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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Torchlight

Product Details
Torchlight

Torchlight
From Encore

List Price: $19.99
Price: $16.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

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Average customer review:

Product Description

This hack-and-slash adventure is set in the mining settlement of Torchlight, a town founded on the discovery of a rare and mysterious ore called Ember. This valuable ore has the power to enchant and corrupt but its value is such that many are willing to risk their lives for it. Now, miners have uncovered Torchlight’s buried past: a dangerous labyrinth of caverns, monsters, and ruined civilizations beneath the ground that have been corrupted by Ember’s dark influence. As Evil threatens to overrun the town, a Champion is needed. Players will have the opportunity to save the town of Torchlight, battling through rock and fire, through lost cities, and across ancient tombs on a perilous journey to cleanse the mines. As one of three Character Classes, Players will explore randomly generated dungeon levels, battle a huge variety of monsters, and pursue endless variations of fame and fortune.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #161 in Software
  • Brand: Encore
  • Model: 15980
  • Released on: 2010-01-14
  • ESRB Rating: Teen
  • Platforms: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
  • Format: CD-ROM
  • Original language: English
  • Dimensions: .15 pounds

Features

  • Randomization - Game level layouts are randomly created, so each adventure will always be unique
  • Easy, approachable interface - Torchlight is designed to be easy to play right from the beginning. With an intuitive interface, players can dive right in!
  • Character Classes - Players will create and customize a character, choosing from 3 main Classes: The Destroyer, The Alchemist, or The Vanquisher.
  • Pets - choose a pet to accompany your character. Pets can level up along with the player; they can also fight, carry items, and perform helpful tasks.

