The demo for Runic Games’ charming-looking hack ‘n slash RPG Torchlight is up on Steam, and should be appear on non-Steam mirrors soon too. The full game is also out this week on Runic Games own site, and we’ve been delving into the randomly generated dungeon levels so that we can offer our own verdict later in the week.
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Yay! This will hopefully last me until the L4D2 pre-order demo finally comes out.
it’s good, but three classes is kind of weak.
Thats right, judge the game by a number on the back of the box. This half life 2 only has 10 guns, i’m getting boarderlands.
It’s also £15 and will no doubt get modded. You people want the moon and more for a budget price these days don’t you?
I don’t want the world.
I just want your half.
But I wouldn’t say this was budget priced but more rid range. To me budget is £0-£9.99, mid range is £10-£25, full price is £26-£34 and £35 is taking the piss Infinity Ward. Anything over £10 requires at least one reviewer I trust saying I need this.
£0-£9.99, mid range is £10-£25, full price is £26-£34 and £35 is taking the piss Infinity Ward.
WHAAAAAAAAAT?
a small currency conversion tells me that £9.99 comes to about $22 NZ dollars, £25 comes to 55 NZD, and £34 comes to $75 NZD.
Over here in NZ, i’m paying $25 for Torchlight / $50-60 per game on steam, and $100 for ANY game in a store. heck, MW2 for PC clocks in at $125. sure, shipping costs are a problem, but seriously, that’s a pretty big margin for any game, if you’re paying about $70 equivalent and i’m paying $100 a game.
Consider it the “Having the best beaches” tax.
He’s got a point there. There has to be SOME perk to living in wretched Blighty after all.
Don’t judge it by the number of classes. You’ll find that each class is incredibly versatile.
Note that there are only three classes, but their skill trees are ones of different classes.
Example: The alchemist has typical mage/sorceress skills, but also minion ones from the necromancer.
The vanquisher has ranger/amazon skills, and rogue skills in a different tree.
Not sure about the last one, haven’t played it enough.
Fact is, they have as many skills as a typical Diablo character, but their 3 skills trees are really from separate “diablo archetypes”. And having a necromancer with mage spells is just priceless :-) (plus, the initial imps to summon make sounds like from Chuzzle. At that point iI switched from demo to full game :-] )
Jemre, can’t you get someone to send you games from abroad? Postage from the UK would only be about £3. Also (not that I have used them) sites like play-asia seem to have prices similar to UK websites, plus about £3 for the cheapest shipping to NZ.
Jemre, if it’s any consolation, that’s roughly similar to what we pay for Steam and retail games in Sweden, and we don’t even have them nice beaches ;)
@skal natural blonde tax
@jemre: if it’s any consolation you live in one of the most beautiful places on earth,
@skalpadda: LOOK AT YOUR WOMEN. AND YOUR BONE STRUCTURE.
Both of you need to be paying more for something.
FML.
@Jemre
With all due respect, you have no right to complain, none! <.<
In New Zealand, quality of life is better than the UK by all officious observations that I've read, but not only that the cost of living is apparently much lower, too. It only seems to be the cost of certain luxuries that gets a tad silly on times.
And considering that you live in such an amazingly beautiful place, and one that continues to taunt me with its haunting allure, from the first time I've seen it, even up to recent years (damn you, Dog's Days of Summer, damn you Blotch!), and that I'm stuck in the UK for now with no hope of moving there in sight, I have absolutely no sympathy.
None.
Zero.
Zilch.
Nada.
Zip.
Though if you want my place in shitty Britain with my less expensive games, in exchange for your place in marvellous New Zealand, and your mildly more expensive games, then I'm up for trading places.
And that you wouldn't want to come back here shows you frankly have no right to complain. Now enjoy your higher priced games and lump it! If it gets you down, just go bloody outdoors.
Hmf!
Wait….. I’m in NZ and all I see is 4 walls and a computer monitor.
How does beautiful scenery justify us paying more :p
Bought it on Steam and played a couple of hours yesterday. It’s one of those games where you think “ok, just one more level and I’ll stop” but end up playing more anyway.
