I think I'm over Yahtzee's ZP reviews. I was already disappointed of his off-hand dismissal of the RTS genre, but this takes things a bit too far. Riffing on a bad game is funny. Riffing on a good game that sells well (like a certain Call of Duty game) is funny. Riffing on a good game that is relatively unknown, like Torchlight, leaves a sour taste. Neither Painkiller or Psychonauts is a perfect game in their own right. Both, in fact, have many of their own flaws. Yet they get glowing reviews. Torchlight distills the Diablo-esque RPG to its best elements, and all it gets is an "it's good because it's cheap."

Agreed, Torchlight is one of the few games that has kept me entertained recently and it deserves a bit more than it got. I wouldn't mind him taking aim at it so much if it was a shoddy piece of work, but he dismissed it basically because of its genre - disregarding the fact that it is the best of its genre, IMO. >> ^Sylvester_Ink:
I think I'm over Yahtzee's ZP reviews. I was already disappointed of his off-hand dismissal of the RTS genre, but this takes things a bit too far. Riffing on a bad game is funny. Riffing on a good game that sells well (like a certain Call of Duty game) is funny. Riffing on a good game that is relatively unknown, like Torchlight, leaves a sour taste. Neither Painkiller or Psychonauts is a perfect game in their own right. Both, in fact, have many of their own flaws. Yet they get glowing reviews. Torchlight distills the Diablo-esque RPG to its best elements, and all it gets is an "it's good because it's cheap."

I tried Torchlight too, the game absolutely screams Diablo 2 clone, except with WoW-like graphics. It is most certainly your typical hack-and-slash destroyer of mice games. On the other hand, the gameplay itself isn't bad, and runs very well on low spec machines, netbooks included.

I don't think anyone's ever really taken ZP's reviews with any real credulity ever since he stopped giving positive reviews ... which was like 1 or 2 episodes into the series. He doesn't really make any secret of his subjectivity either, so as long as you treat all his reviews as comedy roasts, he's great weekly entertainment.

1. Townspeople standing around over a mining shaft to Armageddon? Check.
2. Three superficial character classes, that could essentially do the same thing with minor class difference super powers? Check.
3. Big titties. Check.
4. May have to purchase a new mouse from wearing out your old one clicking on everything because there are no options for auto-loot or WASD to move. Check.
5. "Easy" is meant for those who are still fully entertained by LOLzCATS and should, by all accounts, be wearing a helmet when taking a shower. Check.
6. Why has your pet returned to the balcony above you, being chewed on by ten dragons? Or stuck in the other room behind you...being chewed upon by ten dragons? Check.
7. Eight identify scrolls and twenty unidentified items. Check.
8. Forty-nine health and mana potions of various sizes? Check.

I paid $10 for it off Steam. Played it for a week, got my money's worth, but it was around level 64 on my Vanquisher, using my explosive shot melty facey thingy that I was wondering what it was that I should be aiming for. Upon researching the game's "plot", I was saddened to find that I completed the main storyline back in my thirties.

I had no idea.

Sure, jack up the difficulty setting to very hard or nightmare to make it more challenging, but walking around town on your hands doesn't make all the rest of your life's inadequacies that much more bearable because it's now "more challenging".

Frankly, I think the review is spot on. The game is fun, but it is also streamlined, unoriginal, overuses the mouse clicking and is quite boring.

But if you got it cheap...well, there you go.

Torchlight, but no Diablo killer. It really needed multiplayer!

Well at least he was right about the excessive amount of drops you get in a dungeon, usually there is enough stuff in just one floor to overload your inventory and you do wind up spending far too much time identifying and sorting out crap rather than actual playing.

But about the excessive clicking, did he even try to *hold* the mouse button down to attack?

Funny, from someone who liked Torchlight.

*quality

*promote

Self promoting this video back to the front page; last published Thursday, January 14th, 2010 12:35am PST - promote requested by original submitter Zifnab.

