• Friday is payday (my first full payday at new job)
• It’s a long weekend
• The sun is shining, and promises to do so for a while
• Sunshiny times = super awesome scooter riding
• Don’t wanna ride solo? MINI MINI MINI MINI MINI MINI MINI

I should be excited about all or any of the above, but I’m not – I’m too busy being excited at the thought of holing myself up in the Lady Cave  on Friday evening with 12 litres of Diet Coke, a bag of Bachelor Chow, and DIABLO FUCKING THREE.

I *love* the Diablo series. Until last night, I had avoided all trailers and screenshots of the game; not so much out of suspense but more out of fear: what if they changed it super lots and now it sucks? There are few things more heartbreaking than the release of a sequel of a beloved game, only to find that the gameplay experience has changed too much and it just isn’t as fun as the previous version. It’s happened more times than I can count:

• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was amazing; Prince of Persia: Warrior Within featuring New Angry Prince was terrible
• Fallout 3: One of my favourite games of all time; Fallout: New Vegas gave me negaboners
• Katamari Damacy/We Love Katamari – the first two games in the series were riddled with bugs, but positively oozed hilarious good times. Newer Katamari games are hard and feature a mean King of All Cosmos which makes me sad.
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS was groundbreaking and awesome; The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks put me to sleep
• SSX games before Blur: hours upon countless hours of fun. SSX Blur and onward: oh god why
• Little Big Planet: super awesome. Little Big Planet 2: super annoying.

I’m sure there are others, but I can only think of one game off the top of my head where this formula worked in reverse: Jet Grind Radio was good, but Jet Set Radio Future was AMAZING.

I’ve been trying to avoid getting ridiculously excited about game sequels, because I’m almost always disappointed. Logically, I know it would be hard or impossible to recreate the exact moment in time that made something so memorable for me, but I never keep hoping that I’ll be able to recapture the fun I had previously in the new game.

I had insane amounts of fun playing Diablo I/II/expansion pack, and I’ve been looking forward to III for years. Last night I finally caved and watched some of the Character Class videos online, and .. well, it looks like the Diablo games I’ve known and loved. Reviews are mixed all over the internets, but I’ll wait to form my own opinion: on Friday, I’m picking up a PC copy (for Ed) and a Mac copy (for me), and I plan to stay a while and listen.

It’s been a long, long time since I was this excited about a video game.

so mighty