Diablo 3? Let's get drunk and play Diablo 2.

While I am somewhat interested in Diablo 3, it's just easier to find an old copy of D2, with the expansion pack if possible, and just drink and play that. Considering: D3 is a 12 gigabyte download and will murder anyone with a bandwidth cap; D2 installs in under 2 GB with the expansion, offers similarly limitless possibilities for time wasting and compulsive gameplay.

Probably the best part is that 60 dollars can buy a decent amount of liquor, which makes getting drunk and playing Diablo 2 cost-effective compared to drinking and playing Diablo 3. Analysts have offered the ludicrous explanation that although the game will sell very well, it will not outlive its predecessor.

Personally I don't know what I'm going to do. Nothing even seems real anymore in this brave new world.

Diablo 3 + 18 hours. Servers are down, the title screen and introduction cinematic were nice, there were plenty of graphics options and I can't play but I can fiddle around for optimum (imaginary) performance. My attempts at a screencapture were  failures, and since Diablo 3 does not run in the Steam framework, pressing F12 did nothing.

The second login attempt was successful, I had to accept a terms of use contract. Then another one, and then a third one, at which point I thought the game was bugging out. Then I got to the character creation screen. The options, it seemed, were tenfold. Five classes, four of which I am unfamiliar with, and two gender options... long gone are the days when an assassin was a woman and there was nothing to do about it.

Ongoing coverage may follow, especially if the game ceases to function normally or servers go down again.

Diablo 3 + 20 hours. The game alt-tabs very smoothly, perhaps more smoothly than any modern game I've recently played. This is extremely surprising and I post immediately about it. More exciting discoveries remain to be found, and the idea of drinking and playing Diablo 2, in which you can't even break the scenery to pieces, seems laughable.

Diablo 3. 24 hours later. Battle.net has been killed and will return whenever.