Torchlight/New Belgium 1554 Enlightened Black Ale

Game: Torchlight, Runic Games, 2009, PC
Beer: New Belgium 1554 Enlightened Black Ale, 12 fl.oz., 5.5% abv
# of beers consumed during play:4
Level Reached: 12th floor
Level of Intoxication: Woozy

Game
Okay, I'll just go ahead and put this out there, if you liked Diablo, even the slightest bit, and found yourself lamenting the end of the two games and one expansion that's been released so far, get Torchlight, it will rekindle your love for Diablo and provide an excellent stop-gap between the old Diablos and the pending release of Diablo III. On the other hand, if you are a Diablo devotee, storing such knowledge as what or who a Horadric Cube is, what bearing angry cows have to do with the Diablo universe, and which item colors correspond to what level of rarity, you should be currently in the process of purchasing this game at this very second. If, by some chance you are the reason Diablo Anonymous exists and the sound of a trap being sprung in Diablo makes you wince, you've probably beaten Torchlight three times over already and the shakes are already setting back in.

Gameplay
As you might have ascertained from the preceding paragraph, Torchlight is based heavily on the framework of Diablo, and when I say based heavily, I mean someone found a way to directly copy everything that made a popular game successful without getting sued for copyright infringement. The games are so similar in fact that if I went about enumerating all the parallels between the two pieces of software, this review would be about ten pages long. I'll just hit the major points of Torchlight, and if any Diablo fans hear something familiar, they can raise their hands. It's not my fault if all the blood runs out of your arm and it goes numb.

You, as either a warrior, a mage, or a chick who is apparently a wicked shot with flintlock weapons, explore dungeons and defeat hordes of enemies, all while searching for treasure, finding secret rooms, and avoiding traps along the way. New weapons and armor can be bought from the town merchant, but the best ones are always as loot drops when fighting unique enemies. Your character has two hot-swappable sets of weapon slots, and an inventory that always seems to get full right before you come across the unique dungeon master with all the rare loot drops. Fear not though, as you have scrolls of Town Portal whereby you can quickly return to town to offload your items and completed quests before jumping right back to where you were in the dungeon. Chests, barrels, and urns abound, and many are booby-trapped, adding a further level of complexity and difficulty to simply collecting treasure. Traps include hidden enemies, fireballs, poison clouds, and explosions. At periodic points in the dungeon, you'll run across shrines which fill your health, mana, or other attributes, and as a general rule appear most often when you really don't need them. Bosses punctuate the dungeon at set intervals, after which there is a waygate that allows you to easily progress from that point without having to waste precious town portals. Many items you pick up will be unidentified, with which you'll have to use an identify scroll before selling or using it. Many items are also socketed, and you can use gems of varying quality to enhance the properties of such items. Of course, why sticking jewelry into a hole in your sword suddenly makes it cause fire damage is a bit beyond me, but hey...whatever, at least you'll look fabulous as you strike down the undead hordes. Periodically, characters will give you new quests to complete, which net you experience and fame. Leveling up is a simple affair, when it happens you'll spend 5 attribute points on yourself and one for any skills you suddenly find yourself in need of. I swear to God I was describing Torchlight right there.
Torchlight does have some features that do set it apart however. An interesting and very, very welcome addition to Torchlight is your pet. Every character has a pet with them at all times, this pet goes beyond being an eating/shitting machine and actually has an inventory. You can place items you pick up into this inventory at any time, freeing up more slots in your own bag for more loot. The best part of your pet though is that when its inventory becomes full, you can hit a button and they will automatically go to town to sell anything you've given them, coming back after a time with gold. This mechanic theoretically allows you to quest without pause, consuming your ever-shortening mortal days with a seamless, unending mission to clear out every corner of the subterranean mines. Aside from being a poor simple pack mule-lest you've gotten the wrong impression-your pet also helps you by attacking enemies, and can even turn into different and useful creatures temporarily with the help of different fish that you can either catch in a fishing hole or that you can find as treasure. Each different form has strengths and weaknesses and all are cooler than the kid down the block in the neighborhood you grew up in who had an NES Advantage stick, R.O.B., and The Powerglove. Man, that kid was such a dick.
In addition to the main dungeon and its many levels, there are a few side-quests that can be embarked upon. One set of sidequests take place through a man who sends you through portals in search of some specific trinket of value. You bring back whatever it is he asks for and he'll not only reward you with gold, experience and fame, but he'll allow you to keep anything you find during your search. Also, during your main quest, you may see a ghostly animal called a phase beast, if you do, KILL THAT BITCH!!! Upon its death it will turn into a portal that will take you to special treasure rooms filled with assloads of gold and unique weapons and armor. Definitely not to be missed, particularly if you happen to like things like tons of loot and rare, very powerful weapons.

