I say, dear chaps and dames! Have you found yourself perplexed by the intricacies of delivering steampunk justice to the curs and filth of the monster hordes in Torchlight 2? Well, as luck would have it, you need look no further than this build guide to increase your brigand demolition quotient by fourfold! Have at it!

Just as any great machine runs best on high-quality fuel, our Engineer build guide is assembled to be used in conjunction with our Torchlight 2 Class Guide, which will be updated with new builds as they are come off of our assembly line.

A note on respecs
By default, Torchlight 2 only allows you to respec your last three skill points (at a steep cost). Thus, you may already be so far in that these builds are impossible to use. Luckily, if you want the freedom to redistribute all of your skill points at any time, the game supports it. You'll just have to download a simple mod...

Make sure your cross-character stash is empty, as this process will overwrite it. This can be easily accomplished by creating a new character, and moving everything from the shared stash into their personal stash.
Download the file here, and extract it to Documents\My Games\Runic Games\Torchlight 2\save\. When it asks to replace the existing file, say yes.
Your shared character stash will now be filled with Respec Potions. Quaff away to refund all spent skill points. This also has the benefit of letting you choose your starting attack skill on a new character, instead of having to use the default one.
Unlike the similar method that uses console commands, this will not flag your character as a cheater in multiplayer.

Got it? Good.


All of the following builds have been tested on Veteran difficulty.

Engineer Build: The Gentleman With The Large, Flaming Object


A proper gentleman need be well-educated, practice good dental hygiene, and always be prepared to set large numbers of ruffians screaming through the air in flames with a nice whack from his trusty tools of mayhem. This build will make you a master of the melee, the foremost at fisticuffs; turning iron jaws to glass with the power of smoke and steam.

Gear Choice
Great weapons are essential, you need not tarry with diminutive odds and ends. Greataxes, greathammers, greatswords, and polearms will all serve your purposes nicely. Bonus fire damage, bonus electric damage, and armor penetration are always fine choices.



Stat Points
Having your wits about you will carry you just so far - you also need to be strong of arm to handle the kind of hardware this build requires. Two points per level, and often more, should go into Strength. Do not neglect Vitality, either, as you will more often than not be right in the thick of things, being attacked from all sides. Focus is important as well, to keep your machines of destruction running on pure, high-grade mana. And throw Dexterity a point now and then, just so it doesn't feel left out.

Levels 1-25
The key skills that make up this well-oiled demolition engine are Flame Hammer and Ember Hammer (Blitz tree). The former is your raw damage stand-by, while the latter will clear away those pesky shields right quick. Remember to use Ember Hammer only when your charge is high and the need is immediate, as it does not build charge. Passives like Heavy Lifting and Supercharge (Blitz), as well as Fire and Spark (Construction), also demand attention, increasing your pain output with large, unwieldy objects and giving you more charge to kick those damage skills into overdrive.

Once Onslaught (Blitz) unlocks at 21, add it to your priority list as it provides excellent battlefield mobility, a must for any front-line fighter in Torchlight 2.



Levels 26-50
Ember Reach (Blitz) should join your arsenal as a way to lock down those pesky ne'er do wells that have the audacity to turn and flee from an honorable duel. Storm Burst (Blitz) can give you a differently-flavored movement skill, but I find it too redundant to use at the same time as Onslaught, so grab a respec potion if you want to try it out and pick one or the other. Dynamo Field and Overload (Aegis) make a devastating combo with Onslaught, but will require you to neglect your passives to get them up to speed.

Levels 51-100
You should now be able to start maxing your passives, or the Onslaught/Dynamo Field/Overload combo, depending on what you let fall behind in the earlier levels. You can start funneling some points into Coup de Grace (Blitz), and if you find yourself dying a lot, some survivability skills like Charge Domination and Bulwark (Construction), or Aegis of Fate (Aegis). Emberquake (Blitz) is always tempting, of course, and layers well with your other AoE attacks as it does not consume charge. Just be sure you have the mana to support it. Tremor (Aegis) is also a less all-or-nothing alternative to Overload, but I would not recommend taking both.

While many Blizzard fans are preoccupied at the moment by pudgy pandas punching everything in sight, an interview by Curse with Blizzard vice president of game design Rob Pardo reveals that the development of its mysterious Titan MMO project is in full swing with a team that now numbers in the triple digits.

"We are definitely in the middle of development at this point," Pardo said. "The team is over 100 people now." He also explained core development started small in teams of two or three hashing out concepts before growing over the course of four years. Blizzard's silence on Titan's formation affords very few details beyond its confirmation as a new IP and it being in playable form since last year.

For more of Pardo's thoughts on Pandaria and Diablo 3, check out the rest of Curse's video interview.

We may look back on this moment and realize it was the beginning of the end for the human race. Scientists and students at the University of Texas at Austin created bots in Unreal Tournament 2004 that were perceived by other players as human opponents more often than the actual human opponents.

