Torchlight II | Cheerful Ghost

Humble Indie Bundle 14 Drops

The Humble Indie Bundle is back with it's 14th-ist Bundle yet! Featuring the Indie smash hits Pixel Piracy, UnEpic, Outlast, Torchlight II, La-Mulaa and Super Splatters. Pay more than the currently $10 average to unlock Shadow Warrior Special Edition and if you pay $40 you get a neat shirt, patch and scarf. I've always wanted a scarf.

As per normal all the Humble Indie Bundle games come with Linux, Mac and Windows ports DRM free as well as Steam Keys so you can unlock it over there.

I've been interested in trying Pixel Piracy, is this the right time to pull the trigger?

Torchlight 2 Coming to Mac February 2nd As Hell Dethaws

Do you remember when Runic said the Mac port of Torchlight 2 wasn't too far away and then a few years passed? I do and because of that was really happy to hear that it will be coming to Mac in four days. In four days our Mac sisters and bothers will be able to bask in the Torchlight 2 goodness. The wait wasn't lost on Runic either because the Mac port video addresses that in a funny way.

That said.

And I am trying to say this with as much niceness as possible. But. You know.

Can we get a Linux port too? /ducks

Torchlight II Contest Complete!

We've done the tallying and come up with the winners!

We had a lot of amazing entries. Some funny and heroic name entries, and some great personal stories and epic tales from the world of Torchlight. It was tough, but Nayelianne was our favorite! Her entry really put us in her mind while playing Torchlight, and showed us how important and awesome her experience was, as well as the disappointment with not having multiplayer. She evoked feelings we've all had gaming at one time or another, I'd imagine.
http://cheerfulghost.com/Nayelianne/posts/790

The random number generator at random.org gave us Pavel_Krzystyniak's post. His epic tale of heroism was also high up in our... Read All

We are giving away two copies of Torchlight II!

Updated 12-04: Contest rules have changed, please see below
Greetings friends of the Ghost,

You may remember our Borderlands 2 Haiku Contest from a few months back. Now, we're back to bring you the next thing in awesome contests. Like many people we loved Torchlight and after getting our hands on Runic's epic second take on the on the Dungeon Crawler we happily started slaying evil minions, and we wanted to share the fun. So gather round and listen to a tale of how ye will come to possess this shiny Runic gem, this "Torchlight 2!"

We are giving away a copy on Steam Gifts as per usual to drop in one lucky person's Steam account on December 22. No strings attached. Head... Read All

Had Me At Steam Sale

I figured I would hold off on getting any new games this Steam sale. That was until I saw Torchlight II for $9.99 and Dragon Age Origins for $8.99 and... well... I picked them up.

Cool thing about Torchlight 2 is that my character from the demo holds over to the real game. Torchlight 2 is pretty fun and offers a challenge on Normal mode from the start. With a proper Single Player, LAN and Online Multiplayer it sends itself into a different zone than I have become used to with Diablo III. That said, I picked the Bezerker expecting a fairly normal Tank class. I am still pretty low level and already the class is different that I expected. I am only a few levels into the... Read All

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 11/26/2012 at 06:41pm

Torchlight 2 is my all time favorite Diablo-like, bar none. I'm not specifically a fan of the genre, however, so take that with a grain of salt.

I'm sort of alone in really disliking Dragon Age Origins. Modern Bioware has great companions and dialog but garbage play, in my experience.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/26/2012 at 07:41pm

Torchlight 2 is very well done. It gets high marks being well priced and easy to play even compared to Diablo 3.

I have heard good things about DAO. I really loved Neverwinter Nights and its expansions, hoping this is similar. How much of DAO did you play? Was it on PC or console?

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:33am

I don't think your alone in disliking it Gary. I too own DAO but, felt like it was lackluster in gameplay. It had interesting characters and story which made me force my way through it. It wasn't really enjoyable through the whole thing. I think a lot of people overlooked the basic combat because of the characters and it being a new IP. New IP's are rare to come by and it's always better if they at least get a second shot. Although with DAO2 they did a terrible job.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:50am

Yeah, I didn't hear awesome things about DA 2. It seems to have gotten the "EA Treatment."

