Torchlight

The game is underwhelming, imo. And annoying at times. Targetting enemies is difficult for some reason, no matter the size. The names of items overlap on the ground and you are having troubles picking up what you want. Don't get me started on the voice-overs... every time you "spring a trap"... which is quite often... The only saving grace is design - both of locations and monsters. While same-y, it is still pleasing to the eye, imo. Music is also nice, though no memorable. I wish there were more tracks. Torchlight 1 barely has enough to keep you wanting to play till the end. Though you might lose interest halfway through. I almost did. PS. The biggest annoyance was the final boss. Those freaking adds...

Torchlight is essentially Diablo 1 with rock-solid Diablo 2 mechanics plus some added conveniences, like a pet that sells your junk and a full-time enchanter. You're the Champion of Torchlight and must conquer floor after floor of its corrupted mines to... blah blah blah... didn't matter to the devs because... The game lacks in only one place: Story. The Loot-aRPG genre isn't exactly famous for great stories, but Torchlight has a generic universe of magic, populated with generic creatures. Its defining fantasy rule is that the world runs on a magical substance called Ember. Something is corrupting it and the denizens of Torchlight's mine, justifying your holocaust against its countless denizens. Nothing mind-bending there. It is probably the most cut-and-paste background of all loot-aRPGs. Sadly, there is no codex or bestiary to deepen the universe or make it stand out. Torchlight is 20+ hours at the slot machine with a big let-down at the end because you walk away with nothing. Maybe that's the point. Torchlight tugs well at our greed for colors and pixalated shinys, but it's universe is utterly without substance. Its like a parable about greed. Well played, Torchlight devs, well played. One cannot even transfer a character or heirloomed item to Torchlight 2, further cementing that the quest for material gain is futile!

So, we all know about hack'n'slash type of games. Gaming reduced to its simplest form - click, loot, get more powerful, then enemies get more poferful, then you have to click and loot some more to get more powerful than the enemies. A neverending cycle, a Skinner box where conditioning makes us activate that pleasure brain-circuit again and again. That's what those games are. If you don't go into Torchlight seeking something it's not (for instance, an open-world game, an engaging and thoughtfull story, deep and carefull strategies) and you take it for what it is, my guess is that you'll probably have a blast like I did. The gameplay is Diablo-like, but without the frustration that often sets in in even the best of Diablo clones. Your inventory is full? Instead of running to town several hundreds of times to sell junk, you can send your pet, and a totally needless time-wasting is eliminated. (You have to admit that giving a ridiculously small inventory and having to go in person to sell stuff in a type of game where loot is the main reason to play is nothing short of sadistic!) You're afraid that you'll have to specialize too much and won't survive in higher difficulties without a very precise build (Diablo II, I'm looking at you)? No probs, the difficulty stays on the "fun" side of the slider, and every class has versatile skills outside of their main speciality, letting you customize your character as you like. You weep because you want to change your weapon, but you don't want to lose that cool socketable that is in it? Hey, it's ok, you can destroy the weapon to retrieve the socketable! The graphics are cutesy (the "Torchligh textures" mode makes them look even cooler), and the music is suitably atmospheric and sometimes even dark (the composer is Matt Uelmen of Diablo's fame). In short, Torchlight is a very pure, almost childlike, wonderful clicking-looting experience. Not much else going on, but hey, it's fun the way it is.

When you look at most "Diablo Clones", you expect a half hearted hack-and-slash adventure RPG. Well, this is actually fun. I still would consider it "Diablo-lite" in comparison, but for a fun OFFLINE romp, well worth it.

This action RPG is very much like the first Diablo but with lighter atmosphere. You have three character classes to choose from, you have a town as a hub and a multi-layered dungeon to explore. The cartoonish graphics and the caricature characters give the own style to the game and the game world is not so generic high fantasy. You don't need to do dungeon crawling alone. You can have your own pet to fight alongside with you and you don't need to worry about your pet to get killed. You can send your pet to the town to sell unwanted loot, and this effectively eliminates repetitiveness moving back and forth between the town and the dungeon. There are only three pet choices, but the mods will give much better pet selection. There are more things to do in the town than just buying and selling stuff. You can enchant your equipments to get new magical bonuses, you can combine your collected gems to better ones and you can do many simple side quests for rewards. However, there are not much useful stuff to buy, and there are no other ways to identify unknown items than having tons of identify scrolls. The random generation of the game gives replay value but it is quite problematic many times. Most of the loot is just junk with nonsensical +1 and +1% bonuses even at the last levels of the dungeon. There are some set equipments but I have never found more than two and that happened only once. Besides, there are a few minor annoyances and the game gets quite repetitive in the end, but it is still entertaining Diablo clone with easy accessibility. Also, there is a good mod support for the game.