Gameplay is fun and graphics look good (some areas look like they’re copied from the released Diablo 3 screens). If you’ve played Fate (or Mythos) and liked it, then you’ll surely like Torchlight. Most gameplay features from those games (fishing, random dungeons, lots of loot, transformable pet,…) are available in Torchlight.
The “hard to stop” is increased by the fact that you don’t need to go to the city as much as in a regular “Diablo-like”, thanks to the pet, going to sell your wares when your inventory is full. Much harder to stop when you don’t have to take a pause from killing hordes of monsters :-]
Although this game is at same time very “stop when you want” friendly, because it saves your current position, and monster status for the floor when you leave. But it doesn’t make it easier to leave :-)
Would be nice if you could play either sex in any of the catagories, rather than stuck staring at a male bum for 25 hours simply because they couldn’t do another model.
5 hours and counting. It’s like crack.
…Bum crack?
Can I make a USA-centric joke?
“is like crack”. No, no no.. Is “like crack …on steroids”
Also, after my VPN visit to USA, I think I have see the game already for sale _much cheaper_ there.
Oh good.
Another Action-RPG.
Are there really that many action rpg’s?
I mean compared to first person shooters, real time strategy games, rpgs, JRPGs, platformers, MMO’s etc. ?
Yea, I’m thinkin’ Action RPGs have been scarce lately… the 800 opund gorilla (D3) excluded.
iIf it had multiplayer I would be there, but as its single player only – and Dragon Age is looming – does not bode well for its chances methinks.
Yep, this is basically Diablo 2.5, and it’s no bad thing at all. It’s got that “one more level” thing nailed absolutely, and for £15 – less than a night in the pub – it’s pretty great value, too.
Plus, the system requirements are incredibly scaleable, and there’s a very promising looking “Netbook Mode” button on the option panel.
More like Fate 1.5. Fate was…fun for an hour or so, then it revealed itself as a boringly simplistic clickfest it was. There was no character planning of Diablo2, no tailoring equipment to match enemies, just fishing…i wonder if this turn out to be the same kind of disappointment.
Diablo 2 was infinitely better than Fate ever was. Fate also had the kind of idiot creator that decided his game will always install to C:\Program Files, regardless of what customer wanted.
amazing game, played it a little yesterday and all night tonight. most people checking out the demo will be going for the buy option when they’re done there I’m betting.
Another game that reminds me of Nox… I must dust it off the shelf and play it again sometime.
It’s not even nearly in the same ballpark as Dragon Age, other than that they both have “RPG” as part of their genre title.
Aaah, we forgot that you already played Dragon Age and Torchlight. Surely you must be the one to give us the best verdict!
What the fuck does Dragon Age have to do with this?
Guys I heard Oblivion and Diablo are 2 different games, confirm/deny. Also I’m dumb.
Eh, I think you’re both ripping on the wrong guy. He’s trying to say the same thing you are.
Never really played one of these before at all but something struck me as – ooh, this looks like it could be amusing. It is – that 1 more syndrome had me playing for over 2 hours when I had something more critical (dinner) to do instead. Graphics and ease of getting used to is all rather well managed and the multitude of weapons and weird things are all amusing. Definite win from me – more so with the ludicrous cheapness.
This one snuck up on me from out of nowhere. Very arcade like but still has some nice loot options outside of the dungeon fighting itself. The three classes can each be leveled up in three slightly different ways, so there is a fair amount of replayibilty here, along with the fact that the levels and loot is randomly generated with each new char.
As a newbie to this type of game i’ve had a great time.
All you need to know is that you can dual-wield wands.
“I am Grimm Shado,” said Grimm Shado, his triple wand claws extending. “And I am here to take it to the limit.”
You’ll rue this day, and rue it hard
Thank you both, you improved my morning immeasurably.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/19/
Lots of fun, support an independant developer and buy into a game which is going to have a fairly active mod scene for a time.
Where’s the downside?
Although with the low system requirments and ‘just 15 minutes’ mentality, I can see this destroying productivity at workplaces across the globe.
I wish you hadn’t reminded me of that… I had installed one of my old x1900 512’s in my work machine (to help with dual monitors) and that should be more than fine. Uhoh…
Been playing it for a few hours now, definitely awesome for a budget-priced game.