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/27/2012 at 08:54am

Well they tried to improve the gameplay. It was as bad as Gary makes it out to be. However they didn't do a good job and they made the story lackluster as well. So it lost the only good thing it did have going for it.

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 11/30/2012 at 04:44pm

I played about 2/3 of Dragon Age Origins and about 2/5s of Neverwinter Nights. I made the mistake with NN of doing the main campaign, which takes so long to ramp up. The first area where you're visiting the different quarters of the city is unending and bland, I thought.

This is coming from being a huge fan of the Baldur's Gate games. The combat there is interesting and tactical, without resorting to MMOery like in DA:O. To each his own, however. It's got a good story, interesting lore and wonderful voice acting.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/30/2012 at 06:59pm

I felt most of the NWN campaign to be bland but I completed it all. I think what kept me playing was the gameplay and settings. The expansions were better, Hordes of Underdark being the best.

You planning on picking up the new Baldur's HD Remake?

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 11/30/2012 at 08:06pm

Depends on what is added. I'm in a wait and see holding pattern.

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This evening I downloaded the Torchlight 2 demo on Steam and

This evening I downloaded the Torchlight 2 demo on Steam and decided to give it a shot. Right away I noticed that the menus were pretty different from the original Torchlight. Not a huge deal, but it wasn't immediately apparent how to exit the game the first time I launched it. Its the upper right corner and is greyed out, I didn't see that the first time through.

I created an Ember Mage and liked the character customization. After creating my character I was quickly in the game killing things. I was surprised how differently it played from the original Torchlight. One main difference is that your character moves very fast around the screen. Its very smooth and I like... Read All This evening I downloaded the Torchlight 2 demo on Steam and decided to give it a shot. Right away I noticed that the menus were pretty different from the original Torchlight. Not a huge deal, but it wasn't immediately apparent how to exit the game the first time I launched it. Its the upper right corner and is greyed out, I didn't see that the first time through.

I created an Ember Mage and liked the character customization. After creating my character I was quickly in the game killing things. I was surprised how differently it played from the original Torchlight. One main difference is that your character moves very fast around the screen. Its very smooth and I like the character pacing much better than the original Torchlight or Diablo 3 even. Which is another thing about Torchlight 2, the game is really really smooth. Compared to Diablo 3, which lags the first few minutes in game, moving through Torchlight is like butter.

I like that you are not merely relegated to dungeon crawling in Torchlight 2. The outdoor environments are a welcome addition to my style. After I made it to town I got a few quests and headed out straight for the first one. After taking them down one by one I noticed the enemy and game difficulty ramp up considerably. My third quest in I met up with something like 5 champion mobs protecting the quest ending. They didn't pose a huge challenge but they did take a while to kill and all in all it was very fun.

I stopped playing around level 8 (before I stopped I snapped the pic above) and really enjoyed the game. I would say largely, Torchlight 2 is a big improvement over Torchlight. That said, I had a few nits with it as I felt the graphic style of the original was a bit better than Torchlight 2. As with the first game occasionally my character was behind the forefront graphic and the ghost/outline thing is hard to play through. Again, small things because overall the game was very fun.

No reason to not check it out as it will play on most under computers and the demo is out now on Steam!

MoonWyrd Supporter wrote on 11/23/2012 at 06:58am

With everything that's been going on in my life I completely forgot about Torchlight II. Thanks for the write up. I'm going to have to checkout the demo. Once Steam finishes downloading the internet, that is.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/23/2012 at 08:15am

Yeah you can nab the demo now and pick up the full game at a bit of a reduced price during the Steam Autumn Sale now.

MoonWyrd Supporter wrote on 11/23/2012 at 05:21pm

Silly me, I failed to note that the Mac version hasn't been released yet. Guess I'll have to boot up the Winders box sometime in the next couple days to check this out.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/23/2012 at 06:31pm

It will get ported to Mac eventually they said. Hadn't heard of an ETA though.

MoonWyrd Supporter wrote on 11/23/2012 at 07:35pm

Yeah, that's what I gathered from the FAQ. I don't mind checking out the demo on Winders, but I dislike depending on it for long periods of game play. Too many crashes.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/26/2012 at 05:19pm

Just picked this up during the sale, $10? Yes please. Hoping for a Mac port at some point. A few expansions might not hurt either.

