Torchlight arrived on the PC’s way back in 2009 and to be a huge hit. No-one expected much but once it was played, word of mouth and some crazy price drops, propelled it into stardom. Since the new XBLA console iteration was announced, the lazy part of me was really looking forward to being able to lay back on the couch and play a ‘living-room’ version of the PC game which I had sunk countless of hours into.
If you aren’t familiar with Torchlight, you can choose to play as one of three characters, either an Alchemist, Destroyer or Vanquisher, each with different abilities and weapon classes. You’ll explore the mines beneath the town of Torchlight killing monsters picking up gold and grabbing tonnes of loot, as you collect weapon sets, craft items, and feed your pet items to turn them into different types of creatures to fight by your side.
When launched, Torchlight was a PC game through and through. Players would use their mouse to click their way down through the levels, on enemies and practically everything. So would the game be able to translate well from PC to Xbox? Thankfully Runic Games have done a great job at utilizing the Xbox controller with the character movement on the controllers analogue stick being particularly smooth and the navigation thorough a plethora of menus without a mouse or keyboard was not a bad as I thought it might be. Spells and items are mapped to different buttons on the controller and I soon got used it, possibly even preferring it to the PC.
The games retains the highly stylised characters and environments from its PC predecessor and it still looks excellent. There are a few bonus features that Xbox fans will be given including new armour sets, new quests, and a new pet called a Chakawary. I chose him to see what he was like and the best way to describe him would be to compare him to the dinosaur in Jurassic Park that spits in the fat guys face, then eats him.
With a new console friendly streamlined version of Torchlight, I think Runic Games are going to see their biggest success to-date. It has everything, eye-popping environments and character models, great voice work and a sweeping musical score. Couple this with a variety of difficulty settings to appease all levels of gamers and a mountain of different loot items, you’re probably going to come back to the game quite a few times.
The story is somewhat lacking, but for me wasn’t really important when tracking down quests and taking on the beastly minions. All to easily I lost track of time whilst exploring the depths of the mines, which was great for the gamer in me, but bad for the real life priorities like eating and leaving the house. If you’ve enjoyed similar Dungeon crawler games on the PC such as the Diablo series, you will love this, if you haven’t played this style of game before I’d still recommend picking it up. Its has something for everyone, its deep enough to satisfy even the hardiest of loot hoarders but also approachable for novices to the genre. A must have.
