With Diablo III currently decreasing the productivity of the world by 50%, I wanted to touch on one of those genres called Diablo clones; which basically means a game that is like Diablo, that looks like Diablo, that people sometimes call Diablo when they see them passing in the store and then sheepishly realize that they were mistaken, but is not Diablo. Gauntlet Legends is one such game.

You control one bulldozer... I mean hero... and plow through... I mean hack and slash through hordes of enemies in an attempt to reach the end of the level. The bulldozer metaphor works well though, because the levels are literally crawling with enemies. Enemies constantly spawn out of generators that you must destroy or they will keep on coming. This elevates the game above the normal hacker/slasher so that you have an additional task as opposed to simply killing everything that is green and moves and smells vaguely like a goblin.

The levels are enormous, with multiple paths through most of them, though they do settle into the stereotypes on occasion: the mountain level, the lava level, etc. But for every bland level there is an amazing level to make you completely forget about the lackluster ones: a battlefield complete with trenches, and hell. Yeah, this game takes you to hell. And you win. Or at least you can if you beat the boss. Each set of interconnected levels ends with a wonderful boss fight. These aren't your typical boss fights, these are you pitted against a gigantic foe who will crush you if you are not careful. I won't spoil them for you, but they are among the highlights of the game.

There aren't a lot of playable characters; four when you start the game and then you can unlock four more, but each is simply a reskinned version of a previous hero, but each one plays differently. The wizard and archer are ranged fighters and the warrior and valkyrie are close range. In addition they have their own super attacks that charge the longer you go without using them until they are room clearing attacks. Literally. You can clear an entire room with those attacks faster than a fat man clears a Christmas Turkey off his plate.

As you progress your character levels up, gradually becoming stronger, though the enemies scale up with you so you remain relative to them in strength. The real show of your power comes when you revisit past levels as your beefed up self and cut through your enemies like butter where once you cut through them like a burnt steak.

Loot plays a small factor, not so much as weapons and armor but as power-ups. There are things like a five way shot, or attack speed boost and things like that that offer up fun ways to play the game, but the whole using items bit is overly complicated. The box that shows what your inventory is currently selected on is very small and difficult to tell exactly what item is queued up, and it becomes difficult to maneuver to what item you want all the while a zombie munches on your face.

Diablo 3 this game is not, though from what I've been hearing about Diablo 3, you might be better off picking up this one and playing with your friends. At least if you want to play by yourself you don't have to be connected to the internet constantly. Well, you do if you are playing the game on Vizzed but... oh you know what I meant!

Great game really loved the way it played and the graphics weren't too bad at all, not a bad play at all, everyone should give it one try at some point, it least once, great game overall, just not a 5 out of 5 though.