Lets face it, when it boils down to it every computer game is a pointless waste of time. Some games try to hide this fact with engaging story lines and complex game-play. Torchlight on the other hand celebrates its pointlessness and glorifies in it. It is the very incarnation of progress quest with added button pressing and better graphics. Meet monster, press button, kill monster, loot better gear, level up, meet tougher monster .... repeat. There are some embellishments involving pets, enchanting and gems but the essence remains unchanged. The game's quests and dungeons may be scripted but they just as easily be procedurally generated from what I have seen of the demo.
I know that a lot of people love this. Wilhelm2451 and other bloggers whose opinions I respect are full of the game's praises but I still don't get it. I don't care if it follows in the illustrious foosteps of Diablo, Dungeon Siege, Titan Quest and its own direct antecedent Fate. I find the game boring.
There are times when we all can use a bit of mindless button mashing but I think that this market segment is very well covered by free to play flash games. To my mind both Sonny and Monsters Den have more depth than I have seen in Torchlight.
EDIT: On second reading my post above comes across more negatively than is warranted. For balance I should point out that Torchlight is very well made with a very well polished interface.The combat though repetitive is well done and the sounds in particular are very satisfying. The game is actually a lot of fun to play at first. Its just that I find this type of game play gets repetitive. Perhaps my biggest complaint is that it remains compulsive long after it has ceased being entertaining.
I know that a lot of people love this. Wilhelm2451 and other bloggers whose opinions I respect are full of the game's praises but I still don't get it. I don't care if it follows in the illustrious foosteps of Diablo, Dungeon Siege, Titan Quest and its own direct antecedent Fate. I find the game boring.
There are times when we all can use a bit of mindless button mashing but I think that this market segment is very well covered by free to play flash games. To my mind both Sonny and Monsters Den have more depth than I have seen in Torchlight.
EDIT: On second reading my post above comes across more negatively than is warranted. For balance I should point out that Torchlight is very well made with a very well polished interface.The combat though repetitive is well done and the sounds in particular are very satisfying. The game is actually a lot of fun to play at first. Its just that I find this type of game play gets repetitive. Perhaps my biggest complaint is that it remains compulsive long after it has ceased being entertaining.
Comments
Instead of playing Torchlight I fired up Fate, bought a Fishing Rod & earned a small yet sizable stash of gold doing nothing but fishing. I then outfitted my adventurer in some more hardy items, descended into the dungeon, fought my way to level 3 and thought to myself, "Yeah, that's just about enough of this."
Maybe Torchlight has better graphics, bigger explosions, more blood, but it's still Fate.
I'd probably do the same "play for a while then do something else for a longer while" with Fate, too, if it didn't have that dang SecuROM thing.
Then I realized that there was no point to it.
There is no 'real' story at all, so no reason to keep playing to learn more about the story.
The quests are identical the entire way, so no need to keep playing to see what quests I'll find.
I was hoping to play other archetypes, such as a Fire wizard or Electricity wizard, but 75% of the skills seem to be copy-pasted between characters.
Plus in reality you only train one 'manual' skill and just use that all the time when attacking while you dump the rest of your points into passives.
With the same old town, never leaving it, you don't get a sense of the world at all. It just doesn't draw me in.
I'd just like to say to all of those reading this, that Titan's Quest is an amazing game and anyone who enjoyed Torchlight at the beginning and loved Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 back when they were out, should REALLY check out Titan's Quest.