Thirteen1

Post edited 7:52 pm – June 13, 2010 by Matthew

This is a sort-of review I wrote for MMOSite on Torchlight. Sadly they insisted on butchering the original article when they published it, even going so far as to correct correct English with some of the worst typos in living history. After they pushed the article, I got them to correct the typos after much arguing and THEN quit my writing position with them… for hopefully obvious reasons.

However I thought I'd share with you lot the article in its original form, if updated slightly.

Enjoy <3

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It's
been a while now since I've actually written anything worth
publishing. In fact it's been a while since I've written anything at
all. When I say a while I don't mean a short while. I mean a long
while. Longer that a bout but not as long as an age. Somewhere in
between perhaps. I'm not trying to rant here. I'm just trying to give
you an impression of how important this article is in the hopes that
you'll take me very, very seriously.

There
is always a reason to return to this type of thing. Mostly it's to
complain. Sometimes it's to analyse. Rarely it's to lavish praise.
This time the reason is Torchlight – a very small game from a very
small developer most probably housed in a very small shed somewhere
in America.

Torchlight
wasn't supposed to be one of the big blockbuster titles of 2009. In
my mind it wasn't supposed to garner wide critical praise or
commercial success. It wasn't supposed to set a new standard of
quality in the hack 'n' slash genre. It wasn't supposed to be
something I found myself getting more and more addicted to every time
I play it. It certainly wasn't supposed to flip the middle one up at
major title releases over the last couple of years by proving
outstanding quality does not have to come with a hefty price tag. All
Torchlight was supposed to do was to set the stage – and very quietly
set it – for Runic Games return to MMOs in 18 months time after
regrettably having the diamond in the rough that was Mythos torn
brutally out of their hands by bankruptcy.

So
why did Torchlight receive so much attention and – in turn -
praise?

Realistically
there isn't that much to Torchlight. There are three classes which
provide the three usual flavours of damage – caster, ranged and
melee. Once you have picked one of these roles you are thrown into a
small town named Torchlight. Torchlight has got itself in a bit of a
pickle recently; it's a boom town built on top of an ancient mine to
produce and export a mineral called Ember. Problem is the Ember flow
out of Torchlight has stopped primarily due to the fact that strange
monsters, goblins, giant spiders, bat-like creatures and dragons -
among other things – have started ascending the mine embarking on a
relentless assault of the small town and its defenceless
inhabitants… as well as corrupting the Ember these guys are
supposed to be mining. This is where you come in: it's your job to
descend the mine chopping up as many bad guys as is humanly possible
at the same time as giving yourself repetitive strain injury. Pretty
traditional hack 'n' slash sort of setting if you ask me.

And
that's all there really is to it. There isn't much of a story line
and the environments and monsters aren't that varied despite the mine
having 100 or so levels to descend in search of items and fame (and
that last bit I mean literally; you actually do go in search of
fame). However there is enough there – and more – to keep you
entertained for a respectable period of time. I frequently find
myself jumping in to the hack 'n' slash madness Torchlight has to
offer, and it's been almost a year since the game was released.

Now
you'd think that this would lead to a pretty generic and, "same
old, same old," sort of experience. All I can say to that is:
possibly. It's entirely possible that in another year's I will get
bored of Torchlight and move on to something else. However Torchlight
only cost me $20 and for a game that only cost me $20 it is
absolutely and totally stunning… in all ways. Most importantly it's
fun, something that a lot of developers seem to be forgoing these
days in favour of things like being overly controversial or trying to
spread game play out over 50 hours because developers operate under
the misguided belied that a longer game is a better game. In
Torchlight you are sent into the mines to kill monsters and instantly
you find yourself being drawn into the chaotic and twitch-inducing
combat without so much as a by your leave. After a few hours you
start making excuses to keep playing. "Just one more level,"
or, "just one more decent item," are my favourites (and I
never stick to them). You don't even have to worry about your bag
becoming chock full of items and having to portal back to town to
sell them all; you can just send your pet. Each class starts off with
either a dog or a cat, which helps you out in combat and can be
loaded with a couple of spells or turned into another monster by
feeding it a fish – of all things – to provide it with a bit more
punch… or paw (and no self respecting critic goes a single article
without getting a bad pun in). That's not why the pet's interesting
though; that bit is hardly new or exciting. What is exciting is that
when your bags are full of items, you can simply give them to your
pet and – with the click of a little green button – have him run all
the way back to town to sell your wares. He'll even bring the money
back to you. This means that you can go for hours and hours and hours
without ever having to set foot out of the mines.

