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The hard-life of a gamers girlfriend:
Oh my god man, I love Torchlight. In fact, I love it a little bit too much! This is one of the few games that grabbed me and kind of forced my mind to think of it 24/7 untill I finished it. My girlfriend and I got into a fight over this game. I was brainwashed by this game after I just played it for the first time, I had to stop the session because my girlfriend arrived at my house. We we’re watching a movie and she noticed I was a little bit distracted and not really watching at all. So she asked “What’s the thing you would want to do the most right now?”, my answer: “Playing my new game…” (I invited her over in the first place). Brotip: DO NOT say stuff like that to your girlfriend haha. Understandably, shit hit the fan. It was all good later though, after I explained how awesome this game is. 
So how awesome is it?
Awesome.
Why? Pets.
‘Cause you get a cat and stuff! Or a dog… if you like those. I only like these dogs! But seriously, the game is a lot like the famous dungeon crawler Diablo 2. In fact, Runic pretty much “stole” everything of the ever popular Diablo games. Identyfing scroll to “unlock” magic items and Town-portal scrolls are 2 good examples of ideas stolen 1 on 1 from Diablo 2. Still the hack-and-slash style of gameplay and the 1 versus 100 feeling of the game is a success formula. Why change that? Somehow it’s just so fun and addicting of creating a hero, leveling him up and getting better and better gear for him.
A very cool feature, as I mentioned before, it that you get a pet cat. Or dog (not like this one). You can give your cat a name and he will actively fight alongside you. The pets are not over- or underpowered, just a good balance and addition to your own character. The best parts about your cat is that it can cast spells and you get to define what spells! So if you give it a healing spell you have a pocket healer, but give it a AoE damage spell and you have a awesome companion to clear weak little monsters in one blow. Also, and this is insanely handy, you can send your pet to town to sell stuff. It will be gone for about 1 minute but the important part is that you can remain in the dungeon. Infinite dungeon crawling for the win! One last thing. Your pet can eat fishes (which you can fish up). Feeding it a fish transforms it into a monster for a small period of time. It’s awesome! 
Let’s talk heroes.
There are 3 classes available in Torchlight. A big burly strong man, a small sneaky magical man and a chick with a shotgun. A.k.a: Destroyer, Alchemist & Vanquisher respectively.
The big burly strong man can wield massive weapons and summon ancestral spirits (which work as passive armor effects) to aid him in battle, there are also mods available (on the interwebs) which allow you to dual-wield 2-handed weapons. Funny, awesome-looking and unfair for the monsters. The Destroyer has a good AoE talent tree (titan) which makes it a very fun class to play.
The sneaky magical man uses lightning magics to kill stuff. He can also summon mechinical golem-like robots and little blue smurf-imps. On my first playthrough I was playing as a Alchemist and I put all my talents into creating insanely strong imps (these talents also benfited my pet cat). Me and my imps sliced through dungeons like a warm knife trough a buttery skull. Fun fact: The summoned imps look like blue galago’s! This class is very fun to play but sometimes feels a little like “The noob class” because it’s so darn powerfull. Summon minions and support them with massive lightening blasts, winning!
Chicks with dicks! Erm.. I mean, chicks with guns! And bows. A women of many skills and talents, with knowledge of (vital) organs. So she can pleasure or kill you quickly! The Vanquisher uses long ranged attacks with her ranged weapons. Unless you decide to play as a rogue, than the gameplay shifts towards killing people things with daggers. A cool feature of the Vanquisher is that she can place traps on the ground. Some with devastating effects like the “Shock Trap”, when stepped upon this creates a massive thunderbolt which jolts through all the enemies near it. Combine this with “Lightening Bomb” (’cause she can throw bombs too) for massive damage. Both of these skills benefit from, and increase, electric damage.
The Plot!
The story is not Torchlight’s strong suit. Ember (which is the essence of magic and can enchant or corrupt anything it comes in contact with) can be mined and sold for lot’s of dough. Or it can be used to attain greatly powerfull magics and if you have enough you might even be able to rule the world with it. “Torchlight” is a small mining town/outpost which sits upon the biggest quantity of Ember ever found. It’s also the name of the game (it really is). Problem with the ember is that it also lures evil beings. So the mine is littered with monsters and such. It also transforms people into twisted and vile creatures, so you encounter some nublets who wen’t into the mines before and failed. Good thing is that you can kill them! So, mining town, lot’s of Ember, corruption and evilness. Of course there is a big boss who is causing it all. He is at the bottom of the mine, shocker! “U has to destroys the evils at it roots!” “Will do.” That’s pretty much all there is to it. Of course you meet alot of people on the way down and it is an enjoyable & simple story to say the least.
Lookie! Lookie! I even took me a polaroid, see?
