Diablo III On Consoles Is Kind Of Like A Modern Version Of Gauntlet

Blizzard is bringing Diablo III to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this September with a PS4 port slated for 2014. I got to play a bit of the PlayStation 3 version as the Barbarian when I met up with Sony at Comic-Con.

While Diablo III was designed for PC, the controls naturally fit the PS3 controller. The analog stick moves the character and skills can be assigned you can assign six skills to the face buttons. The Barbarian’s default attack was mapped to X, Ancient Spear was linked to triangle, and Leap was set to square. I could easily combo these attacks by pressing triangle to pull enemies close with Ancient Spear, follow up with Leap to stun them, and then mash X to finish them off. Basically, Diablo III feels like a hack and slash dungeon crawler. Another plus is how responsive dodging is. Your character rolls whichever way you move the right analog stick similar to God of War.

Perhaps, the defining feature of Diablo III for PS3 is couch co-op. Four players can fight the forces of Hell together.  The game dishes out a constant wave of enemies that essentially makes it a modern Gauntlet.

A representative from Blizzard explained enemies have been altered to come in waves, but I didn’t notice much of a difference as I trudged through the second act. If you played the PC version, Diablo III won’t surprise you. It’s a straight port optimized for a controller with local cooperative play… and just on PlayStation 3 armor inspired from Journey. That’s one of the special items Blizzard made for the PS3 version.

Diablo III comes out for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on September 3.