I've been playing a lot of Torchlight 2 recently, which always has its dangers. For one thing, these ARPGs are so moreish that you can sort of chug through them forever while the rest of the world withers around you. But there's another danger, too. If I play any ARPG for too long in one go I start to think purely in terms of the trade-offs. It's sort of RPG thermodynamics, I guess. I cease to see health potions as little bottles of liquid that will help me out on my heroic journey. I start to think of them as a way of trading money and time for experience.

So I stock up and go, well, this will see me through a few floors, which means a level and a half if I kill absolutely everything. That's 2000 gold in potions, 10 minutes of grind, for two levels.

The game sort of falls apart at this stage. Worse still, this thermodynamic thinking, this heat-exchange approach to games, can transfer from ARPGs. The morning fossil walk in Animal Crossing becomes five minutes of wandering for 15k or so, because inevitably Blathers will have everything by now. I might start to ponder the value of helping Gulliver or Wisp. This way leads to misery.

Read more

Five of the Best is a weekly series about the bits of games we overlook, those poor old things. I'm talking about crowds, potions, mountains, hands - things we barely notice at the time but can recall years later because they're so important to the overall memory of the game.

Now is the time to celebrate them - you and me both! I will share my memories but I'm just as eager to hear yours, so please share them in the comments below. We've had some great discussions in our other Five of the Best pieces.

But now it satchelly time to talk about this week's topic...

Read more

For me, the thing about a game like Torchlight 2 is that when I'm playing it I'm never entirely paying attention. Or rather I'm never giving it my entire attention. This is not a slight. If anything, I love the effect this has, because it means that when I replay it after a long absence, phrases return to me like fragments of some dream I can only half remember. The Temple Steppes. The Path of the Honored Dead. These things, I can just about get the tips of my fingers on them when I root through my life for their origin. Maybe they muddle around inside my head all the time when I'm not playing, almost breaking the surface, almost announcing themselves.

Torchlight 2 has landed on Switch. I'm playing it at the moment and it is wonderful. It's a wonderful port I think, the colours slightly more lurid and headachey than I remember them being on PC, while attacks and skills and potions and scrolls are mapped very neatly to face and shoulder buttons and can be reassigned in a few seconds of menu time. A game like Torchlight 2 requires flexibility on consoles. While you can't do the pleasing Skills Glissando that is such a part of the old ARPG appeal on PC, you can do an equivalent here on Switch, a sort of frantic squeeze of all fingers, jabbing all buttons, when you need all the fireworks to go off at once. It's still magical. It runs beautifully so far - and I've had a lot of monsters on screen at once already - and while the music occasionally hangs when loading a new area, well, what can I say? I'm never giving it my entire attention anyway.

For me, these are games about letting your hands do the talking. I remember reading something to the effect that birds of prey and other predators often have neural links between their eyes and their claws that bypass the rest of the brain. Have I got that right? They can attack without the need to think about it and slow themselves down. Man, birds of prey would be excellent at games like Torchlight 2 - if someone could handle the remapping job. I love to just chug along, occasionally sitting up and changing my in-game hat or sending my in-game llama back to town to sell stuff, otherwise bash bash bash and level level level.

Read more

The Mapworks is the heart of Torchlight 2. In many ways it feels like the heart of so much that is great in video games in general. You spawn at the portal and then you walk out, along a narrow golden bridge, to a magical clockwork escapement suspended in the void. I can imagine what the floor feels like here: the glossiness of the crystal and polished metal, and that hum coming up through your feet that suggests vast energies twisting and churning beneath you. The Mapworks is where you get to once Torchlight 2 is all but done, but it's also where you realise that Torchlight 2 is just beginning, and that it never has to end if you don't want it to. The campaign is over, and here, in this stately firmament, you can buy an endless supply of procedurally-generated maps that will take you to an endless stretch of procedurally-generated dungeons.

I went to the Mapworks a few weeks back when I heard Runic Games, the developer that made the Torchlight series, alongside this year's wonderfully intricate Hob, was closing down. The idea was to slip back into Torchlight 2 for a few minutes to remind myself of this team's particular greatness, and then slip back out again to write a quick piece about how much I would miss them and their work. The problem, of course, is obvious. The idea was to slip back into Torchlight 2 for a few minutes... So yes, this farewell to Runic Games is so delayed because I was playing Runic games. I cannot think of a better tribute, to be honest.

Anyway, let's begin this sad task. Here is my second-favourite bit of writing in Torchlight 2: "Flame Hammer". Flame Hammer is the go-to skill I rely on when playing my Engineer, a sort of steampunk pet-class who dashes into battle alongside a clanking, wheezing, skittering collection of Roombas and rollerskates that spit gatling fire and poison at anyone stupid enough to cross their path. Flame Hammer is far more fun than a basic attack in an action RPG should be. Flame Hammer is seismic. I could describe it, but why not quote the flavour text, which does a far better job of it than I could ever hope to? "Your weapon crushes foes it strikes--" All good so far. "--Creating 4 flaming splinters that seek out enemies within 5 meters. If available a Charge is consumed to generate two additional--" Whoa whoa whoa. That's quite enough of that. 4 flaming splinters! That seek out enemies!Within 5 meters!

Read more…