Gaming Forums => General Gaming => Topic started by: Seacor on December 02, 2009, 01:08:13 AM
Title: Torchlight
Post by: Seacor on December 02, 2009, 01:08:13 AM
Just downloaded the free demo of Torchlight (via Steam) after hearing Jonathan mention it on podcast episode 172 (thanks Jon!). Totally awesome game!! :cool;
If you have played Diablo or Diablo II, you will feel right at home with Torchlight (It also has a World of Warcraft vibe to it). The music is also reminiscent of the Diablo series (pretty sure it's the same composer). It's single player only, but apparently they are working on an online component for a future update or release. If you are in the mood for an overhead perspective action RPG, check this one out.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Stratos on December 02, 2009, 03:06:01 AM
Thanks for the heads up, I'll be sure to check it out.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on December 02, 2009, 08:42:07 PM
I haven't been able to try the demo yet. The game was developed by several of the designers from the (real) Diablo series however, so the resemblance is understandable. The last great action RPG that I played was probably Titan Quest, so I might just give this a go. :)
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Maverick on December 03, 2009, 04:33:36 PM
I saw my friend playing this at his house the other day. I had a sneaking suspicion it was developed in secret by Blizzard until I read Morari's post.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Rize on December 15, 2009, 04:40:52 PM
I've had troubling staying interested in this. With no online mode and with the game initially having difficulty settings available (so no nightmare or hell mode I guess?) it's just missing the core things that kept Diablo 2 ticking for me. I also find that the interface is poorly designed. It's not terrible, but I sure hope they get it much better in Diablo 3.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on December 15, 2009, 04:43:06 PM
Not enough achievements, huh.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on December 15, 2009, 04:52:19 PM
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: noname2200 on December 19, 2009, 01:21:18 PM
I requested this game for Secret Santa. Fingers crossed that I get it!
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: oohhboy on December 24, 2009, 12:54:23 AM
There is a Christmas special running for half price till the 4th of Jan. Get it while it's hot.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: kraken613 on December 26, 2009, 01:41:59 PM
It's $5 on Steam today only. Well until noon tomorrow.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: NWR_Lindy on December 26, 2009, 06:05:27 PM
I picked this up for $10 the other day. Haven't touched it yet, but even for $10 I've heard too much good stuff to pass it by.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: KnowsNothing on December 26, 2009, 07:27:00 PM
At $5 I couldn't pass it up even though I'm about 72% sure I won't like it. Steam is sucking me dry.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on December 27, 2009, 10:35:55 PM
I also went ahead and got it at the $5 price on Steam yesterday. That's about the only time I'll tolerate Steam... really, really cheap games. :P
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Dirk Temporo on December 28, 2009, 03:17:57 PM
I sure do hate convenient and easy-to-use digital distribution software with an excellent support staff.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on December 28, 2009, 05:24:40 PM
I sure do hate waiting hours to download a game instead of taking five minutes to install it off of a disc. I sure do hate seeing that all-too-common "Steam is down for maintenance" message when all I want to do is singleplayer. I sure do hate DRM--any DRM--as that is what Steam is at heart. Steam is nice for having a unified friends list (and thus VoIP), as well a ridiculously cheap games on occasion. Everything else it does is an unnecessary annoyance. I don't mind paying $5 for a game off of Steam, simply because that $5 won't missed too much when the service disappears.
It's just too bad that Games for Windows Live is even worse, or else the PC might actually have a truly unified friends list for gaming.
Anyway... The game has definitely been worth $5 so far. ;)
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: kraken613 on December 28, 2009, 06:12:07 PM
Steam is never going to dissapear. It is PC game digital distribution. When a service has about 2 million people logged in at most times I think it's doing pretty well for itself. http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Steam is the best thing to happen to PC gaming in a long time.
And don't complain about download speeds because of your crappy connection. I downloaded L4D2 in 35 minutes and its over 7gb a few weeks ago. Right now the servers are a little slower than normal because the average amount people are downloading with this sale.
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/ Thats a lot of data being downloaded.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on December 28, 2009, 06:40:16 PM
Steam is the best thing to happen to PC gaming in a long time.
And way to go. You totally backed up that statement by listing all of the features and benefits I get with Steam. Again, outside of the friends list, Steam offers nothing of real value.
I wouldn't consider my connection crappy, it generally runs around the area of 7mbps down.
Steam will disappear sooner or later. It will be changed or "upgraded" to something not at all like it currently is. Valve could go out of business and someone else could buy the entire thing and start charging you per hour to play the games you've downloaded. There are thousands of possibilities. Will it happen any time soon? Probably not, but one day it will. That's the problem with not having control over what you've purchased, you're at the mercy of someone else.
If you want to license games with nothing to show for it other than a Steam user name, then go ahead. It doesn't bother me. I however will continue to accumulate discs, so that a decade from now, if I want to play a game, I can without worrying about what's happened to the authentication servers and why the underlying DRM won't install on my modern operating system. Putting faith in a company, any company, is a terrible mistake to make.
