G-pinions

Ok, it's been awhile since my last post. I know all of our dedicated readers have been wondering "Where is Lanyon?" You see, I can explain... I came down with leprosy. I got it from Tom.

Ok. Now that we have that cleared up, I would like to spend a moment or two to talk about Champions of Norrath. It's not a bad game considering Blizzard released the same game about 4 years ago. The game plays almost exactly like Diablo 2. Now to be fair, I have not yet had the chance to play this game multi-player since:

A) My roommate is inept and video games frighten him.
B) Tom and Nick and whoever else I could conceivably play this game with live too far from me since I live in BuFu nowhere.
C) Why play this when you can play Diablo 2? Same game, but better.

Every class in Norrath seems to mirror a Diablo 2 class. Observe!

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CoN: Barbarian
D2: Barbarian

This one is the most obvious. In both games this character is the straight "tank". Almost all of its skills are hand to hand combat based. In both games this character can wield dual weapons.
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CoN: Wood Elf Ranger
D2: Amazon

This is the "Ranged" character. Both of them specialize in ranged weapons, and a number of their skills, including "multi shot (strafe in D2)" and the "Cold/Poison Arrow" skills are exactly the same in both games.
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CoN: High Elf Cleric
D2 : Paladin

These are the "holy warrior" classes. These classes also share a number of skills. CoN's "Holy Strike" is identical to D2's "Holy Bolt". Both classes also have "Shield Bash" and "Holy Armor", which are pretty much the same in both games.
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CoN: Erudite wizard
D2: Sorceress

Yep, once again almost exactly the same. The Erudite wizard has "Frost Bolt", "Bolt of Shock", "Frost Storm", "Fire Weapons", "Cone of Frost", and more, all of which are the same as the D2 versions (some with different names, but the same skill).
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The only other class in CoN is the Shadowknight. Although it is the most original class in the game, over half of its skills seem strangely like the Necromancer from D2 (Skeleton pets and Debuffs anyone?).

I'm not trying to say the whole game rips off D2. For example, D2 had a great story and great cutscenes (It is a Blizzard game after all). Also, D2 could support 8 players.

Perhaps playing this multiplayer could change my views on it, but... Meh.

Well, all in all, CoN is not a bad game. It's just if you have the option, I would go for D2 any day of the week. Like today for example.

Peace.