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For the record: Christmas gaming 2009

Actively  playing:

Dragon Age Origins: got this as a Christmas present. Very enjoyable so far this game reminds me of Never Winter Nights. I am surprised at the difficulty level on "normal" setting but then again I still haven't figured out how to set party tactics correctly and the party AI is not great. 

Red Faction Guerrilla: My one concession to Steam's Christmas sale, a steal at €12.99. I have only played the intro but any game that starts off by handing you a sledgehammer and telling you to go demolish a couple of buildings has got my attention.

Less actively playing:
EVE Online: I played five free welcome back days and am seriously thinking of resubbing for a month. The only thing is that I seriously don't have time for an mmo.

Torchlight:  I can play this for about an hour before I get totally bored but it is a useful time-water if there is nothing else happening.

Borderlands: I stopped playing this about half way through the campaign partly because a patch screwed up my graphics, partly because I could never really get the multiplayer to work properly and partly because the game gets very repetitive. Perhaps I will finish it one day.

Current Ultra-violence fix: No real shooter on the go at present. In the last month I have played a bit of Frontlines, a bit of COD4  a bit of TF2 and a bit of COD2 multiplayer (surprisingly much fun even now). I guess I am waiting for either MW2 or L4D2 to come down to a more sensible price before I get seriously stuck into another shooter.
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Comments

Robert said…
Yah, I'm the same way with Torchlight.

The problem with it is the loot dropping.
They didn't do it quite right.

First, the gems you fit into sockets are far too easy to get once you learn how to transmute junk into them and how to transmute them together to make better ones.
So you end up not caring when one of those drops.

Second, there isn't enough range of loot that gets dropped. You get a bunch of white gear that you totally ignore. Then you get some magical gear which 99% of is just transmute garbage. The only thing really worth waiting for is the set pieces. Those don't quite drop often enough to be used as a motivation for continuing to play. Probably because there should be about 100 more sets.

Third, you don't have a distinctive enough "sound" when something good drops. In Diablo 2, hearing the 'ding' or the 'chunk' when a certain gem dropped was always exciting. In Torchlight it just all blends together.

I could probably come up with a few mote things that make Torchlight a much less enjoyable experience than Titan's Quest or Diablo.
1:40 pm
mbp said…
Hi Robert

I haven't gotten that far yet - I have yet to get a "set" item but I certainly agree that the itemisation is less than inspired. I just vendor most stuff - I couldn't be bothered trying to upgrade with gems and such when the normal crap you pick up is perfectly adequate to clear the content (I am playing on hard - easy must be a complete faceroll).
6:22 pm
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