But let's pretend that you don't have one of those 2 million copies on your hard drive and that you know nothing about the game. In that case, let me describe its structure.

Diablo II includes five classes, each with a tree of 30 unique skills that allows you to play a character who specializes in a few areas or dabbles widely (the game encourages the former). In addition to hundreds of weapons, items, and armors, both magic and mundane, there are "socketed" items into which you can plug gems that give magical abilities, effectively allowing you to create your own magic items. There are also special "set" magic items that confer additional powers when combined (unfortunately, because Diablo II only allows limited storage space for each character, it's unlikely you're going to keep such items long enough to collect an entire set; great idea in theory but, in practice, it just doesn't work). And mana is valuable to all classes, even non-spellcasters who need it to fuel their advanced skills.

Diablo II plays out over four acts, each with a series of quests and lots of optional areas for you to explore. There are beautiful cinematic cut-scenes at the end of every act that don't have much to do with the actual game, but serve as a sort of reward for your progress. What's disappointing is the recurring creatures carried over from the first game, shared between acts (skeletons and Fallen and Clan, oh my!), but for every repeated creature, there seems to be two new ones and a few uniquely named mini-bosses toting magic items and wielding special attacks. And, whereas the first game's levels differed mainly in terms of the textures on the walls, Diablo II has more varied architecture, terrain types, and landmarks.

The chat rooms are filled with gamers expressing their upsetedness at the way the "save-game" system works in the single-player game; namely, that dungeons are restocked with monsters when you reload. But Diablo has always been about character development before dungeon crawling. To advance through Diablo II's plotline, as peripheral as it is to the hack-'n'-slash gameplay, you move from waypoint to waypoint as you solve your quests. These waypoints establish a foothold on some levels that you can instantly jump to. If you leave a single-player game before reaching a waypoint, all you have to do is use the automap to run to the last point you reached before exiting your previous game. So what if the monsters have respawned? Your character keeps all his experience and treasure from having killed them before, so it's not as if you've lost any progress. Complaints about the save-game system are simply misguided criticisms from people who mistakenly regard Diablo II as a plot-driven RPG instead of an action game about character development.

You may have already heard some of the complaints about Diablo II's graphics, but when you see the game, you'll realize that these complaints are, in fact, about the resolution. Diablo II only runs at 640x480, which is, indeed, outdated in comparison to the higher resolutions supported in most contemporary games. But, once you resign yourself to the coarser resolution, you'll find excellent graphics here, with detailed and varied artwork and an eye for vividly drawn animation. The spell effects are spectacular and clean. The parallax scrolling of terrain at different levels effectively creates a sense of depth that allows for features such as tall trees, towering columns, and cliffs. Although Diablo II is still very much a 2-D game, it doesn't look it as much as it did in Diablo.

While nobody does an interface like Blizzard -- and Diablo II has a superbly honed interface -- there are a few curious rough edges. For instance, there's still no convenient way to switch weapons during a heated battle. Without an easy means to switch from a ranged weapon to a melee weapon, or from a two-handed weapon to a one-handed weapon and shield, it's not practical to run around with more than one weapon set. Although this may be a game-balance concession, it robs Diablo II of some potential richness. For instance, I'd love to use some of the thrown potions as weapons, but it's rarely practical to not have my main weapon armed. It would also help to be able to see the value of an item when you're not talking to a merchant, and there should be a "repair all" button when you're visiting a blacksmith. But on the whole, Blizzard has made the interface almost as invisible as it could be.

Unfortunately, Diablo II gamers will learn the hard way how severely taxed Blizzard's servers are, which hobbles a significant part of the game. There are basically two kinds of characters in Diablo II -- the "Realm characters," which are stored on battle.net, and the open characters used in single-player games and in less-secure multiplayer games. But certain perks are only available to official Realm characters so, naturally, you'll be interested in playing with one of these. But Blizzard's servers aren't quite ready for prime time. Even with a broadband connection, the lag on battle.net servers during peak hours renders the game nearly unplayable. Then there are outages, which also seem to happen sporadically during peak hours. I hope Blizzard is frantically scrambling to add more servers, because its current set-up obviously isn't equipped to handle the demand.

You should be aware of how derivative Diablo II is. In terms of the basic pattern of gameplay, Diablo II has hardly changed from the first Diablo, which is essentially a remake of Gauntlet, which was essentially a graphic overlay for ASCII-based RPGs such as Nethack or Angband, which were essentially Unix programs for randomized Dungeons & Dragons adventures. There's nothing new here -- it's just more of the same, with a handful of new problems that keep it from getting the 4-lightning-bolt rating I gave the original Diablo, namely: a few rough edges around an otherwise seamless interface, servers that aren't up to the demands placed on them, and low-res graphics after they've long been phased out of the industry. But, on the whole, the fact that Diablo II is just more of the same is one of the reasons it's so good. Diablo II is merely the near perfection of an established form of gameplay -- kill things, take their stuff, and make yourself powerful enough to kill bigger things to take better stuff. It's simple, it's compelling, and you'll do it for hours on end.

And hours, and hours, and hours. Even after 50 hours of play, there's no end in sight. Even after reaching the end of the plot, you'll realize that you're not finished; with so many character types and with such a fluid pace, it's not just about playing through it once. It's about the sort of childish fun you haven't enjoyed in a long time (well, at least since the original Diablo).

Do not approach Diablo II lightly. Come to it as you would stand before an altar to a god who demands 100 hours of your life in exchange for a glimpse of boyhood, when you took up a toy sword and a wizard's cape, and longed to kill slimy things and break stuff and tromp all over the world in a fit of righteous, mindless vanquishing that only a child could enjoy. When you buy Diablo II, the money you've paid is only part of the price. The real price is the time you'll spend playing like a little kid in a fantasy sandbox with no regard for the passing hours. And what you'll come to know in the end is that Diablo II isn't a game; it's a time machine.

Cheats
Duplication Trick
The duplication trick can only be done on Battlenet. When in a game, give an item (make sure you saved with it) to a friend. Press CTRL + ALT + ESC to exit the game. Then press CTRL + ALT + DELETE and chose "end task" on Diablo II. Now you and your buddy should have duplicates of the item.

Gain Money And Items Quickly
Travel past the Blood Moor and look for a cave. The cave has two levels, with a golden chest somewhere at the second level. Inside are usually health potions, mana potions, scrolls of town portal or identify, unidentified weapons and armor, and sometimes even a rare item that can be sold for a great deal of money. If you identify the item and it is something that you do not want, sell it. Save and exit the game. The next time the game is loaded, the chest will still be there with different items. This can be done as many times as needed.

A very easy way to get heaps of experience is to save and exit the game while in town. Then, re-enter the game, restoring your saved game. Monsters will have respawned, as will all monster heroes. Do this a few times on easier sections and your experience can be raised by a massive amount.