eing back in the world of Diablo felt good even though this time I was forced to go it alone. I didn’t play the original Diablo single player much, only to complete quests once in order to update the webpage. Multiplayer was far more appealing but never the less I set out to complete Hellfire all on my tod.

On first impressions town seemed unchanged but on investigation I found a new resident, Lester the Farmer and two new structures. The first a small dome down on the south side of the town below Farnham the Drunk and the second a new grave in the churchyard. These would become the entrances to the two new sets of levels, the Festering Nest and the Demon Crypts.

As these entrances were inaccessible and Lester deemed me too lowly to provide with a quest the only option available was to use the church entrance to the original Crypts. I completed the quests through to The Black Mushroom in the Caves at which point Lester came up with the goods and I could eventually get on with the new levels. It seemed that my character had to be at a certain level before being able to venture to the new levels. You can find details of the old quests here and the new here.

As you’d expect with this series the levels have bags of atmosphere and in particular the music for each really does help with the ambience, better I think than the soundtracks in Diablo. You can listen to the tracks for yourself here. The levels seemed smaller this time round and level 2 of the Demon Crypts was noticeably smaller with about 8 monsters.

In both sets of levels you’ll find totally new monsters. It soon becomes apparent why your character must gain a certain level of skill before attempting these levels. There are the usual monsters of the ‘big girls’ blouse’ variety but there are some stonkingly hard beasts to slay. One of the quests you’ll find yourself having to retrieve Theodore, a playmate of Celia, from a Bug in the Hive. This ‘Bug’ will literally try and slap ten bails out of you (great sound effects here) with a fierce ‘knock-back’ thrown in for good measure. One particular beastie which first appeared like a real cutie was the Flesh Thing. He approaches you very slowly making a tiny squeaky noise, "ahhh" you think to yourself. His body is crooked and deformed so you’re loath to set about him with your chosen weapon. When he does eventually get to you two smacks from his over-sized claw and you’re a gonna. I felt pretty foolish when I realised that the cute squeaky sound was in fact a set of casters in place of a missing foot. Nice touch I thought. All in all the monsters are well balanced in Hellfire

In Diablo I played the Rogue and Warrior and it was pretty obvious what their strengths were and how to develop the character. With the Monk however it was difficult to know which way to go. I started by sticking to a staff but as I got deeper into the levels the best staff I could get hold of just wasn’t up to the job so I switched to a sword and then an axe. One thing I noticed when swapping through a couple of weapons was that without a weapon in my hand my damage level was higher, even if the weapon had extra attributes. Take a look at the screen shots to see for yourself. So at this point I ventured back down to the Hive reluctantly relying on hand-to-hand combat. I wasn’t disappointed however; the Monk’s sidekick is a force to be reckoned with. I actually completed the majority of the Hive using my feet and a couple of spells. Only when I got a major piece of equipment did my damage raise by two points.

The spells which I found to be the most useful were Warp, which will teleport you to the level’s exit. Handy when you find yourself surrounded. Without a doubt the best spell is the new Lightning Wall which is devastating. . You can find descriptions of the spells I discovered here.

Many folk were disappointed, myself included, when Blizzard announced that the next installment was to be single player only. Unfortunately Blizzard’s Battle.net programmer was tied up with Starcraft so Synergistic Software temporarily took the torch and they’ve done a commendable job. There’s always a danger, when contracting out that the ‘flow’ of a game is lost but Hellfire is true to the original and worth it at £14.99.

And if you're still thinking to yourself "But why only single player?" here is a email recieved from Sierra clarifying the reasons:

"Blizzard offered the original Diablo program code to Sierra for the creation of a true expansion and continuation of the Diablo universe for the single-player. This experience offers a new "expanded" storyline, new monsters, a new character set and an array of new features -- all perfectly integrated into the existing art and programming. Creating a similar product for the multiplayer experience creates unique issues. First of all, battle.net would require a major overhaul, separating the "Diablo" players from the "hellfire" players. Hacking (hellfire players accessing Diablo games) is an issue that could negatively change the face of battle.net permanently. Perhaps most importantly, the development time and online play balancing for a  multiplayer expansion pack would delay the release for many, many months (with Diablo II in the works, we're certain that people would like to experience at least some new gameplay before the sequel)." -Thanks, Ryan, Sierra Tech Support

Single Player or not, I had lots of fun with it and therefore it deserves 8/10.

Mods have been made for Hellfire which you can find over at DiabloMods. There is a Hellfire gameplay avi available here.

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You can see some reviews from other players here.