>> ^RedSky:
I don't think anyone's ever really taken ZP's reviews with any real credulity ever since he stopped giving positive reviews ... which was like 1 or 2 episodes into the series. He doesn't really make any secret of his subjectivity either, so as long as you treat all his reviews as comedy roasts, he's great weekly entertainment.


My thoughts exactly, it's all tongue in cheek - i would have thought the fact he talks as fast as he can with no breaks for the entire review would have given that away though.

His review was pretty funny ; he included some great metaphors in there. Anyway, he should probably not discourage indie developers if we can say that the developers are "indie" considering they had previously worked on Diablo and WoW.

More importantly, Torchlight was released to keep the project going - the next phase will be the multi-player phase.

>> ^Sylvester_Ink:
I think I'm over Yahtzee's ZP reviews. I was already disappointed of his off-hand dismissal of the RTS genre, but this takes things a bit too far. Riffing on a bad game is funny. Riffing on a good game that sells well (like a certain Call of Duty game) is funny. Riffing on a good game that is relatively unknown, like Torchlight, leaves a sour taste. Neither Painkiller or Psychonauts is a perfect game in their own right. Both, in fact, have many of their own flaws. Yet they get glowing reviews. Torchlight distills the Diablo-esque RPG to its best elements, and all it gets is an "it's good because it's cheap."


Are you saying the comedic value of this review is dependant on whether you agree with his review? Reviews are opinion, there are no objectively good games. Also, he didn't say it was good because it was cheap, he said it wasn't worth the $3 he paid for it.

For the most part I do not agree with Yahtzee's opinions (I like JRPG's and singing in Rock Band), so I don't view them as reviews and they don't factor into by buying choices. Its just comedy.

I love Torchlight, but I still found this funny.

I take everything he says with a grain of salt, these days. He's not a serious reviewer, he's a comedian.

@Sylvester_Ink:
Riffing on a good game that is relatively unknown, like Torchlight, leaves a sour taste. Neither Painkiller or Psychonauts is a perfect game in their own right. Both, in fact, have many of their own flaws. Yet they get glowing reviews. Torchlight distills the Diablo-esque RPG to its best elements, and all it gets is an "it's good because it's cheap.



"Good" game? "Best" elements of the action RPG genre? I wouldn't use either of those words to describe the game. Mind you it only cost $20, but with no story, endless repetitive gameplay, and no multiplayer, the game felt like a bare-bones Diablo clone with all the best parts stripped out.

And seriously, get over it. Yahtzee makes fun of games. That's what he does. Don't get hypocritical and defensive all of a sudden just because he made fun a game that you happen to like.

I liked Torchlight. But I haven't returned to it since playing it for about 3-4 hours, and that says it all. And yes, the clickity-clickity-clicking bullshit was really fucking awful in Diablo a decade ago, and it's really fucking awful now. There's just no excuse for it.

"More clicks than a school for dolphin telegraph operators"

hskhskhsk

Totally disagree with the earlier comments. This game felt like someone had tried very hard to copy diablo with slightly more cartoony graphics. They succeeded, but i didn't play more than 10 minutes: it was awful, imo.

I don't think it's boring, but it does have some flaws. Along with the pets/minions getting stuck and the having to click on EEEEEVERYTHING, the enemy hitboxes are small as shit in relation to their body size, so most of the time you want to attack them with a melee weapon, you just run up next to them and hang out while they slap you across the face. The only way around this is to either be very patient with smacking things/constantly use spells and specials that don't require aiming, or play as the vanquisher (tits). Holding shift to stand in place while I actually shoot at shit is the only way to keep from getting annoyed by running around in circles because some of the enemies do sudden movements (goblinhounds, lizard dudes, etc) or just have smaller bodies (pigmies, drake things, etc). Other than those, the game's pretty great. Just stock up on potions and identify scrolls (or get the identify spell if you want, you really only need two offensive spells for yourself, one offensive and one heal all spell for the pet, and two slots reserved for health potions, one for mana potions. Good game.

I got bored as soon as I figured out that Vanquisher turrets could own anything, anywhere, any time, and all I had to do was drop 3 or 4 of them on the floor and stand back.

Yawn.

*dead

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