Well, I ended up finding a decent torrent for the demo, instead of using the official download, so I got it in about 2 hours instead of the projected 9, and played it through once last night.
Chose the ranged player/marksman to try first, of course. Nice purple hair, but sadly, none of the more radical look options like in UT2K4 (wild hairdos, ripped clothes, etc.).
Performance: I was pleasantly surprised. I run an old P4 Northwood 2.8 @ 3.2 with 2 gb ram and an overclocked AGP x800xl, and it was dead smooth in gameplay. My settings were shader and shadow low, AA medium, and turned off dynamic lighting. Model and texture settings highest, with weather and AF on. Rez at 1280 x 1024. I was getting mainly 20's outside, but the framerate never really dipped--it was a lot like HL2, where if you were running fraps you thought you were in trouble, but if you just turned it off and played everything was very smooth. Inside was 40's-100's. Tonight, aggrivated by yet another *gigantic* UI (what rez do devs work at, anyways?), I upped the ante to 1600 x 1200, dropped AA to low, and killed the weather (and went into my panel and turned off the forced AA and AF so I wasn't getting a conflict). The game looks a lot nicer, and now I get 30's and 40's outside and 60's - 100's inside. I can get a a barely perceptible touch of video lag if I spin quickly in 3rd person outdoors in new areas, but no tearing or stuttering. I imagine a ton of effects/mobs/players on the screen might cause serious problems and force me to fiddle with other settings, back off to 1280 again, or both.
Opinions: Well, hard to say on this short a demo. It'd be like trying to judge D2 based on the idiotic mobs, limited items, and completely boring areas of the Blood Moor. Oh wait, I already did that--and I **HATED** it.
So of course I never bought the game or played it, or enjoyed it for years and years--oh, yes I did
. So I'm a bit wary of forming *ANY* kind of opinion yet. On the other hand, it isn't like I changed my mind about what I thought about D2 in the Beta--I continued to avoid Barbs, and I always avoided as much a possible the outdoors in Acts 1, 3, and 5 (with an extra helping of destestation for the Jungle in Act 3). So if the rest of the game of D2 would have been like the Beta, I would have hated the entire game, and my beta impressions would have been validated. Instead, I found I loved all of Act 2, and Act 2 alone was enought to make the game a worthwhile pursuit for me, especially since I also liked most of 4 and the indoors on 3 and 5.
So, I'm going to split "Opinions" up into "Things I'm afraid won't change, but I might just have a bad perspective from so small a taste", and "Things that might well change".
Afraid won't change: Large interface. Large and clunky utility menus (especially the quest interactions--why oh why am I having to keep clicking to keep things going? Is this an old BLizz North thing "well, we can't make a game anymore where the user has to click for every single swing/bullet, so we'll make it so they have to click for every single phrase out of each NPC. Brilliant! This will keep our subsidy from the 'Analgesic Manufacturers for the Promulgation of Repetitive Stress Syndrome' going"). Poor world engagement/sense of humor (yeah, I found Wirt's leg
. still, I went up to the Soda machines, shop fronts, etc looking for some interaction or humor, and found zip. Doom3 was an absolute hoot when you weren't actually playing the game [I didn't like the actual gameplay in D3] due to the throwaway stuff, from posters on the wall to backstory to the Pinball machine). Poor 3D sound (the 3d positioning for actual game events seems to be fair, but not good--it isn't wrong, but isn't strong enough to help--but, I've only experimented with 2 different sound settings so far--I might find a better one. That said, if I am wandering down a street, and I hear glass breaking and a scream from my left, I expect to be able to turn to my left and see what is going on, *NOT* to turn to my left and see a blank wall and realize that the devs have put random event noises in as a kind of haunted house soundtrack that mean absolutely nothing in game terms. Lovely). Monsters respawn (why is this necessary/desirable in an instanced game? Why?). Poor targetting (go get a rocket launcher, find a likely ambush spot near some cover on the side of a street or where you peek around a corner where you can blast some mobs, get in a stance where there is NO spread in your targetting icon, and try to shoot past some obstacles. Whoops. Good thing there isn't any splash damage or friendly fire--the reticle is off by a couple of feet. Speaking of, there is just something disturbing about the best tactic when being attacked up close is to nuke yourself because your rockets don't hurt you). Teeny tiny MOBS (at the range I can engage them, I mostly spent the Beta shooting at itty bitty mobs I couldn't quite make out and was basically shooting at green target brackets). Perspective is odd at some zoom levels.
Hope will get better: Moronic MOB AI (Man, a rocket just exploded right above me. Good thing it didn't hit me. Whew. I think I'll just stand here and see if they have better aim next time. Yep. That's a good plan. Dang rocket. Whoh! another rocket just exploded, this one right in front of me! Man, this is my lucky day! Rockets going off all around, and none of them are aimed at me! Time for another circle. Ow ow ow! This rocket landed at my feet, I'm half dead and my ankles are on fire! Owwwwww! You know, many mobs would either somehow mystically know where the person firing the weapon at me was, and charge them, or run off around a corner and try to heal up or counterattack about now, but that isn't the stuff a mob like ME is made from. NoSirreeBob. I'm the kind of mob that will stop and look around because that is *really* going to help. Yep. My daddy always said, well, actually, I never knew my daddy because he died before I was old enough to get to know him--he was standing still and looking around like a dumbass while someone was firing rockets at him. Hey! I guess I'm just like my daddy! Well, my momma always said [WHUMP] ahhhhh!!!....) Boring levels where you are on rails (I've done the claustrophobic tunnels and the alleyways blocked by barricades in HL2, thank you). Bad voice acting. Draggy menus (hardware vs software accel on the menus/mouse in them?). Too many monsters (What are they all doing there? What do they eat? What is their goal? If you didn't come along, are they planning to wander around in circles in that one little spot the rest of their lives and never ever do *anything*?).
Ah well, like I said, this is waaaaay too small a sample to judge from--and I'm too weak to keep from making fun of certain things in it
.
I'm going to try a slasher tonight and see how that goes--at least I'll get to see what the mobs actually look like
--Cy
It's time to modernize! 
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