Torchlight on sale for $5

[Ginaz]

I picked this up tonight.  I've heard very good things about this game and for $5 you really can't go wrong.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/torchlight?q=torchlight

[Astorax]

I'd say I got around $10 of enjoyment out of it (same as a movie roughly I'd say)...so yeah, 5 bucks is totally worth it.

[Draegan]

You couldn't go wrong with the original pricepoint.

[Azazel]

For me the $20 would have been wasted money. The co-op argument I made previously. I honestly haven't gotten $5 worth of play out of it, but being $5, I'm able to not care about the price and give it whole-hearted recommendations for people on the edge to go for it.

[Astorax]

For me the $20 would have been wasted money. The co-op argument I made previously. I honestly haven't gotten $5 worth of play out of it, but being $5, I'm able to not care about the price and give it whole-hearted recommendations for people on the edge to go for it.

You didn't enjoy it for an hour?  Not even that much?

[schild]

Azazel is pretty much broken when it comes to games, so there's absolutely nothing shocking about anything he says. He could be all "Yo guyz, I reached max level in Lineage" and the only proper response would be "Cool story, bro."

[Aez]

[Azazel]

Azazel is pretty much broken when it comes to games, so there's absolutely nothing shocking about anything he says. He could be all "Yo guyz, I reached max level in Lineage" and the only proper response would be "Cool story, bro."

Meh, not loving everything that schild fellates apparently makes you broken. Because you're not allowed to have different tastes.
Still, your irrational frothing on various topics provides me with no end of amusement, so it's all still good.

You didn't enjoy it for an hour?  Not even that much?

I didn't dislike it. It's fine for what it is. It just didn't make me care. If it had multiplayer via LAN, I'd have been right into it and bought 4 copies for $20 a pop. But after playing Titan Quest through with my wife and 2 friends on a LAN, SP-only D2 clones don't do anything for me anymore. It's a good looking D2 clone I just found I didn't give a shit about. Nothing wrong with the game per se, which is why I can easily recommend it to anyone for the fiver. But it's a far cry from Robot Jebus, and I've got plenty of other stuff to play.

It's like "oh, this is nice enough", mucked around with it, then after I finished playing through the first few floors of the dungeon, I turned it off for the night, and have never felt a need to load it up since.

[Ingmar]

Meh, not loving everything that schild fellates apparently makes you broken.

I think its more that you seem unable to derive any enjoyment from stuff that isn't multiplayer, really. At least, that's what *I* find weird, personally. I dunno about broken but it's definitely weird. 

[Azazel]

There's lots of SP stuff I enjoy. But really, being able to play any kind of game with my wife in co-op makes it lots more fun. You of all people should understand that.

Some genres I still enjoy the SP quite a lot - FPS, 3PS, 3rd person sandbox, SPRPGs, RPG-FPS etc, arcade racers, arcadey flight sims. Many of those though are even more fun when played in a local co-op. I mean, I love me some military FPS games, but they're even more fun when you and your mate can cover one another and share the game experience.

The Diablo genre specifically though, is one that I really don't care for as a solo experience - I guess it goes right back to playing D2 when it was new via B.net with various combos of my brother and 3 friends. Even this was following in the footsteps of EQ1, and the games that came closest to this kind of thing Pre-D2 on the PS1 and Amiga were always much more fun with more than 1 person. But really, a class-based dungeon bash is just asking for a party of your friends to be a part of it.

[Lantyssa]

There's lots of SP stuff I enjoy. But really, being able to play any kind of game with my wife in co-op makes it lots more fun. You of all people should understand that.

Sjofn enjoys looking over his shoulder just as much.  Maybe more at times.  I've done that with roomies for years, myself.  No interest in playing the game, but it's interesting enough to watch for long stretches.

[Paelos]

I liked Torchlight for the gameplay to a point. Spitting trees really bothered me at times, and the fact that the loot never really grabbed me. You were better of uber-chanting one crap piece than waiting on a really kickass drop.

[Hoax]

I played this a little at my friend's house who I had bought it for during the xmas sale.  Despite the lack of multiplayer I'm buying this when I get home from class if its still on sale.

[Sky]

As one of the few who didn't like Diablo, Torchlight is definitely worth $5. The click-to-move and click-to-attack always bothers me, but there's enough to keep me distracted for a bit before I get to that point.

[Goreschach]

Picked this up. Didn't care enough for the demo to buy it for 20, but at 5 bucks it was cheap enough. It doesn't really have the grab of Diablo, but for $5 it's a good enough value.

And although I liked Diablo, there is something about the controls in this game that are a bit of a pain. I guess it's hard to target stuff sometimes? Kindof hard to explain. To be honest, it has me a bit worried for Diablo 3. Hopefully bliz won't end up with the same problem when they make the transition to 3d.

[pxib]

I think Diablo's enemy hitboxes were larger and more standardized than Torchlight's. I miss ranged attacks a lot more frequently leading to either a short walk towards a dangerous enemy or (if I'm holding SHIFT) a wasted "cooldown". Since torchlight also has a larger proportion of small enemies to human sized ones than Diablo had, the frustration is multiplied. I'm positive Blizzard will do enough playtesting to find some way to avoid this in III.