Any game in which you can transform your dog into a blob of jelly is instant purchase for me…
By overfeeding it?
game is fun and 3 characters are enough for diversity considering your skills, attributes and possible items. Modding is fully incorporated, you can make your own levels to randomly get chosen by the main game, the design is oh-so cute and cuddly and it runs on practically any PC ! a sure winner, me loves me my Torchlight
Played a few hours last night and had a lot of fun. It really nails what made Diablo so addictive, and the various tweaks to the interface (especially the send-dog-to-town button) take a lot of the hassle out of dungeon crawling. If I were being picky, I’d like to see a more complex/varied skill tree and the tiling in the dungeons is a bit repetitive, but that’s the nature of these games, especially one that costs £15.
Definitely very good for the price, apart from the fact that Diablo 2 is better and cheaper, I guess.
I’m having issues with the fact that its Alt-key show-everything function allows item names to overlap, so you still can’t click anything, but the flipside of that is that you can get your pet to sell vendor trash in town for you, so there’s no real need to discriminate.
Combat is much meatier and satisfying than Diablo so that’s a big plus for me. It also doesn’t look ancient, that helps too.
Great fun, played 5 hours straight last night and will be hacking away the rest of the day probably when I get home. I must say I prefer the single-dungeon structure to Diablo II’s overworld-type structure for some reason. Also, cartoony WoW-esque visuals and ultra-low system requirements FTW.
I’m a sucker for these types of games and the price makes it way too hard to say no. Between this and Borderlands I may well fall clean off the face of the earth…
If you haven’t already bought this game, you should totally do so now. It’s pure awesome.
This person speaks the truth. If the year ended now I’m pretty sure Torchlight would be my game of the year. It’s incredibly well made, like the team were so comfortable with what they were trying to accomplish that they pulled it off with effortless skill. I keep starting over, making new characters and builds and each one is at least as fun as the last, with some incredibly satisfying abilities to use.
What amazes me is that pre-production for Torchlight started in August 2008.
Bought the full version, loving it.
Bought it, played it, crashed it, lost my save in it.
Bugger.
It’s the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiife
Picked this up yesterday and must say its is quite the game to tide me over until D3. With no coop its a fine distraction and perfectly good for short bursts of gaming. Combat is fluid, Skilltrees seem to be developed very nicely with the possibility to engage in interesting and different builds. Graphics look very nice, although a bit too cartooney for my taste. Currently indulging myself in a Dual-Pistol wielding Necromancer. Those velvet imps really know how to party. Oh, best pet mechanic ever.
Also bought the full version on Steam yesterday, and I must say that I really like it. I’ve been trying to get back into Diablo II for the last couple of months and for some reason I wasn’t really able to.
Torchlight is much more easier to get into (IMO), of course it is easier on the eyes, as it has been mentioned the save and quit system is the definition of perfection and with its ridiculously low requirements, it is the perfect game for my laptop.
The combination of the save system and the requirements also makes it a perfect game on the go, when you have to wait at the airport or something. At the current price, it is more than a deal, it’s a steal. In my opinion, they could have charged another 10 bucks and I would still have been entirely satisfied with my purchase. If you like diablo-like gameplay, I couldn’t recommend it enough.
Between that and Borderlands, I’m knee-deep in loot :).
Question : How do you know Torchlight was made by the FATE guy ?
Answer 1 : By default it tries to lodge itself in your Documents & Settings directory. Thats just retarded…
Answer 2 : Even if you choose another drive – it will still take up full space on C drive during installation. Thats inefficient.
Answer 3 : If you by chance DIDNT have extra 500 megs on C drive the installation will abort, and you wont be able to install the game again, because it will claim to be already installed. Thats …oh bugger…
Answer 4 : You look at support forums and get surprised at how many “cant launch game”, “game crashes”, “runtime error” topics are already there.
Hmm… that’s not very good, especially point #3. I currently have only 800 megs on my C: drive, and often dip below 500. But I have plenty of room on my other, 500gig hard drive.
People, its called InstallShield. Its been around forever.
You do realize that the installer is not the game, is likely written by some intern or other because it’s a shit job nobody wants to do, or just bought off the shelf? Not that this is an excuse for broken installers, but some folks are talking like the lead designer is somehow responsible. Plenty of good games and other applications have had terrible installers.
