On its merits as an action game alone, shines. Its weighty, brutal combat is instantly entertaining, and the steady drip of new and interesting ways to slaughter monsters by the screenfull makes leveling each of the five characters a joy.

Strong loot game; Weighty combat; Good performance; Local co-op

Average graphics

After causing calluses on clicking fingers far and wide on PC, Diablo III has come to consoles and swapped the mice and keyboards for gamepads. The result is an experience that feels somewhat different; clicking the screen to guide your heroes around isn't the same as having direct control of their...

Powerful abilities make combat enjoyable; Flexible; customizable character classes; Endless; alluring loot; Varied locations that cry out to be explored; Harder difficulty levels change up the game significantly

Weapon system flies in the face of traditional RPG logic; Local cooperative play is disappointing

Freestyle your way through a symphony of gratifying thwacks, crashes, thuds, tinkles, and dings. Experience the joy of a hammer smashing skeletons, a machinegun bow mowing down demons, a wizardard's magic beams frying whatever those things are, and a pet class shuffling along with her ridiculous and...

Blizzard has always been a PC-centric company, but with the release of Diablo III in May of last year, the control scheme hinted at something interesting – a potential console product.

New radial menu works perfectly; Full array of loot is represented here; All content is up-to-date with PC release; Soundtrack is still hauntingly beautiful; Local co-op works extremely well; Pick-up and play works for anyone; Cutscenes are still as beautiful as the first time I saw them

Some muddy textures; Infrequent minor framerate hitch; 4 player local makes for a cluttered screen

I have played the Diablo games from the start. I had the first Diablo on both PC and Playstation, Diablo 2 on the PC. Fantastic games and I even met my husband playing Diablo over Battlenet, when the clan Heavens Angels and Dojo were about.

The full Diablo 3 experience has landed on the consoles and it has lost none of its fantastic shine and depth of gameplay

As good as Diablo is ever likely to be when playing with a joypad, but even the new local co-op options are subject to necessary but debilitating compromises.

Satisfying combat with highly versatile customisation options and character classes; Smartly console-ified controls and interface, with a great new offline co-op option

Extremely linear and relatively short; Limited enemy artificial intelligence and awful storytelling; Controls and co-op work as well as they can but are still riddled with compromise

It's been over a decade since we braved the Burning Hells to pluck humanity from the Lord of Terror's gaping maw, and the games industry, Blizzard included, has changed quite a bit during Diablo's hiatus.

+ Changes from the PC version are smart and work well on 360; + Deep RPG elements lead to endless customization of skills and gear

- Framerate can get choppy when too many enemies and spell effects are on the screen; ? How did scorpions end up in other dimensions?

Blizzard, kings of the online PC game, make a long-awaited return to consoles with this PS3 and Xbox 360 version of last year's action-RPG smash. Although the first Diablo and StarCraft were ported to PlayStation and N64 respectively by other studios, this is the first console game Blizzard has made...

Superb; intense action role-playing; with an excellent new control scheme on consoles; One of the best couch co-op games you can buy; with every option you can think of; Brilliant character classes with spectacular skills; all freely customisable

Loot is better than the PC game; but still not as exciting as it might be; Cheesy story that's fun at first; but wears out its welcome on multiple playthroughs; Randomisation is a bit too gentle to really keep things fresh

When Diablo was originally released, I couldn't really get into it. The monotonous clicking and looting wasn't my thing. While the atmosphere was nice, I felt the gameplay was to bland and repetitive. I skipped it and stuck with the likes of Baldur's Gate and Morrowind for my RPG experiences.

Great fun in coop; Literally two clicks and you're in the middle of coop action; Great polish; Low system requirements; Cool classes

Stupid difficulty curve; Unrewarding itemization; Unrewarding character leveling; Activision game pricing; Lots of server down-time which makes it impossible to play even singleplayer; Boring in single player; Lag can easily kill you