Diablo 3 on the PS3 and Xbox

Diablo 3 for the PS3 and Xbox hit stores a few nights ago here in the Philippines. We were able to get our copy from Data Blitz for around Php 2,295 and we spent most of our Saturday trying it out. We’ve actually finished the PC version several times over already so it felt very familiar once the game booted up on our TV! One major difference though: it was definitely way cooler seeing it on a huge 55-inch TV though instead of our usual 15-inch laptop monitor, lol. Anyway, we’d just like to share with you guys our initial impressions on the game so far and hopefully this will help you decide if you wanna buy this game or not.

Before we get to the actual game…

Here are major things you need to know about the console version of Diablo 3. First, you cannot port your PC character over to the console servers. You will need to create your own character on this world. That character also won’t be able to crossover to the PC version of the game. Next, the console version has NO AUCTION HOUSE (yay to purists). Lastly, you can actually do local mulit-player. Just turn on several controllers and you can play up to 4 people in one game. Cool eh?

Okay, now that we have that out of the way let’s get to our initial observations about the game!

The PS3 Controller Feels Very Natural and Fun To Use

Blizzard optimized the controls of the game for console controllers. On the PS3 it was very intuitive and we didn’t need a full tutorial just to understand how it works. The good thing about Diablo 3 is that you can actually enjoy the game with less than 5 skills equipped so you actually have enough buttons already on your controller to make it work, hehe. It was a fun feeling to play the game with a controller instead of your usual mouse and keyboard. Targeting is more directional than clicking though so that might take some getting used to.

So far we’ve reached level 16 and we’ve killed the first major boss, Butcher. Game mechanics are relatively still the same but we did notice that drops are more tailored to your class now compared to the PC version. That’s definitely a good development and personally I think that’s how Blizzard should have done it with the PC version at the very start. The way the PC version was set-up is really for market trading more than gaming which can get very frustrating at times since you’ll end up spending the same amount of time checking out the AH and grinding.

To those wondering if there’s an online game mode — yes. You can actually invite your friends to join you in your quests and grinds. We haven’t fully tested it yet but we do have a couple of friends who already bought the game. We’ll try to set-up some online games in the coming weeks and we’ll update this post once we have more experience with it.

Over-all the game kinda feels “purer” compared to the PC version due to the lack of the AH and the option to play fully offline. The offline coop is promising but only if the members of your party are in one house since the data is just saved locally.

Diablo 3 for PS3 and Xbox is now out. You can get it at Datablitz for Php2,295+.