If this had local multiplayer, I’d pass on Diablo 3. Seriously.
I’ll add in with the chorus of praise, only played through the demo so far (three times, different classes) and will be buying it as soon as I get home. It’s absolutely charming and if the full game keeps up what the demo starts, with the extra possibilities of great mods in the future, I can see this being one to come back to for random play sessions for a long time to come.
I did encounter some issues with the demo, the first NPC you escort didn’t follow me at one time and my pet got stuck (easily fixed by just sending him to town and he was back in a minute).
Yeah the NPC you first escort is bugged. The only time he followed me was with my Vanquisher. The quest can still be completed but you don’t see the dialogue as he isn’t there :P
Read a dev saying they were fixing that asap on their site. He seemed genuinely upset the bug had slipped through, bless ‘im :)
So far I have clocked in over 6 hours on this game, I had things to do today. :(
I don’t know, man. Two Wands? That’s pretty pimp.
Dual wielded big choppers with all manner of gems and upgrades make for amusement. Dog is well nifty for clearing the garbage from your backpack.
I want a dog to sell my vendor trash in Borderlands. Or maybe my own pet midget psycho.
You’re forgetting one thing.
Make that three things.
On each hand.
So, six things total.
I bought it last night. I haven’t been to bed yet and I blame Matt Uelmen for my all nighter. I hear his music and feel compelled to stay a while and listen.
Deckard Cain, make haste and go to bed already!
By the way, I noticed that the The Witcher: Extended Edition Director’s Cut is for ~15 euros on Steam. So for those who haven’t already, maybe that’s the final push? For me it was.
Its funny because I finally got stuck into the Witcher this last weekend having had it since release. Probably Dragon Age’s imminent arrival that prompted it. Its really an excellent game and i’ll have to try to stop playing Torchlight to finish it :P
If you like Roguelike , Hack&slash, action RPG. This game nails it on the head.
Its much closer to original Diablo, than even Diablo 2.
Perfect game and instant classic.
I warmly recomend it. And 20$ goes a long way to help this great team of developers.
Isn’t Oblivion the 3D version of Diablo then? Never bought Oblivion because I already have Diablo 1 and 2…
Sigh, sorry, my previous post had to be a reply, but for some reason the “Reply” button didn’t work…
Diablo is the game version of obsessive compulsive disorder.
Oblivion is 3D Diablo in the way that Crysis is 3D Space Invaders – yeah – so save your money by all means…
I’m gonna download this badger, I think. I don’t think I’ll be interested enough to get the full game, but I’ve always liked a good, play-again demo.
I picked this game up last night – I was considering it, I have a crappy laptop I use when I’m travelling and I could use some games to play. Found it had a demo. (I love demos!) and picked it up on the strength of that. So much fun, and shooting people with a pistol only for them to EXPLODE is arcanum/fallout levels of overkill. (arcanum takes the precedence because even though it came later, you could punch wolves in half.)
I bought this last night and leveled to 10 in one sitting. It’s a great game.
As a word of advice, set the difficulty slider to at least “hard”. There’s just no challenge whatsoever on normal. I don’t know if I can change the difficulty now, but if I can’t, I’m going to start over.
There was discussion on the forum about difficulty switching, and the devs saying that if they implemented it (not sure if they did or didn’t) it’d label you as a cheater when you switched, even when going to a higher difficulty.
This is my first time playing this kind of game, so “normal,” though not providing much of a challenge, suite me pretty well. It apparently gets much more difficult deeper in, too (I’m only down to the fourth level).
Right now, I’m playing it on a casual level. Normal difficulty. Story-mode so to speak. Interesting thing I noticed, that when you die, and I’m not ashamed admitting it, you can choose to a) resurrect right there & then with a moderate penalty, b) resurrect at the start of the level with a big penalty, and resurrect in town with no penalty.
Also when re-playing unfinished chapters (option c, see above) suddenly there were phase beasts that open portals to hefty hard mini-dungeons. Interesting concept.
Especially nice is that other chest in town where you trade stuff with your alternate characters. I wish there was something like this in Diablo II.
Thanks, I just went over there to check it out briefly. It looks like you do get the “cheater” tag for changing difficulty on the fly. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds onerous enough to make me start over.
