I know most of you already own Torchlight, but for those who don't, I put a copy up on Steam Gifts. The drawing closes Friday the 12th at 4pm. Good luck!
Today is a sad day in gaming. Psygnosis (AKA Studio Liverpool) has been closed. This developer has been one of my favorites, primarily because of their WipEout racing series and the game Lemmings. I honestly didn't think I could feel this sad about a game company closing its doors.
At one time they also had offices in San Francisco and San Mateo (I had friends working at the SF studio until it shut down around '99).
On related sad notes, I was working at Midway (previously Atari) when they closed that studio -- there were guys there who had been working at the same location (under a few different company names) for 28 years...
I meant to say the Midway studio in the Bay Area (specifically Milpitas), and that location might've only been open for 20+ years when it was closed. I can't remember all the early lore those long timers shared (i.e. Ed Logg and Dave Sheppard).
It is sad when something with so much history closes up shop. I wonder how many studios EA might scuttle now that they are up for sale?
Not too sad about EA dying but they have so much IP and games they own, I wonder how the cool stuff will survive?
That said, Sony is making a choice based on costs that I understand but... I mean couldn't Lemmings 2012 be something people care about? I mean, I might get that on my phone?
This game was a lot of fun. You switch between dimensions to change the properties of the objects around you allowing you to make your way to the exit. The puzzles can often be solved in different ways, and for an added challenge there's a "par" for each level based on time and number of dimensional switches made. My biggest complaint is length. It was way too freaking short. DLC will be released for the game, though, and given the release price of $20 it seems reasonable enough. Best part of the game is that John DeLancie (Star Trek's "Q") is the acting GLaDOS.
vdogmr25 Post Author
wrote on 07/12/2012 at 02:54pm
Not great, but it could be worse. Trying to reach the time and shift pars for each level do add an extra challenge the next time around, so going for those challenges does help the replay side of things. As with most puzzle games, though, you beat it once and you've beaten it forever.
I'm curious what your thoughts are on the two. I'm blown away as always with the textures and animation in most everything Enix does. Epic on the other hand is doing fantastic things with lighting and color. That's pretty funny considering how brown, dull, and dark their games are, but progress is awesome.
What are your thoughts on this E3's engine/graphics developments?
Next generation graphics are awesome. I am glad companies are pushing things one step forward because it adds to the immersion and can effect re playability and the like.
That said, for me games are not one and lost on graphics. Diablo 3 is beautiful but its not a machine melter like Crysis, a game ive never actually played. In fact, D3 can run on a Macbook, which is pretty cool considering they are powerful but not top of the line spec wise.
Rage might have been the prettiest modern game ive played and it added to the immersion for certain but the graphics didn't bring me back to it.
Anyways, I don't mean to say graphics are not awesome, they are. I am actually pretty interested in what the next XBox and Playstation will included to power the next gen console games. PC's are really impressive and my new Desktop looks pretty good when I turn the video settings up. When Borderlands 2 and other newer games ship I imagine they will really push PC's power to add +50 to the game beauty. All told, not a bad thing I just hope the increased budget allocated to the art and graphics doesn't take away from the game play and story.
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
So I was playing Borderlands with my dad one day. We were about half way through the Secret Armory DLC. I was driving. Dad was in the gunner's seat. I hit a side rail just right and parked in a rather bizarre fashion. Do you guys have any funny/odd Borderlands stories?
A few times NES games would start all glitchy and certain characters would be all scrambled. Taking it out and put it in sort of fixed most of that stuff though.
One time I found a strange error in Link to the Past where if you saved the game after you tempered your sword and created a new game and talked to the soldiers off to the left of the castle in the start when the game was rainy the soldiers spoke all the dialog in the game. I told my cousin and he confirmed it worked for him and I sort of always wanted to send it in to Nintendo Power but never did. Guess I should have then id be rich now or something.
Recently? It seems games hard lock or crash and interesting stuff like that isn't as common in my play throughs as id like.
I just want to say that when I first started playing this, I kept screaming, "I'M BATMAN!!" and, "SWEAR TO ME!!!" At 11 PM, that's a good way to piss off the neighbors.
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.
i played a bit of the first one. It was a lot of fun. Honestly, if D3 didn't just come out I probably would pick it up... bad timing I guess. Knowing me I'll pick it up on Steam Sale some time.
I know with the hype of Diablo III it almost seems moot, but being a Baldur's Gate fan, I thought I should share this. Baldur's Gate is getting remade with better graphics and new content. It's planned to be released in the summer. The sequel is going to be remade and released later.
I am getting this when it ships. Funny thing about the trash-talking sword is that they had one in the last Neverwinter Nights expansion. BioWare sort of borrowed from itself on that one. Awesome thing in a game but odd they borrowed from themselves... :)
This game's goal in life is to destroy the player. It's hard. The enemies are tough. Low level minions can still kill you with relative ease if you aren't careful, and the bosses can often kill in two hits or less. Did I mention the enemies level up when you die? It also auto-saves whenever you die or change gear or reach a certain point. Fun times. Fun times. While this game is tough, it's not impossible. It requires that you take things slow and think. You'll survive 9 times out of 10 if you don't get ahead of yourself. I love it for that. The other part of the game I enjoy is how everything is linked to souls. You get souls for killing enemies and they are used as currency. The interesting part is how to use them. You need souls to but gear, repair gear, buy spells, and level up stats. The last part of that is key, as you don't level up by gaining XP, only by spending souls. There's much more to this game, but I love these mechanics in particular.
Thanks a lot, I went ahead and entered it.
Already own this, but thanks @vdogmr25!