Recent reviews by loopgru

More than worthy successor to the first game- and that's saying something. I'm not much of a fan of the Imperium, but this does an amazing job of immersing you in the setting as an astartes. Wish it was longer, and can't wait for the DLCs!

Steve Sinclair is basically what happens when you let Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) take over a game development studio.

The downside is that attention tends to wander from one set of colorful balloons to the next, they often don't fit together in any kind of cohesive, coherent manner, very little is explained, and sometimes things get shoved to the back of the closet and forgotten.

The upside? SPACE NINJAS! WITH SPACESHIPS THAT YOU CAN FLY AND JUMP OUT OF AND COMMANDEER AND BLOW UP! LASERS! SWORDS! LASER SWORDS! EXPLODING LASER SWORDS! UNDEAD BAD GUYS THAT SUPLEX YOU TO DEATH! HOVERBOARDS! GIANT ROBOTS! COLLECTIBLE CUTE LITTLE ANIMALS! BATTLE PETS! EXPLOSIONS!

As someone more in the age group of Calvin's dad, I appreciate all of this, and also the fact that you can play for just a few minutes at a time while in between chasing my own kids around. The game will expand or contract to fit the amount of time I have for it without a bunch of FOMO. Also, Digital Extremes seems to be a bunch of genuinely good-hearted folks and really set the standard for community engagement and communication, so I genuinely feel good about supporting the game from time to time.

So, I really wanted to like this game. Lot of fond memories of TL1 and TL2, and was hoping for a worthy successor.

This ain't it.

Beneath the veneer of Torchlight art, the game is a stripped-to-the-bones standard fare ARPG. Minimal build variety, minuscule numbers of legendary items with largely forgettable effects. Poor item balancing and unsatisfying stat distributions. If you (like me) get into metagames and want to scratch the itch for building something unusual or hilariously effective... This won't do it.

Couple that with utterly forgettable story and enemies, the usual charming inventory simulator issues, antiquated "oh, you want to change you build? how about restarting the game!", abortive half-attempts at housing/MMO elements, and poorly-telegraphed damage spikes and I just can't recommend wasting your time on this one- there are many, MANY better ARPGs out there to spend your time on.

I'm a sucker for ARPGs generally, and very much a fan of the Norse setting... but I'd still say to pass on this one.

To begin with... this is a brawler. The "RPG" elements are incredibly thin- you unlock pretty much all of the traits for your given specialization (each associated with a god). The active abilities are eminently forgettable- for the 2H tree, you have basically an assortment of bland PBAoE skills. And the gameplay is really thin- you basically just hold down your primary attack on anything that doesn't have a shield (which requires an irritating amount of dodge rolling), then get to one numerically overtuned but mechanically boring boss after the next.

Not quite as deep as PoE, but very deep meta ARPG.

Gameplay is OK- seems a bit unengaging to me compared to other options. Mobility is very low, melee builds seem to have a heavy %proc on-hit focus rather than active skills, which isn't that engaging. HP seems to yo-yo badly even in highly durable builds- high damage in, high self-healing.

The graphics engine is powerful, lots of dynamic lighting and detailed props, spell effects pop out a lot, but the art has a very drab, gritty theme- there is very little to visually distinguish between even high-level armor sets or weapons, and enemies all seem to be similarly drab.

If you're hard up for an ARPG fix it's alright, but I think there are plenty of better options- Torchlight 2, especially with the backlog of mods, is a much better buy.

I could not possibly be less impressed by this device. I don't know whether I just got a bad one or what, but the thing won't stay connected for more than ~2 minutes at a time and when it *is* connected the performance is totally unplayable- even on a brand new 802.11ac router and adapter with nothing else on the network. I can literally turn on Chrome Remote Desktop and get better performance controlling my home computer from work over two wireless connections and the Internet than this thing can deliver across the 30' from my living room to my office.

Also be aware that if you, like me, order this together with a Steam Controller, you *cannot* get a refund without returning the controller with the Link- you either return both or keep both. Quite a bargain. -_-

I've been playing Street Fighter games since 1992, shortly after SF2 was released. I dumped more quarters and more hours into those machines than I can even begin to recount, from SF2 to CE to all of the VS games, SFIII, the whole list. I've loved the entire franchise for most of my lifetime, put it up there with properties like The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy as my favorite games ever made.

This is the game that ended that.

It's not that it's even a terrible game. The PC port is pretty poorly optimized, sure, but the core of it- 2D twitch fighter light on abusive combos- is still there.

What killed it for me was Poison. I'm sorry, but I'm a 35 year old married father now. I play video games as a bit of stress relief, a way to unwind. I'm not looking for some neckbeard's lewd fantasies in a $!%#ing fighting game. I'm as big a fan of scantily clad women as anyone (which may have a lot to do with the whole "father" status), but there's a time and place- and in the middle of a fighting game ain't it. The way this character is presented would be funny if it weren't so utterly grotesque.

Oh, and in-game purchases? Yeah, no. Sorry, Capcom, but we're through.

Unfortunately the intriguing world and good art in this aren't enough to balance out a clunky and rather thin combat system, an underpowered and glitchy game engine, and rather plodding pacing. As it stands this is about as deep as a 90s-style beat-'em-up but with the addition of gear and a microtransaction store- I want to like it, but there's not enough here to hook me.

So, the gameplay goes back and forth between a hard-to-control FPRTS mode, hard-to-control crazy driving sequences, and infrequent beat-em-up side missions with little bearing on the course of the game.

All of that said? This game is freaking awesome. The world is cobbled together from heavy metal album covers and populated by the likes of Ozzy, Lemmy, and Rob Halford, while your player character is an axe- and guitar-wielding roadie based on Jack Black. It's more than worth the annoyance at the controls.