Judges of the BotPrize competition used special "judging guns" (which sound awesomely deadly) for painting other players as bots or humans. The winners, UT^2 and MirrorBot, achieved a "humanness" rating of 52 percent, compared to the measly average of 40 percent for carbon-based players.

Need more convincing? You'll find clips of UT^2 stalking and killing its human opponents here. "People tend to tenaciously pursue specific opponents without regard for optimality," said student Jacob Schrum. "When humans have a grudge, they'll chase after an enemy even when it's not in their interests. We can mimic that behavior." I assume the bot's auditory receptors were probably playing this on loop as it mercilessly hunted down its horrified masters.

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson welcomed Thursday morning with a pair of tweets assailing Microsoft's program certification process for its impending Windows 8 operating system, saying the software giant should "stop ruining" the PC's accessibility for developers.

"Got an email from Microsoft wanting to help 'certify' Minecraft for Win 8," Persson wrote. "I told them to stop trying to ruin the PC as an open platform."

Persson sent a followup tweet a few moments later stating he'd "rather have Minecraft not run on Win 8 at all than to play along."

Microsoft's certification criteria for Windows 8 mirrors previous requirement iterations for older operating systems. Essentially, the specifications govern an app's behavior as Windows expects it to -- clean shutdowns, seamless uninstall, non-dependencies on compatibility modes, and so on.

Skipping certification is a valid option for app developers, as Microsoft won't block non-certified programs on Windows, but talk yet lingers of Microsoft's intended direction for Windows 8's so-called "walled garden" structure via strong-arm support for its App Store.

If my childhood ever bled, Carmageddon was the diesel-drenched knife. Racing games never caught my attention growing up, but Stainless Games' 1997 descent into vehicular ultra-violence both tapped into my completely sensible mirth of running over pedestrians for extra time and the abject horror of my outraged parents. Thus, you can imagine my expression mirroring Max Damage's manic mug after learning Good Old Games' latest offer is the Carmageddon Max Pack featuring the first game and its Splat Pack add-on.

The $10, DRM-free Max Pack rolls out 23 pristine racemobiles for your blood-drenching pleasure in over 30 levels. The deal doubles as a celebratory gesture for the successful Kickstarter funding of Carmageddon: Reincarnation earlier this year.

Shooters traditionally espouse linearity in their design, favoring tightly controlled sequences of lulls and action as players progress to the next room/ruined room/room-like battle. Open world shooters such as Far Cry 3 dispense direction for player freedom, but skirting boredom or uber-tough enemies still presents a challenge. At the Eurogamer Expo, Far Cry 3 lead designer Jamie Keen said his team took "huge inspiration" from open world successes such as the Elder Scrolls series for keeping interest levels high.

"We've had to take a little bit of a different approach to most shooters," Keen said. "In order to keep a player engaged over a period of time, there are certain other genres we have to look into to keep that engagement. So we've been looking at things like MMOs and other open world titles. The Elder Scrolls series is a huge inspiration for us along with games like Red Dead and other Rockstar games."

Keen also revealed over 250 "encounter types" exist in Far Cry 3 as players explore. Encounters won't constantly recycle either, as Keen said the game tracks your experiences and attempts to throw some new island madness your way whenever possible.

"We don't want you to feel like, 'Oh, it's this encounter again. I've seen this one'," Keen added. "You know, 'Arrow to the knee,' for example. While it's actually quite cool, we don't necessarily want that. You end up with this real feeling of diversity of things going on. And you will see the same encounter again, but hopefully there's enough of them that you won't remember it, probably."

The third and final part of the effective Dishonored animated shorts is out now. This one provides a bit of background on Piero, described as a "key figure" in the city of Dunwall. His story will cross paths with Corvo, but what's his angle? What is the source of his madness? Why has he strung up a tumble of sheets and photos in the shape of a skull?

The film answers none of these questions, but oozes the same grimdark Dunwall vibes that the other two films captured so adeptly. The series was created by animation company, Psyop, who typically develop CG shorts. These films were "predominantly created by hand, which was then enhanced with 3D elements to add to the painterly atmosphere, dimension and depth of each shot."

“After we saw the story line, we decided to draw each style frame thirty or forty times and create a cell animated look and give it a sort of a painting-come-to-life effect," explains creative director John Saunders. Chloe Grace Moretz of Kick Ass fame narrates and Dexter theme composer Daniel Licht provides the music. Enjoy.

Accounts of this week's Creative Assembly mod summit have been hitting Total War community forums, with word of Steam Workshop support for Total War: Shogun 2 and plans for an upgraded set of CA-developed mod tools that will let modders tweak campaign and model files.

The creator of The Great War mod, "Mitch," posted a detailed account of the meeting, in which some of the most prolific Total War modders in the world got to meet top CA talent like Shogun 2 lead designer Jamie Ferguson. According to Mitch, the presentation revealed that "there will be Steam Workshop intergration" for Shogun 2. "People will be able to create and upload their own historical battles and have others download them."

