Genre: RPG
Developer: Runic Games
Publisher: Runic Games

Like its predecessor, Torchlight II's aesthetics seem to deliberately be modelled after Blizzard's now-ancient World of Warcraft. But why? World of Warcraft was an MMORPG written for the low-end PCs of 2004-- it had to follow a design philosophy that was compatible with the technical requirements. Torchlight II has no such requirements, and although the stages are more varied in appearance as compared to the first title, the overall visual impression simply fails to impress.

Matt Uelman was brought in once again to provide-- what else-- another almost complete carbon copy of his one-hit-wonder Diablo soundtrack. He of course delivers-- how could he fail when the bar is so low?-- but no one at Runic apparently asked themselves, "does this style of music fit the aesthetic themes we're aiming at?" A single listen to one of the harrowing, spine-chilling title screen songs playing over the top of what looks like a scene from Looney Tunes sitting behind the menu answers that question.

Any game, from chess to football to Diablo, is played via a small set of actions that are repeated over and over. Torchlight II's designers decided to look at what those actions are in the context of a Diablo clone-- comparing loot, selling loot to vendors, killing enemies-- and make them as painless to perform as possible. What results is the most playable game that the sub-genre has ever seen.

On an ambition scale, Torchlight II ranks rather low; the formula is 99% copied from previous games in the Diablo sub-genre. When looked at through the lens of accessibility and refinement, however, things start to come into focus, and you can see what the Runic team was on about. As hard as it is to look past the downright irritating aesthetic, Torchlight II is like a well-trained butler-- providing for your needs in an efficient and mindful manner.