iPhone/iPad review of the day: Dungeon Hunter 2 - a Diablo dupe that'll go berserk on boredom

On iPhone
Game: Dungeon Hunter 2
Price: $6.99 / £3.99
Size: 540 MB
Get it now on the iTunes store:US/UK

On iPad
Game: Dungeon Hunter 2 HD
Price: $6.99 / £3.99
Size: 467 MB
Get it now on the iTunes store:US/UK

Dungeon Hunter 2 HD wants to be Diablo 2 so bad it hurts. It copies everything it can—the looting, the leveling, the skill points, and classes, even the enemies reek of JV D2. But the thing is because of its touch screen controls, wildly different graphics, and altered combat system, at the end of the day DH2 (and its HD counterpart on iPad) feels nothing like Diablo 2. This is a good thing.

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See, Dungeon Hunter 2 isn’t about swipes and taps, accelerometers or gyroscopes. Instead, it focuses on dozens of hardcore gaming elements you just don’t see on phones much these days. If you want to learn skills by taking additional side quests you can do that. If you’d rather grind your way to a higher level by fighting the Cultists in the forest you can do that too. Or you can follow the ridiculously contrived plot all the way to a rendezvous with your evil brother. However you play, there are tons of unique skills and attributes to increase along the way.

Dungeon Hunter 2 utilizes a floating joystick (the kind that set the center wherever you place your finger) and a few buttons on the side for combat. If that’s not Diablo enough for you, you can set tap to move and attack (ala a mouse’s left click and right click) in the settings. Dungeon Hunter 2 even has options to play cooperatively online, via Gameloft’s Gameloft Live or Game Center. We connected quicker via Game Center matches but mileage may vary.

At $6.99 there’s no denying Dungeon Hunter will cut more from your iTunes gift card than your favorite Doodle Whatever™ games, but hardcore gamers need hardcore games. Dungeon Hunter 2 is everything you’d expect from a dungeon lootin’ RPG. Sure, it might be lacking in originality, but so was Diablo II and (from the looks of it) Diablo III, and we’re not complaining about that one bit.

Jan 28, 2010