Diablo III is a game about killing monsters.
In a way, this is strange, because the goal of the game – defeating the evil hordes – is directly opposite the purpose of the game – having fun fighting evil hordes. The player has no interest in creating a peaceful, evil-free world. The player wants the act of killing. The monsters exist to die.
But if you don’t get too philosophical about it, Diablo is a hell of a lot of fun. Despite (or maybe because of) the fact that you spend most of your time mindlessly clicking the mouse.
See some gold you want? Click it. Need to kill a monster? Click it. Want to go to a certain place? Click it!
Sure, there’s some strategy – probably more at the higher difficulty levels. But for where I’m at now, it’s a whole lot of point-and-click, with very few neurons firing.
Part of the appeal is the sheer simplicity of it. No moral ambiguity; you’re fighting demons. No complicated exploration; you follow the map to the highlighted spots. No plot worthy of the name. Just a good old-fashioned monster beatdown.
Life is complicated; games don’t have to be.
Even the tactics of the monsters rarely change. For the most part, they just run at you.
Which is surprising, really. Even at my lowly Level 17, I am rather imposing. A shining ray of light springs from my hand, cutting down foes. Lightning crackles about my brow. A nexus of energy hovers above my head.
Yet wave after wave of zombies, cultists, bugs, spirits, and demons shows not the slightest hesitation in climbing over the bodies of their comrades to launch themselves into the killing field that is myself.
Courteous of them, in a way. They’re thinking of me, not themselves. They know I’m all about monster-killing, and they’re happy to oblige.
Well, I’m rambling. I guess my point is: Diablo III is fun, even if it doesn’t make you think.
What game are you playing right now?
Brian D. Buckley 
Skyrim.
Bethesda are tricksy little goblins, yes they are! They took Oblivion, one of my favourite games ever, and added dragons and a Norse flavour; therefore making it even closer to covering my interests.
Then they released the Dragonborn add-on, to make sure my love of Lovecraftian horror didn’t draw me away.
I’ve heard good things about Skyrim.
League of Legends.
So many characters to choose from each with their unique abilities. A 5v5 team can have tons of different combinations. It’s a game of endless improvement and learning. After each match you are improved whether in your knowledge of the game, your own champion, the opponents champions, or the possible item/equipment combinations.
Of course you can just get randomly matched to a team full of douchebags and lose….that happens too..lol.
One of the only negatives is that it’s not an game you can play for 20 minutes or pause or leave. You need to allocate 45 min to an hour of uninterrupted playtime per match. So if you’re busy you won’t get to play all that much. Still fun though.
Sounds cool 🙂
Your philosophical point at the beginning reminded me of an episode of the TV show Get Smart. Control (the good guys) had captured all the agents of Kaos (the bad guys) and put them in jail.
Then the Control agents realize two things: they have nothing to do, and their budget is going to be cut. So, they have to work out a clever plan to break all the Kaos agents out of prison and get them back to doing evil. 🙂
“Life is complicated; games don’t have to be.”
I’m not a gamer, but I’m a big fan of the Resident Evil movies, and they sort of illustrate this point. The first one is pretty much “We’re trapped underground and there are zombies and the clock is ticking toward us being locked in forever, and there are zombies.”
It’s a fun movie, but later movies in the series moved quickly into more of an action/adventure mode, which was a very good thing. Sometimes the zombies barely show up at all.
I think movies have to be more than just shooting zombies. As with many activities in life, that’s probably more fun to do than to watch.
Yeah, a lot of things that are fun in games are boring in movies. Or even boring in watching someone else play the game.