Torchlight

Reasonably beautiful, but not breathtakingly so. Extremely boring. Breathtakingly so. Similar to some of the missions in Warcraft 3, except that was interesting because it had a plot. This is... click-click-click, killmonsterstakeitems. A 12-year-old might be interested. Or not.

Whether you played Torchlight back in the day or today, this game doesn't deserve the hype at all. Just because some Diablo (and Fate) designers got involved in the project doesn't make it the "spiritual successor" of Diablo. This dull game is a pale copy of Diablo.

I have started Torchlight and abandoned after a few weeks. Went back to it after completing and enjoying Titan Quest. Torchlight is such a bland game even comparing to an old TQ. I don't really like this cartoony graphics. Map is really bad. Drops obstruct vision. When there are a lot of action it just looks like a huge mess. Story telling is very weak. Yeah, i have played Diablo many years ago, but i think i have enjoyed it quite more that Torchlight.

The original Diablo was a dark gothic game. Since its release many clones have been developed. Torchlight is one of the better ones. It has very good graphics. The gameplay is smooth and nice. Hovewer, it lacks depth. The dungeons have differnet tilesets but share a common architecture. The skill system offers nothing new to the already flawed Diablo 2 skill tree. The visuals are too cartoony for my taste. Comparing Torchlight to Diablo is a joke. While they have common traits, the visuals and music set Torhlight apart. It's a good project but is lacking in many departments.

Buy this, if you like to hack and slash 35 levels down to kill whatever you find there. That being said, that's the whole story. It feels arcade like and can be fun for what it is. Easy to learn, easy to play, nice to see the different level layouts. Stay away, if you like depth, character interaction or at least some other characters than a quest giver. You're pretty much alone in this game, except of the "puppets" acting as service stations (mainly shops). Thank god, you have a pet companion. The manual is a real pain (bloated and badly written). Skip most of it, start playing and use one of the Wikis out there to get the information you need. It's not that much anyway.