Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition

Eleven months ago, the Reaper of Souls expansion pack for PC versions of Diablo III was announced. This was closely followed by the console release of Diablo III a month later. I pre-ordered a copy with the intention of playing it at a later time. That time arrived, and I managed to reach complete most of the first act with my chosen character.

Then life and other games got in the way, and Diablo III sat neglected in my gaming box for a while. Recently I begun playing Diablo III as my primary game again (I often swap between two or more titles, when I get stuck, or have simply had enough of a particular genre), and now I am quite excited about the news regarding the Reaper of Souls console release in the form of the Ultimate Evil Edition.

OK, so the news hit nearly two months ago now, but I've been a little preoccupied with arranging a wedding and stuff. Last month the PlayStation exclusive items were announced, and once again they're centred around tie-ins with PS exclusive titles. This time round the games are The Last of Us, and Shadow of the Colossus, neither of which I've played. There is also an additional piece of armour available as a pre-order incentive, the Infernal Pauldrons, which should look pretty neat when paired with the Infernal Helm pre-order incentive from the console base game.

While I'm mentioning the base game, it will be included in Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition. That means if you have yet to get a copy of Diablo III for your console, all you'll need to buy in order to join in on the console experience is the Ultimate Evil Edition. Not a bad deal at all considering PS3/ Xbox 360 version is retailing at only R 419. The same retailer is selling the PC version of the Reaper of Souls expansion for R 379, and that excludes the base game, which is required to play, and will set you back another R 451.

For those who already own console versions of Diablo III, and only want to add the Reaper of Souls expansion, digital downloads will be available through the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live closer to the release date. I'm thinking that for only R 419, I may as well buy a physical copy of the Ultimate Evil Edition, as I like to have physical discs over digital downloads. Call me old-fashioned, or whatever, but if I ever decide to delete games from my PS3 harddrive, I want to know that I will still be able to play them again in the future, without having to waste time downloading them again.

That said, I'll wait and see what the price difference between the physical and digital versions of Reaper of Souls are before committing to either. At the moment though, I'm still leaning towards buying a physical copy.

Borderlands 2: Game of the Year Edition unveiled

In May I hosted a little poll to see which was was the preferred first person shooter (FPS) between BioShock Infinite, Borderlands 2, and Far Cry 3. The result was less than spectacular (with absolutely no votes being cast) and in the end I resolved the matter by picking up a copy of Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition (amongst other titles). 

I've spent a lot of my free time the last few weekends playing Borderlands (to the extent that I haven't even given the console version of Diablo III a go yet, but that's also partly due to the fact that I still have four more quests of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction to complete), and had already started making plans to buy the Deluxe Vault Hunter's Edition of the sequel. 

Now that Gearbox Software has announced a Game of the Year (GotY) Edition release of Borderlands 2, I will almost certainly get myself a copy, once I've finished the original Borderlands and each of its four downloadable content (DLC) packs. With the international release date set for 11 October, that gives me just short of a month to find the vault and achieve level 61 status in Borderlands. 

In the mean time, here's a look at what the Borderlands 2: Game of the Year Edition will contain:

• Borderlands 2 (Main Game)
• Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty
• Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage
• Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt
• Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep
• Creature Slaughter Dome
• Premiere Club Content
• Gaige, the Mechromancer character class
• Gearbox gun pack
• Golden Key
• Vault Hunter's Relic
• Krieg, the Psycho character class
• Collector's Edition heads and skins
• Ultimate Vault Hunter's Upgrade Pack 1

It looks as though the new Borderlands 2 bundle won't include the recently released Ultimate Vault hunter's Upgrade Pack 2: Digistruct Peak Challange, nor was there any mention of being granted early access to future releases, such as the Headhunter packs that are due out before the end of the year. 

Regarding the PlayStation 3 version, I'm particularly interested to know if the previous DLC will be included on a disc, or if it will need to be downloaded. If it's the latter, it may be worth me waiting a month or two after the release to see if it is re-issued, in much the same way as the Borderlands: GotY Edition. Either way, this is at the top of my list of games to get right now.

Diablo III expansion announced

While some PC gamers have been getting pretty uptight over the release of the console version of Diablo III, they can now rejoice as they too are getting some love from Blizzard Entertainment, in the form of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls.

For now the expansion looks to be a PC exclusive, but I'm pretty sure (read: really hoping) that Reaper of Souls will be released for consoles too.

The expansion includes a new hero-class, the crusader (which looks like a Black Templar from Warhammer 40,000), a fifth Act to the story, and no doubt a new arsenal of weapons and magical goodies to help slay some new monsters.

Ironically, I've spent the last few afternoon replaying Diablo II, so that I can complete Act V of Diablo II, before I get stuck into Diablo III in September.