Rock, Paper, Shotgun

News of Torchlight II reminds me that I meant to post about the new version of the Din’s Curse demo that was released a week or so back. If you imagine a line whose two poles are labelled “Mainstream!” and “Indie!”, then Diablo III would be off to the left, Torchlight would be near the middle while Din’s Curse would be way over on the right. Well, there’s rogue-likes past it, but it’s still its own determined thing. Din’s Curse does the single-player/co-op thing, dynamically generates both towns and dungeons and uses similar dynamic world tech to Soldak’s previous Depths of Peril. Improvements are mainly in the UI, with a new perspective and shadow options, but if you haven’t it’s worth taking a trip down this unusual take on the genre’s dungeon. And here’s some old footage…
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I’ve been meaning to play my preview code of this for a while, but have been pre-empted by its demo release. Since it’s the new game by Soldak – behind the ever-brilliant Depths Of Peril – I have high hopes for its Action-RPG multiplayer-includingness. It seems to be built on the ideological chassis of Depths of Peril’s dynamic approach, with 141 class combinations and a world that’s generated for each single game, from monsters to quests and… oh, you get the idea. I’m downloading now to have a crack, but you can join me or pre-order the full game for twenty dollars (which gives you access to the current Betas.) Some player-recorded Beta footage follows…
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Gamesradar decided to avoid going straight to the sexy and have repurposed my PC Gamer review of GameTunnel’s Indie RPG of 2007 and lobbed it online. I start like this…

At the time of writing, Iron Lore, makers of Titan Quest, have just gone bust. A THQ Creative Director put the blame pretty firmly at the feet of software piracy. While it’s easy to sympathise – there’s nothing funny in hundreds of thousands of people playing a game for free while its makers run into financial difficulties – you can’t help but think if Iron Lore had actually displayed even a fraction of the imagination this indie action-RPG does, they’d still be here today. With Depths of Peril, the only element in the game that doesn’t display vision and quiet confidence is its somewhat underwhelming name.

And continue for about 450 or so words. Some after-match editorial gubbins beneath the cut.
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