In other words: Graphics! To be honest, and this opinion has been said by hundreds of people before me, it looks like World of Warcraft. A bit cartoony but not totally childish. At least there is blood and gore! It’s not a mind-blowingly beautifull game but it does look very decent and polished. Maybe they did it on purpose, in order to stand back a little from the Diablo clone calling contest. Anyway, in a game like this gameplay is way more important and the gameplay is rock solid.
It’s good… IT’S GOOD!
Anyone get the Bruce Almighty refence going on here? No? Crap. Anyhow, this is the conclusion. What makes this game so darn good? The variety in levels and dungeons. Everytime you enter a dungeon or anything it will be completely randomized. The intuitive design of the game, the interface is simple so everyone can play it and more seasoned gamers will feel right at home too. The pet companion is also extremely awesome. The fact that there is LOADS of loot in the game (with endless variations), you can make your character stronger and stronger. The talent builds are very diverse and challenge you to experiment with them. So are the classes.
A very cool feature called “Retirement”, once you are done with a character you can choose to retire him/her. Your next character will then have a “heirloom” item of you old character on it and it will get some bonusses to his/her stats aswell. Very nifty and original. You can also fish, there are alot of different fish to catch and to feed to your pets. This will transform it into different monsters too! And there is way more to type here, it’s just a great game (especially for it’s price!) filled with alot of cool gameplay-experiences! You should buy it.
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2 Comments
Zidders, thank you for the feedback, allow me to respond although I’m not the one who wrote this review.
The reviewer was clearly exaggerating with the whole ignoring his girlfriend part. This review was written with a gamers view, which is not the default professional game-reviewers view. We at GalagoGame care about what WE think about the game, not what others think about the game, and certainly not what other reviewers think of the game.
Reviews these days are all the same, they all use the same blueprint. Talk a bit about the story, graphics, all the standard stuff (which you should expect). They never talk about how the game affects their lives, which is, in my opinion, one of the things that REALLY make the game, more so than graphics and gameplay. That personal touch make this review more useful, for me anyway.
For example, I’m playing Mass Effect 2 for a while now, trying to get all the achievements (as the achievement-whore I am). Last few weeks I was busy finishing the game on Insanity. Last night I was close to getting it, but I had work the next day (Friday comes afterwards). But with Mass Effect 2 (and achievements) being so addictive I played the game until I finished it, which was 2:30 AM, so I still had a good 4 hours left to get some rest before going to work. Conclusion, Mass Effect 2 isn’t just about gameplay and graphics, you WANT to keep playing it. Same with Torchlight.
Another problem with the default game-reviews is the one joke that seems to be required. Mostly a witty caption on a picture. GalagoGame doesn’t really have a blueprint for reviews, so each reviewer writes in his own style, which also differs with the game and the reviewer’s mood. Most reviewers at GalagoGame have a crude sense of humor, which they like to share with their audience. (Also, we like cats better than dogs.) The sexists remarks of the reviewer is an example of this, To me it’s also a stab to the over-sexualisation of women in games, which is also present in Torchlight.
About it being a Diablo 2 ripoff. It is. Pretty much all games are (partly) ripoffs. It’s about which parts are unique. That Fleshlight is developed by (partly) the same people as Diablo 2 is not a good reason to just reuse elements from Diablo 2. If they’d call it Diablo 3, it would be O.K., as it’s the same series. Then again, using elements from other games doesn’t have to be a bad thing, as long as it’s not a 1 on 1 copy and still retains it’s own uniqueness.
To close my rant. I think that the reviewer’s style is fine the way it is. Being immature is a key part of being a gamer. I we would be mature, we wouldn’t play games this much and we wouldn’t be able to pull of a REAL review.
http://i55.tinypic.com/z7db7.jpg
whoever wrote this should probably pay a little more attention to their relationship than to the game. Torchlight is great, but if you’re ignoring your significant other to play a game, you have (and are going to have) big problems. The review tries a little too hard to be funny, and comes off as more than a little immature. I’m not expecting professional writing skills in an amatuer review, so take this as some helpfull advice. Try to leave any personal comments not relevant to the actual review of the game out of the review. For example, the bit about choosing a ‘cat-or a dog, if you like those’. Or the part about the ‘chicks with dicks’ and the female pleasuring someone…please, it’s immature, sexist, and makes the reviewer sound like an ass, to boot.
. As far as being a Diablo 2 ripoff…you might want to spend a little more time researching the game. The guys partly responsible for this game, Max and Eric Schaefer, are two of the guys also responsible for Diablo. If they’re ripping anyone off, it’s themselves. If anything, Torchlight improves upon the formula, adding a few things that would have been great had they been in the original. The music is even the same guy as Diablo, Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction-Matt Uelmen.
Look, I don’t want to seem overly harsh here, I think the reviewer has some potential. They just need to mature some, first off, and spend a bit more time reading professional game reviews