[rrazcueta]

I was going to make a big post complaining about TL. But then I realized I still like these guys, and I'm rooting for the TL MMO. I just wish TL was more than single player. I would buy this again for multiplayer LAN. No multiplayer here is almost as stupid as no multiplayer in a fighting game.

[Tebonas]

I disagree. For some of us, single player Action RPGs are just fine as a way to amass loot as any other means. Its just your personal preference, not an objective truth.

[rrazcueta]

I'm pretty sure that if you disagree you'd have to say it's your personal opinion. And that multiplayer ARPGs aren't objectively better.

But I'm also pretty sure that's 100% wrong.

It's a pretty game and it's balanced fairly well, but it's still solitaire. It plays too much like Diablo II and Mythos to really lay claim to anything unique on its end. And it removes the interesting economic aspects of D2. A lot of people ignored sites like D2jsp, but for the few that did engage in hardcore trading, D2 becomes more than just a slot machine. Various interesting strategies occur when playing with other people. Clans will make builds to work with other builds. I've seen a running build made to farm specific vendors for certain types of socketed staves and scepters. I've seen people try on crazy builds like dual dreams and +1 zeal phase blades on Sorcs. Paladins that *just heal*. None of these are really possible without other people. The economy dies, and you have to do 100% of the work yourself.

And while that might sound like a good time to you, D2X was built so that if you built your dream character with only stuff you found (e.g. not stuff you traded or got help being rushed for a while or had other people there to gawk at your gear) it would take you literally forever. So while it may be luck that you get your Zod to drop, you can trade it in for 3 other things that will make your character super 1337. And if you know your shit, you'll know exactly what those 3 things can trade for so you get everything you need.

In effect the economy becomes the biggest number crunch in a game all about number crunching. And TL doesn't have it.

[Tebonas]

I'm pretty sure its personal preference either way. There is no objective truth to it.

Especially in Torchlight, where you can trade items with your other characters. That economic aspect is a totally different beast. Some like it, some don't. Its something you would like to have in Torchlight, but not something the game was planned to be. Plus, in games where healing and mana potions are abundant, dedicated healers are not really feasable. What you call work is the reason others play this game.

You wanted a different game, fair enough. But that is no inherit flaw in this game, just in your perception what it should be.

[Threash]

I still can't figure out how this game is in any way better than Fate, which i still play occasionally.

[rrazcueta]

That DII, FATE, and TL are interelated is no coincidence.

That TL feels like the SP portion of a bigger MP game is a shame.

I'm not going to argue that you like it. Some people only like to eat appetizers, I guess.

[Sky]

Some people only like to eat appetizers, I guess.

[schild]

That DII, FATE, and TL are interelated is no coincidence.

That TL feels like the SP portion of a bigger MP game is a shame.

I'm not going to argue that you like it. Some people only like to eat appetizers, I guess.

When the only appetizers available are foie gras and clams casino, it would be foolish to bitch about the menu.

[eldaec]

Never really been a fan of foie gras - but torchlight is pretty cool.

Doesn't feel like half a game, doesn't feel like a demo, and Jesus Christ it doesn't need multiplayer (multiplayer would be fun for maybe 29 seconds before the lolz got old). What it does feel like is a shortish indie game. Which is what it is.

If you don't find this a little bit enjoyable, it just means you hate fun. Good for you.

[Azazel]

Torchlight is an decent and okay game, fun for what it is. Just very low-priority for me. Definately worth the $5 it was on sale for, and well worth it next time it comes up for $5 as well. If you don't care about multiplayer, I'd even say it's worth $10 based on my limited playtime, and probably the full-price $20 even - but without playing it through I can't say for sure.

It's not an appetizer, more like a light lunch, but then if you lurve it, you can replay it with the three characters and such, so it's certainly got more replayability then generic_FPS_09, gerneric_third_person_game_11 or even most long, drawn-out sandboxes these days.

Sadly, it looks like you don't have any friends or experiences with friends. But then you seem ok with that. Good for you. 

[Hoax]

I really wish I had got it for $5 either of the two times (I bought it for 3 people for xmas but not myself and I wasn't home to buy it when it was on sale this time) I didn't because I'm usually in the multiplayer or nothing camp.  But I have really really missed playing Diablo more then I knew until I played 30 minutes of Torchlight at a friend's house just to see how it was...

Now I'm just sad.

[Azazel]

Why didn;t you pick it up when you got the 3 gift copies?
I'm sure it'll be discounted again sometime soon. It'll be a free giveaway when they come up with their next game, as well.

[Fabricated]

I've gotten my money's worth out of it for sure. If someone would release a loot-revamp mod that made the all of the loot suck less in general I'd play it every day.

Everything is always middling amounts of 3-4 resistances, a stat you don't use, then bonuses to an elemental damage you don't use.

[Setanta]

I've gotten my money's worth out of it for sure. If someone would release a loot-revamp mod that made the all of the loot suck less in general I'd play it every day.

Everything is always middling amounts of 3-4 resistances, a stat you don't use, then bonuses to an elemental damage you don't use.

I played it through, then downloaded a mod that made the set items drop. It was well worth the money for this game, I can't say I regret buying it even though I haven't played it recently.