Amidst all the Chaos: Torchlight II. Also: HAWP

Torchlight II comes out on the 20th. I had a few options this week to spend my money wisely and blew it, but this might be one of the smart choices. Torchlight II is basically the legitimate spiritual successor to Diablo (which makes Diablo 3 the child of a second or even third marriage, I guess). Torchlight the first was a fun hack'n'slash adventure game (commonly identified as an action rpg in the vernacular of computer gaming, a term that annoys me to no end because it's got the barest thread of actual rpg elements as we define them from the tabletop) but the multiplayer focus of Torchlight II ought to make the rpg part feel a bit more accurate.

Meanwhile, Borderlands 2 is out and I have resisted buying it. Probably won't buy it until some far future Steam sale when its a bundle pack with all the DLC and is on sale for $10 or something. I played about 30 hours into Borderlands, both the Xbox and PC version, and got an undertermined length of time into the game. It just wasn't that fun for me....the level/gear mechanic clipped from Diablo-style gaming felt out of place, the tepid storyline started off strong then dropped rapdily into a wash-rinse-repeat pattern with only occasional moments breaking up the boredom. And I should note, most people I know really liked this game, so its mostly boredom for me. And not even so much "boring" as "this is a game which just makes me want to play a more robust game like Fallout 3." So maybe Borderlands is fine, it just couldn't hole up to my expectations. Blame Bethesda! They keep making these amazing games.

All that said, the writer on Borderlands 2 is Anthony Burch, brother of Ashley Burch, alias Ash, of "Hey Ash, Whatcha Playing?" (HAWP) which, if you haven't ever seen this before, is also collected over at gametrailers.com. If you're into weird humor, video games, and topically current console gaming....you need to check their stuff out. The fact that he's writing it (and Ash is voicing one character) is enough for me to want to get it....eventually. Some day.

Gametrailers seems to like to make its embedded links BIG....hmm....