The Charge:
“Welcome… TO DIE”

Opening Statement:
Konami can go straight to hell. Do you hear me, you greedy bastards! I’ve already given you six hundred dollars worth of quarters playing X-Men: The Arcade Game in the arcades throughout the nineties.

Now you want me to pony up on Xbox Live and PSN to play it again? Forget it!

Hey, wait a minute. Where did my credit card come from? Hey, I never entered that… wait… “Download Complete”? What the—?

Grumble, grumble. You win this round, Konami.

Facts of the Case:
Experience the classic 1992 X-Men arcade game right in the comfort of your own home! Choose from some of your favorite classic X-Men characters including: Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, or Dazzler. Fight your way through hundreds of Sentinels and battle classic super villains such as Pyro, The Blob, Wendigo, Nimrod, The White Queen, Juggernaut, Mystique and the Master of Magnetism himself, Magneto!

There is no reason for Dazzler to be here.

The Evidence:
A beloved arcade beat-em-up, X-Men was a game created by a group of Japanese programmers who, having never actually read an X-Men comic before, spent the morning leafing through some vintage back issues before getting down to some light programming after lunch. Anachronistic story elements and bad English translations aside, this is pure vintage nineties multi-player action at its most cruel and unfair refined.

Best known for its groundbreaking six-player “double cabinet” housing, this arcade brawler let up to six players (or up to four, if you had a cheap arcade that refused to shell out for the fancy version) take on members of the X-Men to battle Magneto and a nonsensical grouping of other people who have never once been on the same page in an actual comic before. And for some reason, the Sentinels are only five feet tall, and they work for Magneto.

In the arcade, X-Men was at its most frenetic and fun with as many wealthy friends as you could muster up — and they better be packing serious coinage. While not exactly a hard game in the pejorative sense of the word (you mash buttons until everything dies) the sheer volume of enemies thrown against you, and the utter lack of health regeneration or healing ensured you were pumping in a quarter every sixty seconds or so.

There is no reason for Shadowcat to have this haircut.

Now faithfully ported to Xbox Live and PSN, the game looks smashing. The cinematic have been touched up into HD, and the gameplay looks better than it ever did on a flickering cathode ray tube. Controls are tight and work exactly as expected. This is a three-button game: attack, jump and MUTANT POWERRRRRRRRRRR (a button you will be hitting a lot, much to the annoyance of all other game players not playing Colossus). Gamers even get the choice of playing the Japanese edition of the game, which (gasp!) actually adds power-ups into the game, which is a much-needed improvement. Even the HUD gets a new high definition revamping. Everything looks tight.

Konami has even been kind enough to assume you may not have five extra controllers (or friends) hanging about, and have included online co-op gameplay. Joining a game on Xbox Live was effortless, if a bit on the boring side. The game is no easier or harder with the addition of human players — just more crowded on-screen. Aside from a few on-screen slowdowns here and there, online gameplay works like charm. It doesn’t exactly capture the magic of being elbow-to-elbow with your friends, screaming curses at Magneto (“Master of Magnet”) in the arcade, but it’s a nice addition.

In terms of gameplay, X-Men: The Arcade Game hasn’t aged particularly well. This was a clumsily executed game back in 1992, and it remains so now. Characters walk as if encased in chocolate pudding. Forget about the jump button — just do not even press it. Odds are good you will not even connect with an enemy. Even if by random chance you manage to propel yourself forward, any aerial attack you make will lead to immediate punishment by enemies who will magically evade your attacks and retaliate with laser beams, or flaming breath. As for AI sophistication, forget it: you can beat the entire first two levels by standing completely stationary and jamming on the Attack button. Every enemy (including the bosses) will be kind enough to indulge you by walking directly into your fists.

A slightly irritating (yet faithfully accurate) feature is the inability to change characters once committed to a Player number position. If you pick Cyclops as Player 1 — even in a single player game — you’re stuck with the guy, just like you would be standing at the six-player arcade cabinet.

This has never occurred in the comics.

Rebuttal Witness:
X-Men: The Arcade Game is the textbook definitional of tremendously poor replay value. With no financial penalty in place, the game allows for endless continues at the push of a button, so a ruthless player can simply jam on the MUTANT POWERRRRRR button to kill all on-scree enemies, die and re-spawn with full charges, then rinse and repeat. You will beat the game in twenty minutes if you do this.

