Misunderstandings and Malignancy

Do me a favor here, don't expect too much coherency or direction from this posting. The likelihood of that happening are about as likely as my suddenly being invited to a game journalism panel at PAX. As ill-equipped as I would be for said scenario I'm probably equally as ill-equipped to lay out my thoughts and feelings about recent developments in any meaningful way. I will, however, give it a try.

So let's get started.

Anyone paying any attention to recent gaming over the past summer is well aware of the glut of sequels that have arrived on the scene. Two recent sequels have my personal attention as they are both sequels to games that I a) own, and b) enjoyed thoroughly, and still play. Runic Games Torchlight II and the Gearbox offering of Borderlands 2. The first is an action RPG in the Diablo tradition (in fact many of Runic's developers were involved in the first two incarnations of the classic Blizzard game), and is being directly compared to Blizzard's monster Diablo III that came out a few months back; and the second is an RPG/FPS game.

When I first saw commercials for Borderlands I was wholly uninterested in it. Despite it's creative art style what I saw was a post-apocalyptic shooter with vehicles and homicidal raiders, essentially a Mad Max setting for another boring Halo clone shooter. I was right about the setting (mostly) but the game was a significant departure from what I was expecting, and it could be argued was groomed to expect, from the past decade's worth of shooting games. What I found was a loot oriented shooting RPG, more closely resembling ARPG's like Diablo and Torchlight than Call of Duty or Halo.

Which is why this review of the sequel bothers me so much; or at least part of the reason it bothers me so much. First off is Mr. Najberg's use of the game's own hyperbole to create the illusion that he had raised expectations for the game, and then claim that the game failed to meet those expectations. He didn't "joy puke" over Borderlands 2, but I expect, as he's actively counseling players to compare it to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 or Halo 4, that he would, or could, concievably, "joy puke" over one of those games. The glaring point that Mr. Najberg seems to miss is that Borderlands 2 is neither a modern fps nor a sci-fi fps, but an RPG with fps trappings.

The second problem is his apparent fawning over the AAA heavy-hitting titles coming down the pipe. This apple isn't going to be anything like the oranges we've got coming next week! My thoughts are, if you're going to review a game do so on the basis of what it is, rather than what it isn't. Also, if you buy into a game's pre-release hype then you deserve to be disappointed. I'm not knocking Mr. Najberg's estimation of the game, only his characterization of it. I don't own the game personally (yet) and I have no stake in his review, but as a consumer I expect that should you review a game that you do so from a position of at least being knowledgable about gaming and what the game actually is.

Torchlight II was just released 4 days ago, and unlike the comparisons made by Mr. Najberg concerning Bordlerlands 2 and games like Halo and Call of Duty, comparisons between it and Diablo III are inevitable. While some of those comparisons are going to lean toward being unfair, they can hardly be said to be unexpected; the Torchlight series is the spiritiual successors to the first 2 Diablo games in many peoples eyes. Since I don't own Diablo III (and am unlikely to purchase it), I won't be making any of such comparisons, and the differences are already well documented, particularly Runic Game's DRM approach compared to Blizzard's always-online policy.

What I have been actively doing, during my short-time I've had with the game, is compare it to the previous Torchlight, since in the past year it has become one of my favorites. I can remark on the few things that I've noticed thus far...

• Torchlight II, like it's predecessor, actually runs on my cruddy laptop, something since it was actively being compared to the graphic intensive Diablo III (which has no hope of playing on the thing) I was inclined to believe it wouldn't do. This development means my choices for laptop gaming on the go is increased by one awesome game. 
• One of my favorite features of the first game, where pausing the game would bring the camera in on your character and then circle them, frozen in action, until you unpaused the game. It worked as a pretty screensaver for me and a means to view my character and get great screenshots. It's missing in Torchlight 2, which instead leaves an option menu front and center in the screen, blocking the view of the character, and the camera isn't dynamically moving around. If the option still exists, I've not found it.
• To my dismay, you can only enchant an item a limited number of times, meaning the 2-handed mace I found for my engineer was quickly outdated despite my best efforts. 
• PETS ATTACK NOW

 Some examples of my Torchlight 1 screenshots for illustrative purposes to my second point above:

 The Torchlight games have captured my imagination in a way that the Diablo series never did. Maybe it's the 3d graphics, but I suspect it's more the style of the games. The art direction and sense of whimsy are vastly different, with Diablo having a very dark, dreary, aspect. Not really sure what it is, but Diablo never clicked for me, Torchlight has. I'm really looking forward to my next 2 days off so I can put some semi-serioius time into Torchlight 2, and find some better gear for my engineer along the way.

I'm still not sure if this post is supposed to have a point or not.