MoonWyrd Supporter wrote on 12/03/2012 at 03:12pm

Finally had a chance to checkout the demo. Quite fun so far. Very reminiscent of D2. Not likely to be coughing up the $$ for the full game until I fine a new job, though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/03/2012 at 04:12pm

We might have you covered as soon we are going to run a Torchlight 2 contest! Woot.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/04/2012 at 03:28am

Here it is: http://cheerfulghost.com/panickedthumb/posts/781

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Torchlight 2 launches today! Are you getting it? If so

Torchlight 2 launches today! Are you getting it? If so what do you think? How does is stack up to Torchlight 1? Can't beat the $20 price tag!

Recently Runic released the full Torchlight 2 soundtrack for download by Matt Uelmen, you might remember Matt from sucks soundtrack greats as Diablo, Diablo 2, Starcraft, World of Warcraft and Torchlight 1.

http://torchlight2game.com/news/2012/09/18/the-torchlight-ii-soundtrack/

I know in the midst of Diablo 3 excitement that Torchlight 2

I know in the midst of Diablo 3 excitement that Torchlight 2 is not in the forefront of gaming nor will it do as well as many AAA titles. Despite that, I'm looking forward TL2. I've played Diablo 2 and had trouble getting into it, but when I played Torchlight, I racked up tones of hours in-game and even got my dad hooked. Between the two of us, we've played about 250 hours in just Torchlight. We played other games at the time too, but this was something we really enjoyed. As to why I liked it more than Diablo, I think I just found myself enjoying the atmosphere more. The games play very similarly, but the atmosphere is very different. Enough about that.

So I've been... Read All I know in the midst of Diablo 3 excitement that Torchlight 2 is not in the forefront of gaming nor will it do as well as many AAA titles. Despite that, I'm looking forward TL2. I've played Diablo 2 and had trouble getting into it, but when I played Torchlight, I racked up tones of hours in-game and even got my dad hooked. Between the two of us, we've played about 250 hours in just Torchlight. We played other games at the time too, but this was something we really enjoyed. As to why I liked it more than Diablo, I think I just found myself enjoying the atmosphere more. The games play very similarly, but the atmosphere is very different. Enough about that.

So I've been playing the Torchlight 2 beta, and this is an improvement over the first in almost all areas. There's now 4 classes, as most probably have heard. I've been enjoying the Outlander who's like the Gunslinger from the first game, but instead of using traps and turrets, the Outlander has more direct attack abilities, such as different attacks with a glaive and special gun abilities. I haven't tried the other classes, but I am looking forward to seeing how some of these work. To add to it, there are more weapon types. As the Outlander, I've come across pistols, bows, crossbows, shotguns, cannons, and I think a few rifles too. The best way I can describe the game is that they've made everything broader.

The item system is the same with a few changes. The pet has a bigger inventory (or at least seems to be). I haven't encountered an enchanter in a town yet, but I've found a few in dungeons, and they're more specialized, like one enchanter will add ice enchantments. Also, there's a limit to enchantments you can put on an item making finding new items more important.

The graphics are improved by quite a bit. It's no Diablo in that regard, but it is a step up from before, particularly in the textures and polygons. The music is better, but not great. In the first game, I got annoyed with the music after a while, now I get kinda bored with it. It is very atmospheric to the game, but I find my self wanting something that ties into the game more than just something to be played in the background.

The story is a continuation from the first game. The Alchemist from the last game has grown corrupt with the power of ember and destroyed Torchlight. The goal for the player(s) is to stop him. I know the Gunslinger makes an appearance as an NPC who is there to guide and help along the quest. No sign of the warrior yet, but I expect him to show up at some point. In stead of dungeon crawling like last time, the world is more open. You go across surface territories completing quests and making trips to side dungeons. One thing I like a lot about this change is it allows for more side quests.

The biggest change is multiplayer. The TL2 beta supports up to 6 players over the internet, and the full game will feature LAN and single player, as well. All I can say is it runs well.

So cool stuff coming from this one. I'm excited for its release.