Closing Comments:
X-Men: The Arcade Game is a faithful port of a beloved arcade classic, warts and all. The fresh coat of HD paint looks and sounds fantastic, and the game is no better or worse than you remember it.

If you enjoyed it the first go-round in the arcades of your youth, you’ll have a blast (especially with a living room full of friends) but the one-note gameplay and short duration make this an expensive trip down memory lane.

The Verdict:

Platform: Microsoft XBOX360 (Xbox Live) / PS3 (PlayStation Network) (XBOX360 Version Reviewed)
Developer: Backbone Entertainment
Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment
Release Date: Dec 15, 2010
Rated: E10 (Everyone 10+)

The Charge:
Word of Ember blazed across the land, and the town of Torchlight flared to life…

Opening Statement:
Let’s get this out of the way right now: Torchlight is the least original game you will ever play. It is impossible to compare this little game to another, more popular iteration in the dungeon clicker/crawler genre—Diablo, the big kahuna, the head cheese. And Torchlight is okay with this. After all, the game was developed by Runic Games, and two of its members, Max and Erich Schaefer were co-designers on Diablo and Diablo II. They stick to what they know. And you’ll be delighted that they did.

Facts of the Case:
The sleepy mining town of Torchlight is in trouble. A mysterious ore called ember has been discovered deep in the mines, a powerful substance that can imbue people and items with magical powers. Adventurers flock from all corners to Torchlight to seek riches and dangers. Unfortunately, the ember has a corrupting influence, and many past civilizations and monsters have sprung up from within the darkness to threaten Torchlight. As the adventures venture deeper and deeper, more ancient and powerful civilizations—some ruined, some still thriving—are found beneath.

The troll is in trouble.

The Evidence:
I’m not kidding: when people compare Torchlight to Diablo, they’re not making some esoteric and allegorical comparison between plots, or gameplay mechanics. I literally mean somebody took Diablo and threw a new coat of paint on it. Virtually all gameplay elements–the leveling and talent system, the ever-descending, randomly-generated caverns below the city (always helpfully stocked with vendors), the control scheme, set pieces of epic, randomly generated loot, even the sound effects–all virtually identical. Graphics have received a much-needed (and cartoonish) bump into the modern era, but in all other aspects, Torchlight is the most familiar game you will ever pick up. It’s like coming home to a hot meal cooked by your mother, or warm slippers and robe fresh from the dryer. It’s oddly comforting.

The third designer from Runic Games, Travis Baldree was the designer on Fate, and so Torchlight picks up a bit of influence from this school of adventure as well. Our lone adventurer descending into evil-steeped dungeons now has a faithful pet companion—either a dog or a cat—who acts as NPC minion, meat shield, spell casting assist and pack mule. A brilliant and welcome improvement to the Diablo formula is the ability to send said pet back to town, laden with goods, who will return in a few minutes with a stack of gold for you, leaving you free to continue on adventuring without pausing to de-stash. You’ll be sans-backup for the duration, so there is a small cost to the convenience, but to be honest, you gear up so fast and so powerful that your pet rarely means the difference between life and death in combat.

This is but one of dozens of tiny improvements to the Diablo formula that Torchlight has implemented, and it pays off. It would be entirely possible that fans would be dismissive, even downright hostile if Torchlight stole all of Diablo’s gameplay elements without giving something back. The pet system is the most obvious improvement, but subtle changes also make for a welcome and easy gameplay experience: the non-dependent talent trees, meaning that as long as you are of a certain level, you can unlock the talents regardless of previous selections, or the multiple crafting/enchanting vendors, allowing you to combine gems and items, and also remove them from slotted items (very handy).

In addition to your standard chest where you can stash your ever-growing inventory of epic weapons and gems, a second chest serves as a shared stash for all your alt characters. Playing the burly Destroyer, and wish that sweet rifle you just got dropped on your Vanquisher character? No problem! Throw it in the shared stash and she’ll have full access. Torchlight is full of such tiny tweaks, but the cumulative effect is like a breath of fresh air in a stale genre.

The spiders get so much bigger than this.

