Released on Tuesday for digital download Torchlight is the first game to come out of the relatively newly formed Runic Games studio. Torchlight is an action RPG title in the vein of Diablo with stylised graphics described as a cross between Dragon Age and The Incredibles. This is the studio’s first release, however Runic is made up of many industry veterans including staff from Blizzard North and those who worked on the original Diablo game. Runic were kind enough to send us a copy of the game for review to allow us to experience the mountains of loot, randomly generated dungeons and fast paced action RPG gameplay for ourselves. Unfortunately the editing tools weren’t available at the time of review.

The small town of Torchlight is under attack by creatures of all shapes and sizes and the people of the town believe the mines to be the reason behind their sudden appearance. The mystical ore Ember that the miners are collecting seems to corrupt everything that it comes into contact with and it’s up to you to find the source of the corruption. Though the story may sound like an epic journey it does seem under-represented in the game, with a short cutscene or paragraph of text appearing at rare intervals to progress it further.

Why is it I always name my pets in games after Halfleft?

You can choose to play one of three classes: The Destroyer (Warrior) , Vanquisher (Rogue / Hunter) or the Alchemist (Mage). Unfortunately that’s as far as actual physical character creation goes. There is only one model for each of the three classes. The same goes for the pet that you choose to accompany you. You are free to choose between either a dog or cat to assist you on your journey.

The different tilesets used throughout the game are great looking and the randomisation of the dungeons helps to alleviate any repetition up to a point. However, once you have been playing for any length of time you do start to recognise some of the set pieces such as secret passageways or traps. I did find that as I progressed further into the game that the repetition seemed less obvious, perhaps the first few tilesets just had limited set pieces in comparison to the later ones.

The big question that every single person who is interested in Torchlight wants to ask is: ‘œWhy no multiplayer?’ The whole aim of dungeon crawlers like this isn’t really to finish the story or beat the big bad guy, it’s to get as much awesome loot as you can. Part of the fun is showing off your decked out character to friends or running dungeons together for those last few pieces you need for a set. It’s a real shame that there is no semblance of multiplayer. Even a cross game auction house for useless loot or perhaps a way to add friends to an in-game list so you can see what ‘œphat lootz’ they are sporting would probably have been small enough additions that could have satiated the loss of actual multiplayer.

The control scheme is very simple and will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has played an action RPG or an MMO before. Skills can be assigned to the numbers one through zero for ease of use and the spell you most frequently use can be bound to right click. With the pet and any summoned minions you have there isn’t any direct control over them, they kind of just end up doing their own thing. This often includes getting stuck behind scenery due to some path finding issues which can mean a lot of annoying backtracking for your character.

The click to attack interface can be inaccurate at times, with attacks hitting the wrong enemy or not being triggered at all due to movement and standard attacks both utilising left click. There’s nothing more terrifying than expecting to shoot a boss creature from a safe distance only to run straight into its most powerful attack.

There are two different types of skills that you can learn: class specific and universal. The class specific skills are unlocked every few levels and you put points into the skill tree to improve them. The universal skills you learn from scrolls found throughout the game world. For my first playthrough I’ve been playing as the Alchemist, the mage equivalent in Torchlight. Once I reached a certain level and managed to start unlocking some of the stronger spells I found myself using a much smaller variety of skills. This was especially true once I attained the Ember Lance skill. It fires a beam of ember energy from the caster’s hand doing high, constant damage whilst draining the caster’s mana until you have none left. This skill seemed so overpowered that I had to physically remove it from my bars to prevent myself becoming bored with the combat. An “I win” button is only fun the first few times, after that it just makes you play on autopilot removing any actual interaction or fun.

The universal skills learned from scrolls can also be taught to your pet giving them a little more utility. Though you cant tell them when to use the spells, or in the case of area of effect or summon spells, where to use them.

Just one more level, honest.

When it comes to loot, there is definitely no shortage of random useless junk to be collected. Often your entire inventory can get filled from a single encounter causing you to either have to travel back to town and sell it all or send your pet to sell it for you. The only problem is that once you get all the money from the sale of your items there really isn’t much to spend it on. Identify scrolls are the only usable item that I ever needed to purchase, the enemies dropped more than enough health and mana potions to keep me sitting with 20 of each. The gambling vendor was really the only other outlet for my cash and most of the time I would only need one or two tries to get an item that could easily replace one of my current set. It would be nice to have another way to spend all that hard earned money, other than wasting it on enchantments as you level rather than waiting until you have hit the cap and aren’t going to be replacing an item for a very long time.

A few more points worth mentioning:

• There is no in-game Help menu. As simple as things are, it would have been nice.
• No in-game control remapping.
• If you forget to grab a side-quest before heading back into the dungeon you will more than likely pass straight over the whatever the quest wants you to find or kill, later having to backtrack later the next time you return to town.
• It costs $20 and free modding tools will be released soon.

When all is said and done Torchlight is an extremely solid action RPG with a small selection of niggling faults that can cause minor bouts of frustration. The lack of character customisation is one of the bigger let downs, sometimes leaving you feeling like you are an outside observer watching a story unfold, rather than the hero at the centre of it. Once again I’m afraid I’ll have to mention the lack of multiplayer support. After playing Diablo II for umpteen years and other action RPGs you grow accustomed to being able to share adventures with friends, trade loot with people and have a generally more social experience that Torchlight is sorely lacking.

You should play this game if…
…you are a fan of action-RPGs but don’t mind the lack of multiplayer or if you need a hack ‘n’ slash fix before Diablo III eventually gets released.

Final Score
A fantastic example of the action RPG genre with a few niggling faults that you will barely notice. The lack of multiplayer may be a deal breaker to some, but it provides a great single player experience.

(What does this score mean?)