Having vanquished the nemesis of the first act of Diablo II using the necromancer, we proceeded to brave the next challenge of the Diablo II beta: to win it once again using a hardcore character. A hardcore character only lives once - if he dies, he's gone forever. Actually, he's dumped back into a Battle.net chat room as a ghost, at which point you can lament your character's demise and ponder just how many hours you've squandered as a result. Fortunately, you'll doubtless get sympathetic shoulders to cry on from many other Diablo II players who'll have experienced the same thing, since the hardcore option is so unusual and unique that virtually everyone will want to try it out.

　　Presently, you can create a hardcore character only after you've beaten the first act. Blizzard informed us that in the final version, you'll have to win the whole game in multiplayer mode before the hardcore option is enabled. Fortunately, your first win is really a matter of time, thanks to Diablo II's convenient use of waypoints to save the progress of your quest between multiplayer sessions.

　　Playing in hardcore mode has a very different dynamic and a lot more tension - you invariably feel a sense of impending doom whenever a crowd of monsters appears and surrounds you. We opted to play as a barbarian the second time around, whose hearty frame we hope will be able to withstand anything his enemies throw at him. And together with his ferocious ambidextrous attacks and his chilling war cries, we're confident that he'll go far. But he's gotten hurt pretty bad several times already, because it's easy to die in Diablo II in spite of everything - so, frankly, we're starting to fear for the barbarian's life. Take a look at the attached screenshots and see how he's fared so far in his quest to thwart Andariel.