The character item trade chest is there in Sacred 2 as well. Probably others.
I bought it as soon as I could and couldn’t be happier. Some of the things I would like to see changed hopefully through the modding is having either sex to play, a camera that rotates and that would be it. As far as gameplay goes its awesome and I even put it on my netbook and plays pretty dang fluidly.
a boringly simplistic clickfest
Can we please all agree to never use the word “clickfest” again?
The only PC games that aren’t “clickfests” are bad console ports that don’t let you use the mouse.
And Infocom games. “Zork? Trinity? Those are such typefests. The whole game is just type type type type type.”
If it had two player co-op I’d already own it. As it stands, I’m trying to figure out whether it will sustain my interest sufficiently to make it worth while. Certainly for the price the quality of the title is top notch, and I did get through both Titan Quest and Diablo 2 once solo (and then again MP), but I’m not sure whether I have it in me anymore. There doesn’t seem to be enough variety of level and stuff to pull me along with the sense of “what’s next?” that usually keeps me going with these things.
I didn’t need to demo to know that I would like this game. And that I did. I went with the Destroyer and have played around 5 hours with that one. Up to level 11 and I really like to play this kind of game again.
I also tried a Vanquisher real quick and that’s the character you want if you want to level up quickly. I went from 1-11 in just about 51 minutes with that one and the answer here is Needle Arc. Let monsters bleed to death and you’ll get loads more XP than usual.
Phenomenally fun game. Completed the main story today on normal mode, and im definately playing through again. Also found the community on the official forums to of been one of the most positive and enthusiastic ive ever experienced.
10/10
it is an addictive game i agree, but after i didn’t have enough money when i first saw an “Identify” spell in the stash of one of those dungeon-vendors i had been looking for one again and again, but it took me till level 23 till i found one. carrying these identify rolls around with me kinda bugged me when i knew there was a spell around. but thats really the only gameplay idea it lacks.
And the no multiplayer whatsoever definitely is a dealbreaker.
Still, one of the best budget games in ages, i say.
@KilgoreTrout XL — the "cheater" tag's most dreadful effect, I think, is that it disables the shared stash for that character.
@Scoteh — yeah, the official forums for the game are cheeringly enthusiastic, even when people were encountering bugs on launch day. I especially like how frequently threads get Runic staff commenting in them, too.
Played the demo yesterday for three hours non-stop. It’s definitely a time-suck! I loved just about everything about it; graphics, dungeons, game-play, characters. My pet only got stuck at one place when I went up the stairs and he couldn’t path back to me. So, I went back down the stairs and he found me again, no problem.
I love the pet aspect of the game and the fact that you can use it to run back to town and sell your items makes it so you don’t have to leave any loot behind. I enjoy the occasional “talking” my cat does as well. Sounds like a real bobcat or lynx.
I’m wondering how in depth the game will be in the long run, or if it’s all about leveling up and getting loot. But for $20, I’d say that it’s worth it.
In the long run the core game is all about leveling. The “story” such as it is peters out at ~ level 30 and unlocks the infinite dungeon, a random dungeon that just keeps going and going. Loot, level, repeat.
I don’t think this is a bad thing myself, I’m enjoying the hack/slash/loot aspect of the game a lot. I’ll also be interested to see what mods are made (and that I will make), but people should be aware of this.
There is also a retirement system which lets you pass the torch to a new character (along with a special item) and start the process from scratch. If you’ve unlocked the infinite dungeon then the new character, and any other characters you make, will have access to it immediately.
I got the full game last night but didn't get to play until this morning before work. Love it inside and out :) Love the ability to get your weapon back once you don't like the gems in it or get the gems back once you no longer need the weapon (from Fate of course) and everything else that borrowed form Fate as well as the moody music from Diablo and the sweet graphics that are very Warcraft like. It all combines for me in a great mixture that I find just as addictive as everyone else here that is enjoying the game :)
(I also like the random portals that open up when you kill certain phase monsters leading to special dungeons , reminds me of Hellgate the way you can find hidden passages durning the level one of the neat things about that game really. Also the ability to buy special maps to random dungeons level 1-10 , 10-20 ect opens up your ability to level incase you get stuck with monsters that are you hard for you, very nice)