After sitting through several panels at BlizzCon and playing Diablo III, something became perfectly clear to me: Blizzard knows exactly what gamers want. Somehow the artists and designers at Blizzard Entertainment are able to bring a gamer's unknown desires to life in every game they make. And after releasing a kick-ass game they go on to improve it later with expansions and sequels. This is something I've always known but never was it made more apparent to me than while playing Diablo III. It is, in a word, awesome.

The big news from BlizzCon regarding Diablo III was the announcement of the Wizard class that joins the previously announced Barbarian and Witch Doctor classes. The Wizard is an evolution of Diablo II's Sorceress and fills the role of the "Glass Cannon" (a character capable of dishing out extremely high damage from range but unable to sustain many hits). The Wizard will have elemental damage spells featuring fire, ice, lightning, tornados and arcane power as well as a slow-time bubble spell that can slow projectiles and enemies in the area of effect.

I was able to try out the lower-level spells like Static Charge, Spectral Bolt and Magic Missile, but the most impressive (and my favorite) was Disintegrate. The Disintegrate spell is a ranged, fire attack that builds up on enemies the longer you hold the spell on them. The initial damage is low but over time it multiplies until the monster is reduced to a smoking pile of bones and ash. The visual for the Disintegrate spell is what sells it as the Wizard unleashes a constant stream of magical fire that they can sweep across enemies. It's more or less a laser with a high-pitched whine to go along with it. Since it can be fired anywhere at anything the targeting was a little tricky in the busy fights but that's something that Blizzard may tweak as they work on the game.

The Wizard's Disintegrate spell blasts through hordes of enemies.

According to Diablo III Lead Designer Jay Wilson, one of the core tenants of the game's development is powerful heroes fighting epic monsters. Reveling in that power is what makes Diablo III so much fun. The Witch Doctor doesn't just throw a fiery projectile at enemies with the Skull of Flame spell, he or she lobs a skull full of fire that hits the ground and explodes into the shape of a fire demon with outstretched arms damaging all nearby enemies. The Barbarians don't simply cut down enemies that crumple in a pile, they smash monsters sending the bloody remnants of them flying across the room. Even leveling feels like a big event. When a character hits a new level, what looks like a comet comes crashing into them with an explosion that shakes the whole screen. Every action is big, loud and exaggerated in a fantastic way.

The most noticeable change from classic Diablo gameplay to Diablo III is the number of combat options at your fingertips. The control scheme still feels like Diablo -- left-click to move, left-click to attack, right-click to use a skill or spell -- but now you can scroll the mouse-wheel to swap between two right-mouse button skills and four more spells are in the hotbar bound to the number keys. These changes make it very easy to employ different tactics and cooperate with others. Diablo III will have players moving around in combat to get a better position or to escape a dangerous spot instead of just standing and attacking all the time. And the changes to the controls are designed to make that possible.

In order to make room for those quick-access spells and skills, the potion belt from previous Diablo games has been sacrificed. There are still potions in Diablo III but they aren't the primary way to restore health and mana. They've been replaced with a mana pool that quickly replenishes outside of combat and health orbs that drop from monsters. Rather than sucking down health potions to stay alive in a big fight, players will now have to maneuver through the area to get to the dropped health orbs (which will also heal any nearby players). I was never a fan of the need to carry around a ridiculous pile of potions so getting away from that is a welcome change.

The Rune system also brings about a change from previous Diablo games. Spells and skills can now be augmented with runes that drop from monsters and are usable by all classes. These runes will allow players to further customize their character down to the individual spell level and not just by equipment and skill-tree builds. The runes not only affect the way a spell works, but also how it looks. For instance, if a Witch Doctor adds a multistrike rune to the Skull of Flame spell, the skull will now bounce and explode multiple times hitting more enemies. Using the same rune, the Wizard spell Teleport can be changed from an escape spell that jumps the character out of danger to an attack spell that deals damage to all nearby enemies with each hop. These runes are not permanently attached when you add them to a skill so you'll be able to mix and match as you collect them.

A Witch Doctor bombards his foes with the Skull of Flame.

Despite the complaints of some entrenched Diablo II fans, Diablo III looks and feels very much like the world of Diablo. The very first thing I noticed when the game loaded was a person taking dead bodies off a cart and throwing them onto a nearby fire. As he shouldered and carried each body, the ground was splashed and stained with more blood. My first thought was, "This definitely does not look like World of Warcraft." Yes, there is more color in Diablo III and the graphics could be described as "beautiful" with their painted look, but they never felt cartoony or friendly. Diablo III takes place in a dusty, dangerous and bloody world rendered wonderfully with a new 3D graphics engine.

Perhaps most impressive of all was that Diablo III ran like a dream on the systems at the show. Our Managing Editor Rob Wright and I both went to some lengths to find out the specifications of these machines but we were shut down at every turn. It's safe to assume that these computers were not bleeding edge but probably fell into the mid-to-high range system area. Considering that Diablo III isn't even in beta yet, it's extraordinary that it can look this good, render this many enemies and special effects and only experience a few spots where the frame rate noticeably dropped. It's a testament to the code behind the game that it's already so stable at this stage in the development cycle.

At this point I have no doubt that Diablo III will be fantastic. The game reviewer in me says, "Quiet! You must wait until you have a finished product to make such claims!" But it's hard to cast doubt on any Blizzard game especially after playing it for almost two hours. It makes the inevitable wait for Diablo III even harder to endure. And we will wait. As polished as the BlizzCon demo was, it was only a very small portion of the game. I do not expect Diablo III to come out in 2009, but maybe 2010. Maybe. Whenever it does finally hit stores, I will be there with cash in hand.

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