Diablo III For Console or PC?

Diablo III is Better for Console Than It Is For PC

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As a longtime fan of Blizzard Games and the Diablo franchise, I was surprised Blizzard allowed one of its games to head over to console.  Blizzard doesn’t do this often, and the last time I tried a Blizzard game on a console (Starcraft for Nintendo 64) the results weren’t up to par.

Fortunately, Diablo 3 transfers over to console cleanly. I got the experience of playing the game on Xbox, where I beat the game on co-op with a friend. Not only did I think the transition worked, but I ended up liking it a lot more than I did when I played the game for PC.

Based off my game play and buying experience I’m going to bullet point the advantages of each version of Diablo 3 starting with the computer version and concluding with the Xbox version.

Diablo III Computer Advantages

 

• Looking at and visualizing inventory is easier
• Clicking makes it easier to spam attacks
• Targeting enemies is easier
• The controls are generally better, but not superior

 

Diablo III Console Advantages

 

• You can see how the gear upgrades impact the look of your character in a much cleaner format
• You can see a lot more details -especially in battles – within the graphic design on a TV’s bigger screen
• Selling inventory is much easier and faster
• Less loot, but improved grabs
• Fast inventory equip option available
• Nephalem Globes are dropped – they look like yellow version of health globes and they provide buffs for your hero
• The controls are very manageable
• You don’t have to be online to play the console version
• You don’t need multiple copies of the game to play multiplayer
• The social gaming experience is superior – would you rather be playing the game with your friends online or all in the same room together?
• De emphasizes the meta-gaming aspects found in the computer version
• 8 difficulty sub-options for each of the four major difficulty settings
• Right joystick has a new move called dodge – which quickly gets your character out of harms way

 

Conclusions

Historically computer games don’t translate well to consoles due to control issues.  Diablo 3 however manages to handle this very well.  The console version only has two controlling flaws: the first is the targeting is less precise (this isn’t as big of an issue as it seems), the second is the enter dungeon button is the same as your character’s primary attack – this means if you get backed into a corner near a dungeon entrance, you might be going in and out of the dungeon while you’re attacking – that can be very irritating.

The addition of Nephalem globes makes the game a lot more fun.  Getting to see more details as your character’s appearance change as they pick up items makes finding them more exciting.  Improvements in speeding up inventory management are greatly appreciated. Less, but higher quality items reduces cluttered inventories and cluttered screens. The new evasion controls are a God send especially if you’re a Demon Hunter or a Sorceress.

Perhaps the biggest advantage though is the fact that you don’t have to be online to play this game.  Activision, the owners of Blizzard, have ruthlessly insisted that all of Blizzard’s computer game buyers must be online to play their games.  This has been a great hassle to gamers, as the gameplay itself does not need to be online.

The other major advantage is that if you want to play co-op games with someone you don’t need multiple games and you can easily be in the same room as your friend while you play the game.  Diablo 3 is one of the best co-op multiplayer games you can play, and having a friend in the room makes everything a lot more fun and a lot easier to communicate.

These lists are very unbalanced, and that simply is because Diablo 3 for console is superior than its PC counterpart.  If you haven’t purchased either of these games – go with the console version.