Now that we've established that (thanks for dragging it out, by the way), we can get back to the topic at hand: Torchlight. I really wish it had multiplayer. I'm not too thrilled about an upcoming MMO based on the property, but would be excited to play this over the LAN with a few other people. Sadly, I don't think anything will ever have the feel of Diablo... Hell, even Diablo 3 looks to be more akin to WarCraft than anything.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 28, 2009, 11:56:39 PM
I bought this for $5, but I'm thinking about going out and picking up the Diablo Battle Chest since I never played it and everyone seems to think it's better than this and I could play it without booting into Windows.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on December 29, 2009, 12:09:46 AM
Diablo II with the Lord of Destruction expansion pack is, without a doubt, the best hack-n-slash game there is.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: KDR_11k on December 30, 2009, 11:59:44 AM
Will you stop whining about Steam? You can make a separate thread for that, this one should be about Torchlight.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: noname2200 on December 30, 2009, 10:25:36 PM
I bought this for $5, but I'm thinking about going out and picking up the Diablo Battle Chest since I never played it and everyone seems to think it's better than this and I could play it without booting into Windows.
Diablo II is better than this game, but if Torchlight doesn't interest you in the least, neither will Diablo. So think of this as a trial run for the Diablo series.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on December 30, 2009, 11:06:48 PM
After playing for a few more hours, Torchlight is definitely a charming game. It's art style hurts it though. I don't mind the cartoony, Warcraft-esque visuals, but the broad, ridiculously bright color pallet makes it difficult to distinguish enemies and effects from one another and the environment. The lack of multilayer definitely keeps this from being worth much more than $5.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Rize on February 03, 2010, 01:06:09 PM
Diablo II with the Lord of Destruction expansion pack is, without a doubt, the best hack-n-slash game there is.
Truly, the more I think about it the more I loathe Torchlight and wish I had encountered an honest review before spending money on it. It copies Diablo II on a superficial level, but the end result is junk. Diablo's story may not be the greatest, but it's so ridiculously deep that I can't even come close to absorbing it all. When I run into a character, I just known that somewhere there is a 10 page backstory. The world just seems so much more alive. Then there is the music. Diablo 2's music was just incredible and it went a long way toward defining the world and atmosphere. Torchlight's music sounds like a Diablo 2 remix which is just wrong on so many levels. It doesn't fit the art style at all and it sounds essentially like D2's music was ripped out and stuffed in Torchlight (I understand it's the same composer, but you think they could have had him do original work for the game).
Then there is the interface. It's hard to see things, the mouse doesn't cover the screen well or with good accuracy due to higher resolutions and the size of the mouse pointer and the combat just isn't satisfying. The new inventory where everything takes up the same amount of space just encourages hoarding giant piles of useless junk for selling to the shops. In Diablo 2 it was always a good thing to get past the first part of the game where you had to pick up every piece of junk to sell it for cash.
Finally, the sound effects just aren't there. Diablo 2 had very satisfying effects for killing monsters and all the rest. It helped give a visceral action-like feel to a game that is ultimately point and click.
The one good thing I can say about Torchlight is that I like the gem system where you can retrieve either the gem or the item by destroying one or the other. That has potential.
Again, I hope they're smart enough (or relentless enough) to get Diablo 3 right.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: noname2200 on February 03, 2010, 07:06:51 PM
The problem you have is that you're comparing it to Diablo II. The original is a much more apt comparison.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: vudu on February 04, 2010, 01:37:13 PM
The problem you have is that you're comparing it to Diablo II. The original is a much more apt comparison.
Why's that? He can buy either game, so shouldn't he compare it to the one he likes best?
Not at all. Torchlight is a $20, low budget, rushed game. It's consciously smaller in scope and ambition than Diablo II. In fact, it's deliberately aping the smaller breadth of the original Diablo. If he's looking for Diablo II, then this really isn't the game he should be trying.
Torchlight is a $20, low budget, rushed game. It's consciously smaller in scope and ambition than Diablo II.
All fine and dandy, except at this point you can get Diablo II for under $15 (http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-2-mac-PC/dp/B00002CF9M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1265331251&sr=8-1). Torchlight is deliberately trying to cater to Diablo fans, so if the game isn't as good as a 10-year old game I can't see much reason to play this unless you've already sunk hundreds of hours into Diablo II and are looking for a different experience.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: KnowsNothing on February 04, 2010, 07:57:32 PM
Having never played a game in this genre and only having payed $5 for it, I am very happy with my purchase. It's addicting, instantly accessible, fun to look at, and sync's my saves with steam cloud. That said...well there's a reason I didn't even buy it when it was at $10. I'm not too far in it but I've heard the environments and enemies are recycled too much and the other thing just gets extremely repetitive...plus it's only single player, which ultimately kills it.
