Comments: DS1 had a wonderful sense of "along for the pretty ride", which is what you got in the caverns and forests, etc. That sense of visual intimacy and wonderment is not here in DS2 in the same way. The camera angle never shows enough horizon, at least not like it did in DS1, nor are the levels full of enough little bits you can blow to smithereens which developer Chris Taylor has charmed us with in the past. That said, v2.2 is stable, has some interesting shader effects (if a bit obvious and amateurish) and lets you form a balanced multiparty right away, along with Burrito, my favorite mule. The gear is attractive and the special sets are actually useful as the game matures. The play balance is dynamic and engaging, much more than DS1. If you liked DS1, you will play this and have some gripes...but you will always want to turn the corner to kill that next mini-boss and wait for that satisfying bass-heavy "thud" of a unique item!

Comments: I loved playing the first installment. The game look better and feels better in alot of ways. They added some things like special abilities ala DiabloII/D&D rule set. The only thing I didnt like about the game was the multiplayer portion. In the first game, I used to play the multiplayer game in single player mode. The map was awsome, you had a number of different ways to travel, made it feel less linear. In this insttallment, the multiplayer map is the same thing as the single player game.

Comments: Any RPG lover has to grab this game! A very engaging, fun, fast paced game! I looked foward to playing it everyday in my free time until I beat it, then I started all over. Chris Taylor is one of the best game creators of all time. Not enough character customization in my opinion, and the graphics are a bit needy(the game only runs at 800x600 at 30-45fps with my 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 6600GT computer). The gameplay is unsurpassed! You find secrets everywhere and the lore/plot of the game is great, not too much of it to make it boring like some other RPG's I've played. They even made the multiplayer worth playing. Buy and enjoy!

Comments: The game offers some nice new features. For one building your characters skills is more flexible and exciting. You can actually build up your character in such a way that you get the advantage over the enemy unlike DS1 where you always seem to stay at the same level as your enemy no matter what as you progress. Also you can replay single player game using the same character, in three different modes, mercenary, vetern, elite. However if you are looking for a good multiplayer game, this just isnt it yet. When I hosted DS1 games, I easily got 6 players joining in 15 to 30 mins. I can host a DS2 game and not get one player joining for 3 hours. And almost every hosted game in DS2 has one player on it, aka the host. After 2 months of having DS2 I tried hosting a game on DS1 again. In 15 mins I had 4 players joining. Most people have a hard time connecting either to host, or to join due to what seems to be an imposibility to configure the router. Ive not figured it out yet, and I have configured my router for several games before. So plan to disable your router if you want to play online. Also there is the notorious bug where once you get to vetern mode online, everything starts to get corrupted. They say this is a few people, but so far everyone that I have come across in DS2, has had the problem with corruption. In short you can no longer host or play games with your vet or elite character. When you try, your whole game crashes. Apparently the only fix is to replay through the whole game again starting with merecenary mode using your elite or vet character. But still there is the risk of it all going bad again. And apparently there is no plans to fix this right away.

Pros: Fun and easy to get into. Great Sequel

Cons: none

Overall Review: if you like fun RPG this is one to get

Pros: The game is enjoyable. It's a fun game to play the first itme through, and in terms of sidescrolling/RPGs this is one of the better ones. Graphics are pretty good for the kind of game that it is and I liked the story. Character skill building is cool in that it is tailored to every style of play.

Cons: Not customizable enough, the replay value to it is very lacking in that once you beat the game on mercenary it's the same story over again--some may like this, I see it as not being rewarding.

Pros: Addictive original rpg gameplay. Good LAN game! Pretty sweet special/critical attacks. Fun bosses.

Cons: The graphics may not be anything incredible, but imo good gameplay comes before "amazing" graphics. Still, the graphics are decent.

Overall Review: I don't care what anybody else says, it's worth the money. I'd like to see a DS3 sometime soon. Or an expansion...

Pros: Fun, pretty graphics.

Cons: Bugs that they have no plans to fix, and probably will not fix.

Overall Review: Yes, this is a fun game, with fairly nice graphics. But if you are buying it for the multiplayer part of the game, don't waste your money. There is a nice bug in the game that causes your character save to get corrupted when you're about halfway to lvl 100, and you will not be able to join anyone elses host after that corruption. You will only be able to host in multplayer. And since many other people's characters are corrupted too, they can't join your host anyhow. There are very few games online, maybe 20 to 40 and half of those will have passwords to prevent the corrupt characters from joining which has the side-effect of kicking other players out.