Aren’t you also tired of spiders and goblins and skeletons that use bows to protect themselves? Of lush vegetation that grows over the ruins or catacombs filled with barrels and chests? Or of swords and shields and gems? I guess you have, but if you are tired of this, why don’t you play a little game that will remind you of the universe created by Tolkien in Lord of the Rings. Because this is the nature of the people, they say that will never play a game like this again and they saw them playing exactly the same game after two or three days after saying that.
The universe created by Tolkien is for the RPGs what is the World War II for shooters. Which is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for spiders and goblins, or other creatures that scare the hell out of you. Take this case for example: Torchlight, an RPG “from the creators of Diablo”.You remember Diablo right? In your mind probably there is the syndrome of a tunnel with ruined mice and sleepless nights.
Let’s see what is about: you have a small mining town in, no matter where, it is important that there was found “Ember”, a reservoir with special magical properties. And you are one of the adventurers who arrive in this wonderful town looking for “loot”. Or else, I cannot say exactly what you are looking for, because from the way it is presented the story of the game, you cannot understand so many.
You can choose between three classes, which are a man full of muscles that fights well, a sexy man which uses the bow in order to kill and put traps and a man who is dressed in coat and shoots balls of fire. You have life, a hand, slots and magic, weapons and armor and a pet. Here I wanted to reach – to your life companion and fighting companion at the same time: you can choose between “cat and dog”, which is between a lynx and a wolf. I will not say that there is no connection between yourself and the animal, because it will interest you less if it’s dying or if it is running away to die as all the animals who love their masters do, or if your animal can wear two rings and a necklace.
Certainly I will not say any of this. I’ll just say that you can send it into town to sell the stuff that you no longer need. And I will also say that it can make spells and wear two rings and a necklace – I wonder why only two? Another cool thing is that your pet carries so many objects as you can carry. It is an alternative to a backpack which must be increased in other RPGs, but that’s not the important – important is that you can send it to sell things. If you could send it to buy it would be perfect, but this is very hard. You would have put some pennies in a bag and give it a list, and it would have returned with beautiful bottles of red liquid that resembles to bitter and have the same curative properties.
When the battle starts, you have to get down in mines. In the everyday life, a mine is a place where you get dehumanized and want to go out and share the justice even with a stick. The miners know why. Normally, the Torchlight mines are also dangerous places, full of violent creatures and barrels and chests, as I said above. The barrel is made of wood, it can be easily destroyed (one shot) contains air, or money or explosives or poison gases or unfriendly skeletons. There is a trick version of a barrel which is full of TNT. Other variations, depending on your luck: basket, vase, urn.
Let’s go to the chests, which are full of goodies or can attack you (most times the unexperienced user dies in the front of such a magic box). We also have trap chests, different than those that attack you, and once you open them they spread all around fire balls or lightnings. Interesting is that a voice “from off” announces the player that after he activated a trap “You activated a trap”. This is great.
You may also interact with some handles that can activate the bridges to make the connection between various levels of the game. Or you can open doors to secret compartments in which you find money and other chests and barrels. Otherwise, you interact with enemies. And enemies are many, and often fools, but they can kill you in a second. After you die you will not get any option to load, but you will have to choose between entering the level for a fee or resume the game from where you died in return of some experience points and prestige.
The prestige, fame, or how you wish to tell it helps you when you raise in the game level, which give you an additional point to be used to increase the attributes. I will not go into detail in describing “skill tree”. there is nothing impressive here, if you have played 2-3 RPGs you get the whole idea.
Anyway, it’s good that you can choose the place from which to restart after you died – the tax in money seems the best option, but if you must go to the place where you died and you die again and again, you start to become annoydecby this situation and you give away your experience and your fame and you revive in the middle of the battle. There is also a third option: to stay with your money in the pocket and with the experience and reputation intact, but to wake up to a life in the city. This is not recommended for those who want to play the real Torchlight game developed by Runic Games. I will get back with more information about this game, because I find it pretty interesting and I consider that it deserves another article. Stay posted!
