I had been interested in playing Torchlight for quite some time. I just never got around to it. I had a few people tell me that it was mediocre and it really wasn’t worth the time. I figured, “Well, these people game a lot, so it must not be that great.” I was wrong. It is a great game. I’m not saying it is amazing, but it is a really good game.

I started off with the Vanquisher, a bow wielding female. The first thing I notice about this game as I started playing it was that it was remarkably like Diablo 2. Only this game had made several improvements on the old D2 (I would hope so considering that Torchlight is almost 10 years newer).

I laughed to myself a little, when some of the things that people claimed as great ideas for Diablo 3 came from Torchlight, such as the pet that would help collect money and items. Torchlight did it first, but I suppose that is only fair considering that Torchlight obviously based its game of Diablo 2 anyway.

I am not going to make a long winded review of the game. That wouldn’t make sense considering it has been out for almost three years now, but I will say that in the future, just because I have friends that don’t like it doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t give something that I am interested in a try.

*images taken from photobucket*

You could say I am excited for Diablo 3 and it would be an understatement.

I have been a fan of this series since it first came out in 1996, and I was probably much too young to be playing it (I was around 9 at the time). It may come as blasphemy to some fans, but I actually still like the first Diablo in some ways more than the second. I miss the shrines that all you got usually was an eerie quote and it could either be good for you or bad. I miss the idea of going underground until you reach hell, and it really does bring up some emotional childhood nostalgicness. That’s not to say that the second diablo wasn’t a better game overall, I just like some of the things about the first one. I have a good feeling that is what is going to happen when I finally get my hands on Diablo 3.

Waiting is Hell:

I can’t really help it, but I live and breath this lore. I have grown up playing this series and I am probably anticipating Diablo 3 more than any other game that has come out. This worries me because now the game has to live up to my expectations and after 10 years of waiting, they are pretty high. In the mean time, I have been getting my fix by watching some of the live streams that are on the internet, such as the ones on justin.tv. So far I love some things that I have seen, and I am worried about other things that I have either heard about or have seen.

Get outa my way peoples!

Worrying more than a pregnant teenager:

You could say even though I do expect this to be a great game that will grow on me over time, I still do worry about the fact that there are a few things that could really take away from my game experience and what it is to be a Diablo game.

First of all, I don’t know how much of a fan I will be of the new skill system. Half the fun in Diablo 2 was tweaking with the skills to get the best possible combination. Blizzard claimed that it was to avoid the hours of tweaking it took to get the right combination, but in my opinion, that is just part of the fun. Also they took away the ability points, which is a disappointment for me as well. I would have been just fine with it if that had it like they did in the late patch of Diablo 2 where you could reset your skill points if you messed up. That would be perfectly fine with me.

Second. I am not sure I will fall in love with the whole online only option. Not because I want to mod anything or that I want to steal a copy of Diablo 3, but because of the fact that I just like to play one player sometimes and don’t want to have a constant connection to the internet to do it. It is something that I feel that Blizzard should have had an option to have an off-line only option for characters that a person only wanted to play on one player and never had any intention of bringing online. That way, if the person did do some modding, who cares? My guess this is mostly Activision doing this and not Blizzard. They cared too much about it in the past, but I have a feeling Activision is pushing this on the Blizzard team. They would be so much better off if Activision would just own them, but let them make their own decisions. “Hey Acivision, We will make you a butt-ton of money, but seriously, leave us the fuck alone.”

-sincerily

Blizzard

P.S. We are now awesome again.

The thing that will make this game awesome beyond all belief:

If I can convince my girlfriend to play it with me. I know that sounds pretty dorky, but as much as a love playing this series, it would be even more memorable if she got into the series with me. I have a feeling she would like it (She loves gaming, and is a hardcore geek and otaku), and it would make the series that much more fun for me to play. Well all I can say is time will tell if I will come to love this addition to the series or not, until I get to play and not one sees me for the 3 months I will be living out of a cave playing D3, this is Phorden, signing off.