*My own development experience has led me to the conclusion that Torque is a horrible engine prone to problems with very specific causes that are near impossible to figure out.

At the moment, the games current zoom makes the game look worse than diablo II at 800×600 of which I must say that I still see more landscape in D2 then in Hinterland, in my opinion it’s pert close to being the crippling agent of Hinterland (the lack of any zoom levels)

Once you have completed a track and you wish to improve your time, finding that you made it to the second corner 2 seconds slower most likely means you won’t beat your previous score, so you give up and restart the race.

I think some of these issues still apply in multiplayer games, particularly RTSes, where more experienced players will expect the other players to leave when they think the outcome has been decided, even though the game could still go a number of ways. This is due to time issues as well, admittedly, and is one of the reasons why I wouldn’t quit a game of DotA just because I’m losing, but these feelings are still there.

I have been somewhat disappointed. I still have hopes, but that’s mostly because Hinterlands still sounds exactly like the kind of game I’d like to play. I’d recommend a demo, because as has been said, this is a game that some enjoy a lot, while some others are underwhelmed. Unfortunately, part of the reason that it’s an underwhelming game is that Hinterlands is little more than a demo.

Interface is a little confusing, but it’s easy to get around, once you realize that there’s really only a few things you can do– kill monsters, hire villagers, upgrade buildings, swap inventory, and drink potions. There are maybe seven different kinds of villagers you can hire, and most are just slight variations of a few functions: make food, make money, buffs, make inventory items, and village defense. By the middle of a long game, you have everything you want in your village, and you haven’t even used up all of your village slots.

Your own character is never able to do anything except move, cause damage, and take damage. Inventory items never affect anything other than your ability to do one of those three things.

The monsters are very beautiful, and there is a little bit of variety. Not all monsters are present in any given game (although most are). Unfortunately, there’s not much correlation between monsters and difficulty. You could start out fighting level 1 dark elves and end up fighting level 10 berserkers, or it could be the other way around. AI is bizarre, especially for a game where one of the only decisions is whether or not to run from an encounter; casters stay still, while melee types chase, making it a simple matter to separate an Orc warrior from his shamanic backup.

The concept is interesting, and with enough added content, Hinterlands could be a good game. But as it stands today, playing Hinterlands is like playing the first level of Diablo over and over again to get the best time. It’s a grind fest that never rewards the grind; it’s a fantasy game that fails to be fantastic.

(And yes, thank you, I’ve played on Hardcore. It’s not that different from one difficulty level to the next.)

It would also be nice to have a ’start over’ button as it seems to only allow you to continue a game?