But like I said, I had never played a game like this and now I'm positively pumped for Diablo III if it comes out before I die. That's worth the $5 to me.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: noname2200 on February 05, 2010, 01:57:58 PM
Torchlight is a $20, low budget, rushed game. It's consciously smaller in scope and ambition than Diablo II.
All fine and dandy, except at this point you can get Diablo II for under $15 (http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-2-mac-PC/dp/B00002CF9M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1265331251&sr=8-1). Torchlight is deliberately trying to cater to Diablo fans, so if the game isn't as good as a 10-year old game I can't see much reason to play this unless you've already sunk hundreds of hours into Diablo II and are looking for a different experience.
Yes, but that low price came many years after the game's release: Diablo II didn't come out as a budget title from the get go.
What you're saying is that because you can find Diablo II on sale for less than Torchlight now* Torchlight should be as good as, if not better, than Diablo II. But Torchlight never once tries to be Diablo II. The two Diablo games themselves are quite different experiences (and yes, II is better in almost every way). You're essentially comparing a $1 million/year batter to Alex Rodriguez. It's no surprise that Torchlight is found wanting.
*For the record, I still see Diablo II selling for $30 at Fry's, $40 if you include the expansion pack. That's still more than Torchlight debuted at.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: vudu on February 05, 2010, 02:33:03 PM
All Rize said was he'd rather play Diablo II than Torchlight and you felt the need to tell him that his opinion was wrong. What are we arguing about anyway? ;D
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: noname2200 on February 06, 2010, 02:13:04 AM
All Rize said was he'd rather play Diablo II than Torchlight and you felt the need to tell him that his opinion was wrong. What are we arguing about anyway? ;D
That wasn't my intention at all, and I apologize to Rize if I came off that way. All I meant to say was that maybe the reason he doesn't like Torchlight much is that he was expecting the game to be something it never wanted to be, i.e. This Isn't The Game You're Looking For. *Jedi handwave*
And why not argue? It passes the time! :P:
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Rize on February 07, 2010, 10:25:52 AM
All Rize said was he'd rather play Diablo II than Torchlight and you felt the need to tell him that his opinion was wrong. What are we arguing about anyway? ;D
That wasn't my intention at all, and I apologize to Rize if I came off that way. All I meant to say was that maybe the reason he doesn't like Torchlight much is that he was expecting the game to be something it never wanted to be, i.e. This Isn't The Game You're Looking For. *Jedi handwave*
And why not argue? It passes the time! :P: :
I already gave my reasons for not liking torchlight, and it has nothing to do with the scope of the game being more like Diablo than Diablo 2. Let me state them again:
1) I don't like the interface. It feels clunky. Also, the single space inventory slots take away an aspect of the game I enjoyed (Resident Evil 5 did the same thing).
2) I hate the music and the sound is very underwhelming. The music is composed by Diablo 2's composer and sounds like it could have been ripped straight out of that game. It goes NOT AT ALL with the graphics or gameplay. The sound effects lack punch. When I attack enemies I don't feel it the way I do in Diablo 2. Most people wouldn't be able to even identify this flaw, but I guarantee you that there's someone at Blizzard spending far more time on the sound design than was spent on Torchlight.
3) I don't like the art style. I understand why they chose it, but in combination with the music it just doesn't work at all.
4) I don't like the thin story as it makes the world feel cheap.
5) No online play.
For those who have never played a Diablo game, I'd say Diablo 2 is still well worth picking up for (along with its expansion pack, actually I'd say definitely pick up and install the expansion immediately and get online and download the latest patches as it changes the whole game in addition to adding act 5 after act 4).
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on February 08, 2010, 11:37:16 AM
The latest Diablo II patch even removes the CD check! There's really no reason not to be playing Diablo 2.
Torchlight has absolutely no plot, which seems to be the main factor in keeping me interesting. Action RPGs have fairly shallow gameplay by definition, so the story and quests need to make up for tha tin some way. Torchlight does not, unfortunately. If it had multiplayer I could manage without the story, as a nice LAN game with one or two friends would be even more fun. That is also not the case however. I'm glad I didn't pay the full price for Torchlight, because I'd feel ripped off.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: iDraTion on February 23, 2010, 04:06:56 AM
I think it's kinda ridiculous to be comparing this game to D2. Torchlight is basically a fan-service game, essentially repackaging the original Diablo. Don't expect to be engrossed into a living world. I view it as a pickup and play action RPG; it's simple by intention and I appreciate that. Take it for what it is; expectations can kill anything.
Title: Re: Torchlight
Post by: Morari on February 23, 2010, 10:27:14 PM
I didn't have any expectations though. I had never heard of the game until it popped up on sale. Playing through it however, there is absolutely no way you cannot compare it to Diablo. With that feeling in the back of your mind, it's hard to enjoy the game without feeling as if there should be more.
