Tag Archives: hack’n’slash

The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG), The Android's Deranged Killing Spree (Action), The Android's Shower of Giblets (Hack'n'Slash)

Torchlight is a Great Little Game

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Happy weekend all!  Pike here.

I haven’t been posting much on this blog lately, and I do apologize for that.  The truth is that I’ve been having an obscene about of fun with the lastest WoW expac so I’m playing a lot of that.

Today, however, I thought I would give something new a shot and I booted up Torchlight, which I have somehow never played before.  And I promptly wound up playing it for the next few hours, because it was just that addictive.  For the few of you who haven’t played it, it’s an action-RPG along the veins of Diablo, and it is just wonderful.  You can pick from three classes and I promptly picked alchemist because the guy is wearing goggles, and I think I made the right choice.  I love hurling poison bolts at my enemies from afar, watching them all expire, and then going around and collecting all sorts of great loot.  It’s simple, straightforward, and a whole lot of fun.

Also, one of the questgivers is a steampunky robot.  I approve.

The sequel recently came out and I look forward to playing that as well, but for now I’m having a blast with the original!  Anyone who hasn’t looked into this series should really do so.  It is well worth the price!

The official Torchlight website is here: http://www.torchlightgame.com/

And now, here is a cat picture, because it’s always time for cat pictures:

Cats are also the best choice of pet in Torchlight.
The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG), The Android's Distracted Boss (Casual/Flash), The Android's Fellow Robots (Multiplayer), The Android's Shower of Giblets (Hack'n'Slash)

ARPG

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With all the hubbub around Diablo 3 lately it’s probably been lost, but the Action RPG genre is actally a thriving one, with several exciting things on the way. I thought I’d quickly run through a few on the horizon in this post, so those of you who don’t already spend too much time hunting for loot can begin to do so!

First up we have Torchlight 2. The original Torchlight was a great little game, if lacking in a couple of areas, and the sequel looks likely to tidy up pretty much everything that was criticized to make for a great experience.

Next we’ll look at Grim Dawn. Grim Dawn is coming from Crate Entertainment, founded by folks from Iron Lore who worked on the fairly well-regarded Titan Quest. I’ve not played that myself but I got it in the Steam Sale so I will be giving it a look soon, but everything I’ve seen about Grim Dawn has me very very excited. Grim Dawn is also promising an open world where you can wander into trouble long before you’re prepared to deal with it, which sounds like a pretty promising angle to me, and the whole exploration side of things will hopefully be played up!

Taking a slightly different approach is the online-only Path of Exile, which gave us a truly glorious image of a skill tree I shall show you in a moment; it really puts Diablo 3 to shame. At any rate it’s another promising-looking ARPG on the way, and one whose funding through microtransactions looks to be backed up by people who have actually got a notion of why microtransactions cause some problems, and are trying to avoid them.

Meanwhile, in Spira…

There are also people trying new things in the genre, such as Nyrthos, being made by some Czech czaps which is aiming to be playable in browsers and on iOS. At first I was skeptical about that, but upon reflection, if they can get the pacing down properly, that might just work – ten minutes of ripping through baddies on your lunch break or on the bus could actually be a whole lot of fun. We’ll have to wait and see!

So if you like sitting around all day clicking the mouse incessantly and weighing up whether your new Chastity Belt of Frustration +3 is better or worse than your Codpiece of the Equine King then it seems like there are going to be a heck of a spread of options in the coming months! Tell us in the comments what you’re excited for, and let us know if we’ve missed any!