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The last game Blizzard Entertainment made for consoles - not counting an outsourced Nintendo 64 version of StarCraft, or the unreleased StarCraft: Ghost - was The Lost Vikings 2 for the Super Nintendo. That was in 1997, 16 years ago. The strange thing isn't that the titan of online PC gaming is back on consoles - that was always going to happen. The strange thing is that its return is marked with a release that is more like a classic PC game than the PC game it's based on.Love it or hate it - and Diablo 3 has certainly proved divisive - you cannot fail to be impressed by how complete and insanely customisable the console version of this visceral action role-player is. Every update to the PC version in the last 15 months has made it across intact. Every feature is there too, save one, the unloved auction house for trading items with other players. And there are additions to make your eyes light up: offline play, system link support on Xbox 360 - yes, you can LAN it up like the good old days - and the coup de grāce, local multiplayer on a single console for up to four players.
About the only thing you can't do to console Diablo 3 is mod it. Everything you can think of is supported - right down to custom soundtracks and exporting your profile to USB - and it all works seamlessly, flawlessly. This lavish approach to fixtures and fittings is nothing new for Blizzard, of course, but it's notably unrestrained here by a corporate mandate for an internet connection, or by the need to protect a real-money trading market. Go nuts, break the game, see if they care. So console Diablo 3 feels like a return to the Blizzard of 1997 in more ways than one.
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