This is made by a bunch of the folks who made Diablo, and it shows. A lot of the gameplay aspects are the same. Its aiming for a more cartoony look rather than trying to be particularly ‘realistic’, but the graphics are surprisingly good considering it was an ‘indy’ production made on a small budget with a smaller pricetag. There are only 3 hero classes, breaking down to the basic Melee Fighter, Ranged Weapons Specialist, and Magic User. But they're all really enjoyable in their difference from each other, and its possible to customize them further using the talent trees. For example, the alchemist. If you follow the arcane talents he's like a spell-throwing mage. But if you follow the lore talents he's more like a minion-summoning necromancer. Lots of variety. The game is basically exploring and conquering various levels of dungeons beneath the town of torchlight. There's no learning curve, its incredibly simple to master. Every player character comes with a pet, your choice of cat or dog (no difference combat-wise) which fights at your side. The best innovation to this game is that your pet has an inventory, and you can load them up with goods that you want to sell off. And when you run out of space, you can send your pet off to town to do the trading for you while you carry on hacking n slashing down in the dungeons. It will return after about 2 minutes, and bring you the gold it received for the sales. So, I recommend this game. Its a lot of fun for those times when maybe you dont have internet access or you've run out of bandwidth, or you're stuck on the laptop that's frustrating as all heck trying to play WoW on.

Action RPG's by their very nature need to strike a fine balance between being fun to play, and grinding out your character development – Torchlight finds this balance perfectly. Not as overly complex as Sacred 2 or Titan Quest, or blessed with a huge open world to explore, Torchligh excels where it matters most – loot drops and levelling. There is only a single town to explore, and many of the randomly generated levels that make up the storyline have a very samey feel to them but the never ending quest to add that one extra skill point or find that piece of better gear is extremely satisfying.

Despite the complete lack of multiplayer and fairly limited character customisations (you are stuck with the stock looking Warrior, Ranger, Mage archetypes and thats it), the game draws you in with colourful visuals and visceral, entertaining battles. In the middle of a Mage battle with your Pet (who can automatically sell your unwanted loot in town for you) and your various other minions, the screen lights up with ethereal fireballs, exploding creatures and arcs of magical lightning.

After 8 hours of gameplay I'm already level 32 with some very cool unique gear and set items. Compared with 16 hours of Sacred 2 to grind out just 17 levels and some average gear. Torchlight is a stand-out Action RPG and I recommend highly to anyone who can't (or can) wait for Diablo 3.

Torchlight captures what a dungeon crawler should be with visually stunning enviroments and effects, addiction hack and slash mouse clicking and loads of options for character customisation. The addition of a pet as an ally which can carry unwanted loot back to town to sell it is a particularly clever feature, allowing you to continue your adventure uninterrupted.