Happy birthday to me...

Well today is my birthday.  Happy birthday, me!!!  Congratulations, you made it to thirty mumble years old without dying, good job!

And to celebrate, I plan to go to work and wear a plastic tiara all day to make sure that everyone who comes by knows it's my birthday.  After all, what's the point of working on your birthday if you don't make sure everyone knows about it and treats you like a princess!

I'm sure you'll all be happy to know I AM getting my magic wand universal remote for my birthday ... but not from my brother.  I'd assumed he'd be the only one willing to spend money on what even I can admit is a silly novelty.  A wonderfully silly novelty!   But no, he'd already decided he wanted to get me something else.

Diablo 3!

He signed me up for it and I've been downloading the program for the past five days.  That's right, THE PAST FIVE DAYS!  Seriously, Blizzard, you might want to take a look at that downloader.  The damn thing crashed on me so many times I was beginning to think it wouldn't finish downloading until my next birthday!  But finally, on Saturday afternoon, it finished whirring away and told me that I could go in and play.

So, first impressions!  I've got to say there's a lot to like about this game.  It's easy to play, the storyline is engaging enough to be interesting, but not so complex that you just decide to skip over it, and I found the similarities to World of Warcraft to be comforting.  The quests seem to be well thought out and guide you through the storyline, which is nice because I'm notorious for getting sidetracked in things like that.  The number of times I was on a quest chain in WoW and then got distracted by some other NPC asking me to collect thirty boar gizzards or rescue a baby dragon or get their moonshine from a goblin with a recalcitrant attitude ... well, lets just say I could get diverted for days!

But it's got a few bad points too.  So far I've not found a way to change the perspective.  Personally I'd prefer if I could look straight on from behind the character the way you do in WoW rather than the overhead shot that they seem to use.  I also found the targeting and the looting to be difficult to manoeuvre and a bit hit and miss, and while the graphics are good they aren't brilliant.

Still, it's entirely possible that my complaints about the game are due to my own lack of knowledge rather than any fault with the game itself.  I'll probably go in to play tomorrow and immediately work out that I've been doing it all completely wrong and it's my own fault.  It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

But I have to admit it's nice to think I might have finally found a game that I like again.  I was really disappointed in Star Wars The Old Republic, and even though I kept meaning to I never got the chance to try out Star Trek Online.  I know Diablo isn't an MMO, but it kind of feels a bit like one so hopefully it'll keep me amused for at least a few weeks.