Torchlight

 
Torchlight has been a surprise hit for me, I honestly hadn't heard of the game up until a month ago until hearing about it from my favourite gaming podcasts. Torchlight is a evolution of the Action RPG formula that Diablo perfect in the 90s, and could be considered a indirect sequel because its heritage is Diablo, even the score is from Diablo composer Matt Uelmen. Torchlight's developer Runic Games is a small development company founded  by Travis Baldree of Fate (of which the game borrows some ideas) and the Schaefer brothers, co-founders of Blizzard North, who later left Blizzard in 2003 with Bill Roper to found now defunct Flagship Studios. Flagship shutdown closed before its Seattle team headed by the Schaefer's could release Mythos a similar action RPG. Out of the ashes of Flagship Seattle came Runic Games which retained much of the Mythos Team, and was able to create Torchlight in just one year.

Torchlight from what I know about Diablo can be considered a direct evolution of Diablo; which sadly I cannot comment on a whole lot, since I shamefully have never played Diablo, sure I had seen friends while I was in elementary school playing it, but back then I was more of an AoE and Starcraft guy. Like the original Diablo Torchlight revolves around one main hub town, where you then descend in to the dungeon. As you descend deeper in to the dungeon, each level will have tremendous variety from jungle ruins to norse temples,  and while the game is not technically impressive (it has a netbook mode) the art style is vibrant and very much an evolution of the Blizzard formula found in the Warcraft series. Torchlight offers a unique and very smart refinement to the Diablo formula, your character has a pet sidekick (dog or cat) functioning both as a mule that can be sent back in to town while in a dungeon, and a fully automated sidekick in battle that can be taught any spell in your inventory to fight along side you. The game is very accessible allowing you to save anywhere in a dungeon allowing for quick 20minute sessions, however I found the normal difficulty to be a breeze after a few levels, and would recommend anyone choose a higher difficulty ( if you're insane there is also a hardcore mode in which death is permanent). One possible disappointment for a loot focused game like Torchligh is the lack of multiplayer, from what I've heard the team being small chose to put the game out in a year to fund the development of a free2play Torchlight MMO; to make up for the lack of multiplayer in the hub town there is a chest that acts as a cross character bank allowing multiple play-throughs very easily. Runic has also released their own in house fully featured editor TorchED on their website, potentially extending the already tremendous value Torchlight has to offer. Rightfully so Torchlight has been a tremendous success topping the Steam sales charts which are determined by revenue at $20,outselling games nearly triple its price like Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age, and Borderlands; at such a low price its hard to find another game out there that offers much fun at such remarkable value.

Torchlight is available as a demo and for purchase on Steam and TorchlightGame.com for Windows with an OSX version in the works for early 2010.