Review: Torchlight - A Prelude to an MMO!

Review: Torchlight - A Prelude to an MMO! By Matthew Colins Matthew has been writing for various MMO sites for the last three years, including a brief stay at Curse. Matthew now writes exclusively for MMOSite. He has a wizard robe and hat.

It's been a while now since I've actually written anything worth publishing. In fact it's been a while since I've written anything at all. When I say a while I don't mean a short while. I mean a long while. Longer that a bout but not as long as an age. Somewhere in between perhaps. I'm not trying to rant here. I'm just trying to give you an impression of how important this article is in the hopes that you'll take me very, very seriously.

There is always a reason to return to this type of thing. Mostly it's to complain. Sometimes it's to analyse. Rarely it's to review. This time the reason is Torchlight - a very small game from a very small developer most probably housed in a very small shed somewhere in America.

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Torchlight wasn't supposed to be one of the big blockbuster titles of 2009. In my mind it wasn't supposed to garner wide critical praise or commercial success. It wasn't supposed to set a new standard of quality in the hack 'n' slash genre. It wasn't supposed to be something I found myself getting more and more addicted to every time I played it. It certainly wasn't supposed to flip the middle one up at major title releases over the last couple of years by proving outstanding quality does not have to come with a hefty price tag. All Torchlight was supposed to do was to set the stage - and very quietly set it - for Runic Games return to MMOs in 18 months time after regrettably having the diamond in the rough that was Mythos torn brutally out of their hands by bankruptcy.

So why is Torchlight receiving so much attention and - in turn - praise?

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Realistically there isn't that much to Torchlight. There are three classes which provide the three usual flavours of damage - caster, ranged and melee. Once you have picked one of these roles you are thrown into a small town named Torchlight. Torchlight has got itself in a bit of a pickle recently; it's a boom town built on top of an ancient mine to produce and export a mineral called Ember. Problem is the Ember flow out of Torchlight has stopped primarily due to the fact that strange monsters, goblins, giant spiders, bat-like creatures and dragons - among other things - have started ascending the mine embarking on a relentless assault of the small town and its defenceless inhabitants... as well as corrupting the Ember these guys are supposed to be mining. This is where you come in: it's your job to descend the mine chopping up as many bad guys as is humanly possible at the same time as giving yourself repetitive strain injury. Pretty traditional hack 'n' slash sort of setting if you ask me.

And that's all there really is to it. There isn't much of a story line and the environments and monsters aren't that varied despite the mine having 100 or so levels to descend in search of items and fame (and that last bit I mean literally; you actually do go in search of fame). However there is enough there - and more - to keep you entertained.