So this week, every gamer who’s lived through the late 90’s had their dream of the last 8 years fulfilled. We were all glued to our computer chairs at 3/6AM in the morning in hopes that all those predictions and bets we made about Blizzard’s mysterious splash screen weren’t about to screw us over. The Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational was being held in France, and if you were like me, you were constantly pounding on the F5 button to refresh the liveblog you were reading in hopes that they’d shut up about how good WoW was doing and tell us why they were playing acoustic guitar in the beginning. Of course, I’m talking about returning to the beautifully dark, scenic world of Diablo. Once again will our wrists be locked in an arc shape, and our eyes dried out from the intensity of the light from our computer monitors glowing bright at 3AM. Days and nights will be lost to this demon inhabiting our computers, yet to us there is no day or night, just the glow of a torch burning dimly in a sacrifice pit miles beneath the Earth’s surface. Yes it’s true, Diablo 3 was finally officially announced. If you thought WoW was addicting, think again.

But if you were trapped in a cave in Guadalajara for the last 20 years in attempts to purify your soul through transcendental meditation and herbal treatments, you probably have no idea what Diablo is. To you, Diablo is just the Spanish word for the devil. You don’t know what it’s like to come face to face with evil itself. You don’t know what it’s like to collect loot for hours, and looking forward to figuring out what the hell you just picked up (at a cost, of course). You have no idea what it’s like to have 50 naked screaming blue witches all hurling fireballs at you while you’re frantically clicking for your life. Simply put, you don’t know joy, happiness, or bliss. And to you people, all I have to say is this: What the hell? Even my dad played Diablo. And I bet you sad, pathetic, miserable excuses for human beings are asking, “What is Diablo?” Simply put, its an action RPG with an overhead view where you kill monsters, and collect loot. It sounds boring, but say that to any PC gamer and you’ll have your eyes ripped out. Diablo offered so much, that no description can do it justice, you really just have to play it. Diablo is one of those games that offer endless replayability. With a seemingly infinite about of loot to collect, randomly generated dungeons, and a shifting difficulty to match, no two playthroughs were the same. There were thousands of equipment variations to customize your character, and hundreds of magic spells that you could learn to aid you in the midst of battle. Different character classes brough variety to the game, and would dramatically change the flow of gameplay. On top of that, you could connect to Battle.net and play the whole game cooperatively online for free.

This game was addictive. Many people were both joyful and depressed that Diablo 3 was coming. They were happy that another game in the Diablo franchise was in the works, but sad that their social lives were about to to be thrown out the window. You never wanted to stop playing Diablo. You always wanted to know what was on the next level down; you always wanted to see what treasures you could find on your second run through the dungeon; you always wanted to get the best armor and weapons for your character. And you were never alone in your addiction, for there was always someone to play with through Battle.net. It was a blast connecting online and trading items with other players, then heading into the dungeon to face evil itself. And after you soup up your character to what you feel is the best it can be, you start over with a new character and enjoy doing it again.

So after years of being locked in the world of Azeroth, we can finally return to what we love doing most: slaying the undead creatures of hell. A lot of people (including myself) were confused by their glowing blue splash screen, convinced that the next WoW expansion was getting a release date or beta invitation. Returning to the world of Diablo seemed but a forlorn dream that flickered in the darkness. From the moment I read “OH SNAP, IT’S DIABLO,” I went wild with excitement, no longer regretting staying up until 3AM. I finally have a reason to get that complete hardware overhaul for my computer, or put in the money and effort into building a new gaming PC. Blizzard finally announcing another Diablo game is a godsend (or rather, demonsend) to PC gamers. For the longest time, it seems that the gaming industry is convinced that PC gaming is on the decline, but now that we have both Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 coming, the future looks so bright that I have to squint.

So now you can join me in bashing our foreheads on our keyboards while we wait the inevitable 2010 release.

-(CE)Ian