Just
like the overall feeling of the game play the graphics are fun as
well, choosing a more comical and light-hearted approach to the genre
over the Diablo-esque gothic grittiness that we've all got used to.
If you complained about Diablo 3 looking too much like World of
Warcraft you probably won't appreciate the graphics in Torchlight. AS
far as I was concerned however, they worked to water down a genre of
gaming that was at risk of taking itself too seriously if the
die-hards got their way. In fact they are perfectly executed and
totally seamless. Characters look funny but at the same time look
pretty cool in unique gear. Bad guys are exaggerated and have fat
limbs but at the same time pack a mean punch on anything above and
including Hard difficulty mode. With these low yet pretty graphics
comes low yet pretty system requirements. There's even a netbook mode
in the video options menu for the game; I now have an excuse to waste
money on a netbook (but it's not like I needed an excuse in the first
place). It may seem to suggest that not much effort has gone into the
development of graphics and art in Torchlight but I would argue the
opposite. Runic have done what every MMO developer should do with
these types of games; they have made it accessible to a massive
audience simply by making a game that looks good and runs on a wide
arrat of machines, from the lowly netbook right up the meanest of the
enthusiast rigs.

The
future of Torchlight is bright as well. Runic have solidified the
lasting appeal of the game by doing something that's pretty amazing
for a game that only costs you $20 – they've released their entire
sweet of development tools to the community so that modifications and
fan made expansions can be added to the game. This isn't just
pansy-mode game modification here either. We're talking new
environments, new dungeons, new monsters and even new classes all
made by the players; let your imagination run wild. This goes above
and beyond anything any developer has offered fans before – at
least in the price range – and is sure to add to the growing success
of Torchlight.

Sadly
there's always a criticism with any game, even if there is only one
bad thing to say about Torchlight. For those of you who are expecting
to replace Diablo 2 multiplayer with Torchlight multiplayer, there is
no multiplayer. There's no online play or LAN mode so no co-op game
play for you… and no unbalanced PVP Alchemists spamming Ember Lance
either. Having no multiplayer isn't actually a bad thing all in all
but lots of people like it and – frankly – expect it in all hack 'n'
slash titles released after Diablo. I'd be inclined to agree but I do
see why Runic decided not to include such a gameplay mode in their
flagship title; Torchlight is the prequel to an MMO and an MMO is the
ultimate form of multiplayer game play. Torchlight is – effectively -
one hell of a demo.

All
in all Torchlight is truly a diamond in the rough. Whilst it doesn't
do anything overly innovative with the hack 'n' slash genre, it does
remind me why some of us love these type of games so much. When a
developer gets hack 'n' slash right they have a sure fire hit; Runic
very nearly hit perfection with Torchlight. For $19.95 you really
shouldn't be expecting anything overly detailed and lengthy. However
for $19.95 you're probably not expecting Torchlight either. It's
clear in my eyes: Torchlight is the best cheap game of 2009 and it
puts mainstream titles to shame in terms of bang for buck. The team
at Runic obviously put their hearts into this game and it's clear to
me that Runic's next project – the MMO version of Torchlight – will
be one of the most hotly anticipated F2P MMOs ever released. And if
Torchlight is anything to go by, we can expect the MMO to be nothing
but amazing…

My
advice: buy it now; you won't regret it.