I am a huge fan of the Diablo series, so much so that when I had an important exam to study for, I had a friend come over and play on my machine … that way I could study and not get tempted to play the game!! 3 months later, I cracked that test, Nikhil got hooked on Diablo 
. After battling the hordes of Baal, both of us tried different variants of the game, I think I have completed the game with all characters while Nikhil has completed the game in all difficulty levels (yep! Hell!!).
It was 2009 and the folks at Blizzard were keeping the Diablo3 plans hush-hush. So how do we fill the void? Believe me, I have tried … Oblivion, KOTOR, Assassin’s Creed, Fallout … RTS games like Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends, Anno 1404 … the list goes on. My thirst for Diablo remains, until I saw on the xfire community a game which seemed to resemble Diablo, a LOT!! Screenshots looked like an old friend with a new hair-do … sleeker, trendy … but underneath, it was the same old friend.
I did my research and read through the wiki of the game, an excerpt -
Pre-production on Torchlight began in August 2008, shortly after the dissolution of Flagship Studios. Runic Games was founded by Travis Baldree (lead developer of Fate and Mythos) and veterans of Blizzard North and Flagship: Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer and Peter Hu. The "entire Flagship Seattle team" consisting of 14 people (the branch of Flagship which created the original Mythos) signed on to Runic Games at the time of its formation. Having lost the rights to Mythos, the Runic team saw the development of a new game as a way to "finish what [they] started," although they would have to start over with none of the code or art assets from Mythos.
The game is touted to be the best Diablo clone that is there in the market. With a standard storyline, and lots of drops, I found the game an excellent hack and slash game. Also with an upcoming MMO to be launched soon in tie-up with Perfect World (a Chinese firm), the rights to play online would be free with the game.
One more game to look forward to in 2011