There's also mention of new model conversion software and a "campaign reprocessor" that will let tweakers "edit the most desired areas of modding, the campaign and the models."

You can read the full account of the day at the TWCenter forums. The Creative Assembly kickstarted their program to support modders earlier this year with the release of the free Shogun 2 map editor.

This is the diary of me attempting to play Skyrim using only Illusion magic: I'm not allowed any weapons, armour, or magical items, and I can't attack anyone directly. The first entry is here, or you can see all entries to date here.

I'm in: I passed my initiation, got my official armour, sold my official armour, and am now an enlisted soldier of the Imperial Legion. In a dress.

More importantly, I still haven't broken my rule: no direct violence, only illusion spells. Hiring a lackey has solved the one problem I couldn't work around: killing quest-critical targets when there's no-one left to turn against them.

My next assignment is to retrieve an artifact called the Jagged Crown, and my commanding officer Legate Rikke is going to meet me at the fort with a team. Before I head out, I visit Solitude's court wizard to buy some spells: Courage, to buff and revive my allies; Calm, because people need to chill the hell out; and Muffle, not because my footsteps need muffling, but because I want something to repeatedly cast on myself to level up my Illusion skill.

The Nord tomb of *clears throat* Korvanjund is on the other side of the country, but I'm not using fast travel. That's basically teleporting, and teleportation is not Illusion.

The natural first stop is the stables just outside Solitude. But after a lot of awkwardly jostling amongst their horses, I can't seem to find a safe spot to steal one. And I certainly can't afford to buy. So we walk - while I repeatedly Muffle my feet.



Shortly after we emerge from the swamp outside Solitude, we see some steps leading up to a mountain temple, and a gang of people fighting on them. It seems like three bandits are all attacking one woman, so I try Calming them to even the odds. The two I hit immediately holster their weapons and amble about while the woman kills their friend. One by one, she kills them too. Hurray, my arbitrarily chosen side won!

The woman explains that her friend stole a sword from those bandits, and the bandits blamed her. My game-character brain interprets this as a quest: find the sword! Kill the bandits! Break some kind of curse? Rescue a guy maybe? Whatever, it's a dungeon, just go in.

Inside, inevitably, the bandits attack.

"You'll never leave Skyrim aliiiiive!" the first one screams, just before my Calm spell hits him. He stops mid-swing and looks at me, offended. "Hey! There's no need to use magic on me!" He walks off.

Belrand bashes the other bandit's head in, then stops. Out of politeness, I guess, he won't attack a Calm enemy. The three of us stand there awkwardly for a while, as the dead bandit's corpse slides slowly down some steps. Then the spell breaks, the calm bandit becomes enraged, and Belrand brings his mace down on him.



In the first chamber of this crypt, I find a note from the sword-thief explaining that he was trying to return it to the tomb: taking it had angered the Pale Lady. Anne Hathaway? Weird.

I also find an enormous battleaxe and give it to Belrand. He equips it eagrely.

The next group of bandits is a big one. I Calm any that come near me, and admire Belrand's style. He switches back to mace and shield to block an archer's arrows as he charges her and beats her to death, then brings out the axe to take on a swordsman. The guy blocks his swings again and again, but it's not enough: the sheer weight of the weapon just crumples him.

That's when the mages come in. Two of them come at us, lightning crackling from their hands. I try to Calm them down, but nothing happens - I'm unexpectedly out of juice. Shit! Lightning drains mana! I can't really do anything without mana.



I'm seriously low on health, completely out of mana, and trapped in an awkward corner with the lightning bandit bearing down on me. And then something weird happens.

Next Thursday: The Pale Lady

The PC version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted will be prettier, faster and support more players online than the console editions according to Criterion’s Leanne Loombe in an interview with Games.on.net. "The move to DX11 from DX9 has given us around a 300% improvement in rendering performance," she says. "This has enabled us to provide an improved image based lighting model over the console version, as well as allowing us to run with higher detail shadows and reflections.

"The increased power of DirectX 11 hardware has also allowed us to implement features such as real-time ambient occlusion, and light scattering algorithms which are absent in the console version."

Most Wanted PC will support 12 players in a multiplayer game, as opposed to just eight on the consoles. The DirectX 11 support allows for more shiny additions like "SAO, light scattering, high dynamic range motion blur, high resolution textures, advanced specular lighting models, headlight shadow casting, enhanced VFX quality, and enhanced shadow quality levels."

If you're keen to run Most Wanted on max settings, you'll need a current quad core CPU with an AMD Radeon 6000series or GeForce 500 series card in the GPU slot.

Most Wanted is set in the open city of Fairhaven, which will operate a bit like Paradise City in Burnout: Paradise City. You'll be able to drive any car you can find in the world and engage in time trials and other challenges on almost every street. An upgraded Autolog system will publicly grade your performance against your friends', initiating lifelong rivalries that can only be resolved in a bitter fight to the death, or with a quick drag race down Fairhaven's longest road.