A game with a quick and dirty development cycle, Torchlight is the epitome of independent game development, kicking out the door in less than a year with a marvelous price tag—only twenty dollars—and sold entirely via digital distribution (although a retail box version is expected January 2010). The price makes this a virtual mandatory purchase for PC gamers, and the engine powering the game’s graphics have been deliberately tweaked to allow satisfactory performance on even the slowest of netbooks. I play Torchlight on an aged laptop with no graphical modifications on maximum resolution with all but the most minor of slowdowns. The graphical style is cartoon-inspired, with colorful sprites, large muscular men and curvy women, stylistic touches and light tones. No Diablo-style gothic darkness here; Torchlight is all about color and flash.

Ever played Diablo or Fate? Good, then you can play this. Gameplay works exactly as you would expect, with attacking and movement controlled by the mouse, and keyboard hotkeys binding to potions, scrolls, magical spells and abilities. Torchlight the town serves as the main hub, offering vendors, quests and storage space for acquired loot. The main storyline takes you down, and randomly-generated dungeon tiles change every five levels. The artwork is fantastic, and no two tiles are anything alike. Waygates are laid out every five floors, giving adventurers an easy way to backtrack. Odds are you won’t even have to read the instruction manual for Torchlight—just dive in and play.

Some of the gameplay elements are a bit tweaky—I had a problem getting Torchlight to recognize multiple keyboard presses, like holding down SHIFT to stand stationary and pressing a hotkey to chug a potion, but nothing that got my character killed or anything. In the game’s defense, I haven’t updated to the latest patch, so it’s possible some of these quirks have worked (or will work) themselves out.

Three character classes are included: the Destroyer (fighter), the Alchemist (mage) and the Vanquisher (rogue). They all play exactly like you’d expect them to—the Destroyer gets the big armor and big hardware, the Alchemist has summoned minions and plenty of magical attacks, while the Vanquisher excels in ranged weaponry (guns and bows) and traps. Again, very familiar-feeling archetypes; experienced dungeon crawlers will have no problem here. You can drop some rings and necklaces, as well as spells onto your pet to have them assist, as well as fish from pools in a fishing mini-game to feed to your pet. Each fish carries with it a new effect—usually transforming your pet into a monster for a few minutes, gaining new abilities and attacks. To be honest, you’ll never bother with this gameplay element. It’s cute, but entirely superfluous. Your character will be plenty powerful as-is.

The gameplay is easy—almost too easy—until you hit an invisible wall (around level twenty-five for me) where suddenly the difficulty ramps up, so be prepared. You can snooze-click your way through the first few dungeons, but Torchlight will eventually catch up and start to kick up the challenge.

STOMPY STOMPY

Rebuttal Witness:
The downside to a short development cycle and a cheap price tag, of course, is that something has to give, and where Torchlight immediately fails the litmus test against its big Blizzard brother is in multiplayer. Torchlight is a single player game only, full stop. No multiplayer, no co-op, no servers linking players and ladders, none of that. It’s just you and your pet, alone in the world. For those who appreciate the single-player elements in a game, this is hardly an issue, but the more hardcore Battle.net crowd will take serious umbrage at being locked out of competition and cooperation with one another. Hopefully they’ll be consoled by the hardcore game mode and Torchlight’s extensive modding capabilities.

Torchlight also disappoints in the plot department, but for a dungeon crawl, I’m not entirely convinced this is anything but a mild offense. I’ve now played the game through with all three character types, and for the life of me, I still don’t know who my characters are, why they’re venturing into the dungeons of Torchlight, or any of the elements of this colorful universe. Who cares? You click on stuff, it dies, and drops phat loot! Now that’s a dungeon crawler.

Closing Statement:
Who said PC gaming is dead? Torchlight is the best twenty bucks you can spend right now. Seriously, go buy it, and watch the time fall away like sands in an hourglass. If this were a full-priced retail game, it would be a lot easier to find fault with its flaws—heavily-borrowed gaming mechanics, no multiplayer—but as a discount indie title goes, you can’t beat it. It may not be the deepest game in terms of story or mechanics, but on a fun vs. dollar spent comparison chart, this is the easiest purchase you could make.

Even if you only have a casual interest in Diablo or other dungeon adventure games, get this game. Get it now.

The Verdict:

Platform: PC
Developer: Runic Games
Publisher: Perfect World Entertainment, Inc. / Encore, Inc.
Release Date: October 27th, 2009
Rated: Not Rated

Official Site (Purchase)