to make the controls work that could be ported over to the eventual console version of the upcoming third entry.  The game would certainly benefit from a graphical polish and uncompressed soundtrack like the original, but could and should include all of the fantastic expansions that have helped ensure that gamers still play this game on PC all these years later.

We’ve been waiting quite a long time to get another dose of Diablo, and console gamers are going to have to wait a bit longer still.  Blizzard would be well served in giving us something as wonderful as a console HD collection of the first two to remind us old-timers why the wait will be worth it – and to show younger gamers what they’ve missed out on.