Customer Reviews

DIABLO III: THE PG VERSION5 This game sure comes with some serious pedigree: Travis Baldree, designer of Fate, and Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, co-designers of Diablo I & II put their heads together and came up with an action hack&slash isometric RPG game that can appeal to all ages. The result is a good game that will keep us hacking and summoning - until the ...3rd coming that is. In fact, the game developers made sure to often pay tribute to the DIABLO Series: from the background music while at the town-camp (you would recognize those Tristam guitar riffs anywhere!), to the draining health and mana fountains and to the voice announcing & warning, you cannot miss the timeless DIABLO influences. Having said that, I found TORCHLIGHT to be something between a DIABLO and a FATE game. If you have experienced any of the FATE games you will be reminded of them often, although the heroes here are not children. The village NPCs will keep giving you straightforward quests (usually a go-and-fetch excuse to dwell deeper into the dungeon). Extra dungeons, however, can be accessed by accepting the extra quests of the male NPC in the south and by purchasing dungeon maps of various levels from the local merchants. Also, sometimes a spectral animal appears while in a dungeon: slaying it will open up a bonus dungeon where better equipment often becomes available. There is no traveling to/from town while in a bonus dungeon, so you better keep an empty inventory before entering it. Yes, you do get a pet (a dog or a cat - but you can interchange them by purchasing and feeding them a special fish) and, yes, you can transform them by feeding them different types of fishes. Fishing is carried out in pretty much the same fashion: you wait for two concentric circles to merge and their color to change from pale blue to purple but it is less important than it was in FATE (so far I brought in nothing else but fish - no equipment or valuable items). Now, when not playing an AD&D RPG (where I always choose to be a Paladin), I like to play other RPGs as a warlock, a fighting mage. The Alchemist class allows you to both cast powerful spells and exchange blows in the midst of the action (the other available classes is the Destroyer and the Vanquisher). The Destroyer is the up-close-and-personal tank warrior whereas the Vanquisher is the ranger. When leveling up as an Alchemist, make sure to get both the (steampunk!) golems and the Ember Strike spell. Together with some good shielding spells, nothing can stand in your way. Try not to go broke. At first I though, "finally, an RPG that is not stingy with its money". But that was only at first. Items are less expensive at the shops but (surprise!) they also sell for a pittance. The good news is that money drops like rain from slain foes. The money-hole is the enchanter: attempting to further enchant your equipment will deplete your funds faster than you would imagine! And you also run a considerable risk of having all of its enchantments removed. No post-dated checks are honored. No credit cards accepted. I tried. You WILL get swarmed so be prepared. Place healing potions, defensive and knockback spells on quick-slots (1-0); equip your pet with self or group healing spells and a powerful summoning spell; and never forget to first stay alive and then keep pounding on your enemies. In the heat of the battle it is best to deactivate (Alt-key) the fallen-items labels (more on this later on) and to always keep an eye on your health and mana levels. Respawning is not free: it will cost you either time, money or experience. The inventory seems small but, in fact, it is more than adequate. Potions and scrolls are stackable up to 20 and (more importantly) every item takes up only one inventory square (no, you do not have to carry your fishing pole, it is just there). You can send your pet to town to sell off its inventory and the time it needs to return is much less that what it did in FATE. And there are treasure rooms you can only access by finding and pulling levers (sometimes in specific sequence) to open doors or turn bridges. Now, some negative points: (1) the game is only a dungeon crawler, there are no outdoors locations. (2) the graphics of the the spells are very impressive but they can become really confusing as well. Even at maximum settings, unless the fallen-items labels are deactivated you will not be able to actually see much of the battle. That means alternating between fighting and looting - but it also means missing some important interactive objects (levers or ballistas). Also, when electric, fire, ice and poison spells get mixed the result is not something one can discern friend from foe in. It makes no tactical difference (you cannot harm yourself or your company) but it sure would be more enjoyable if you could aim more than...80% of the time. (3) the environments are beautifully designed but your path is often blocked by obstacles that visually you could easily bypass. Sometimes you find your hero running in place, stopped by a ...pebble. Finally, some closing suggestions to the developers for a future patch: (a) add the possibility to order our pet to bring back potions and identification scrolls when sent into town, and (b) make it possible to change class in mid-game (keeping the level and redistributing the skill points). All in all, TORCHLIGHT is a very enjoyable experience. It is easy to master, it is beautiful and it is fun for the whole family. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! They left in the fun and took out the other stuff.5 I've been playing this type of game since Wizardry came out on the Apple ][. And this is about the most entertaining dungeon crawl I've ever dove into! I don't want to spend time telling you what kind of game this is. You know that. I want to point out how REFINED this is. The developers know what you like and what's annoying. Stuff you like (loot!, violence!, MINIONS!!) is plentiful. Stuff you don't (long cutscenes, stupid storylines, micromanagement) is gone. Bash Monsters in the style YOU like. Snipe from long range? You can do that. Tear them apart in axe-to-face combat? You can do that! Swarm them with legions of undead minions? YOU CAN DO THAT! Go all John Woo - blazing away with a pistol in each hand? YOU... CAN... DO... THAT!!! You can even switch between those styles (and many more) with the SAME CHARACTER. You develop the character the way YOU want - because it's more fun that way! It runs well on older systems (even netbooks!) and beautifully on newer ones. It's well supported. There is a vibrant user community supplying a plethora of mods. Steam has a long list of achievments you can shoot for (I don't know if you can hook into the achievements if you don't buy the game through Steam). You got the idea. I gotta go. My alchemist has a bone to pick with some poison-spitting spiders. Actually, his ZOMBIES do - but you get the idea. Excellent RPG by the original Diablo crew ...5 I am about 50+ hours into this game, and I must say that it is one of the best RPG's I have played in a long time. I purchased this game from STEAM a month ago when it was on sale, but just wanted to let potential buyers know how great this game is. It is my understanding that many of the original developers from the Diablo 1 & 2 games (including the music person) have migrated over to Runic Games to make this fantastic RPG. Anyone familiar with the Diablo games will instantly recognize the music, the menus, and the gameplay ... but with many refinements and upgrades. The graphics are very nice, the music if fantastic, the gameplay is addictive, the quests are fun, and there is an abundance of loot to collect. A nice plus that I like with Torchlight is that when you exit your game and return at another time your character is at the same location and your progress picks up at that point ... no starting from town everytime like in Diablo 2. If you leave a town portal open upon exiting, it will be there when you come back. Another revision with Torchlight is if your character dies, you now have a few options to chose from on how you want to respawn (from the exact spot where you died to back in town) ... no more repawning back in town regardless and having to slog your way back to where you died to get your stuff back like in Diablo 2 ... A demo is available to try out before buying if interested ... just Google search for it. I highly recommend this game ... It's a great value even at it's retail price.

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