Graphics/Sound
Torchlight was designed from the ground up to be playable on very low-end hardware, it even has a tick-box in the graphics options called Netbook mode. This alone, while limiting the high end of the graphics engine, is so awesome that I'm having trouble articulating myself. The fact that such an intensely outstanding game was created to be able to play on just about anything with a keyboard and a color display shows that the creative team behind this game were actually thinking about what kind of people like to play these kinds of games and when. While the graphics may not be quite up to Crysis standards, they are still clean and crisp, and with even middling hardware, can be turned all the way up, making for a very pretty game. Particle effects in this game never cease to amaze me, being smoother, clearer and more beautiful than even some high end triple-A titles. The art direction in the game is extremely clean and focused, leading me to believe that Runic Games found a way to genetically splice all the world's greatest artists together and then teach the resultant clone how to use a computer. No two floors of the dungeon look alike, and all the characters have a cartoony, exaggerated style that makes romping through the game a joy. It's like playing a cartoon, one with blood and demons and abominations from hell. So in many ways it's very much like Nick Jr.
The sound...hmmm...Well, let me put it this way, the same guy that did music for Diablo came and did music for Torchlight, and it shows...in fact it doesn't just show, it jumps out of the screen and bludgeons you to death with a 12-string guitar. Case in point: remember the theme to the entire first act in Diablo II? Well so does the guy who wrote it and when he went to work at Relic Games, it was apparently stuck in his head because the theme for the entire game of Torchlight is so similar to that of Diablo II's that at first I thought it was just a remix. Good? Bad? That's not for me to decide. Other sounds follow a similar pattern. Gems have that same ring when manipulated, and scrolls and spells also make nearly identical sounds as the Diablo series. Even some sound cues are the same, albeit with different actual sounds. When you can't carry anything else, your hero says, "My inventory is full" or some variant thereof. One thing I did grow sort of fond of soundwise was the narrator, a wizened old voice that chimes in during cut scenes and when something significant happens ingame. One of the things you will hear this disembodied voice say often is some form of "You have sprung a trap!" which he utters with just the right amount of glibness. If one didn't know any better one would say he enjoys seeing you hurt yourself. The sounds of the monsters is wonderful. The shamblers in particular creep me out something fierce. The sound as a whole? Some parts original foley, some parts seemingly resampled from the original Diablo series, all good.

Story
Torchlight is the name of a small mining town that has settled at the head of a huge vein of ore known as Ember. Ember is an element with magical properties and in classic fantasy setting, this causes monsters to be everywhere. You have just arrived in town, looking for fortune, adventure, and possibly a place to lay low and cook meth, the game doesn't really elaborate. What you do find out soon enough though is that people have gone into the Ember mine and have not come out, and the town is quickly being sieged by creepy-crawlies, and for pretty much no reason, all the townspeople want you to go in and figure out what's going on even though they don't know you from Adam. They probably don't run credit checks on potential tenants either. So, likely seeking a place to set up your drug lab, you go into the mine and soon find out things are a little crazier than originally thought. It's a bit cliche and a bit hackneyed, but still, the story is executed very well and is meted out in doses small and meaty enough to keep you wanting more.

Beer
New Belgium 1554 Enlightened Black Ale...good Goddamn that's a lot to say. From now on, this shit is called 1554, that's its new name, even if they have twenty other beers that they call "1554 Blah Blah Blah Whatever" this beer is 1554. Because I said so. Despite it's ridiculously long name, 1554 is actually a really, really good beer. I wish I would have tried it sooner but unfortunately, good beer usually costs a lot, and up until recently I couldn't even afford a little. Well, even a wino will find himself sipping bourbon once in a while, and thankfully this time, my excursion to the store yielded positive results, even if the store is still selling Jack's Pumpkin Spiced Ale. The packaging and bottles have a distinct class to them, the bottles in particular. Dark brown glass, with a custom shape and design definitely causes this beer to stand out among others in a lineup. Perhaps not as much as Grolsch and their swing-top bottles, but still, everything from the bottles on down to the labels and bottlecaps are characteristic. For some reason, these aesthetic touches seem to lend a certain atmosphere of legitimacy to the entire business of drinking. This would be the kind of brew you would order at a nice restaurant, and would have no qualms about drinking in front of your wife's parents, if such situations were to apply to you. This beer is good enough to pair with food and not feel snobbish about doing so.

At any rate, 1554 being a dark beer, it has the natural roasted, coffee taste. This is not a bad thing, particularly if your proclivities range into the darker brews as a matter of course. If you love and drink Guinness, this beer will please and satisfy. There is a definite sour tang to the affair, which deepens the more you drink, but never gets overwhelming or unsavory. The aftertaste is strong, as can be expected, but again, doesn't go overboard. 1554 even tastes good at room temperature, making me think the English may be onto something after all. Then again they're English, they say things like "bollocks" and "bloody hell" and have bad teeth and drive on the wrong side of the road. Of course, us Americans are crass, loud, and ignorant, and most of us are fat, so I guess everything evens out in the end. Where was I? Oh yeah. New Belgium isn't a Belgian or even British brewery, their contact info lists them as being in Colorado. So apparently I've found an American beer that tastes like an import, and I bet if I go to a bar, it'll be charged like an import too. Bastards.

The smell is tart and full of different odors. Some of the notes include grain which is most prevalent, the aforementioned roasted flavor, some oaky, darker hints and a wee tiny bit of chocolate swimming around in there somewhere. The nice thing is that the smell doesn't overwhelm. Much like the rest of this beer, it is subtle and nicely balanced, allowing the beer to have a captivating aroma which complements the taste nicely.

1554 has a very full body, it's not too carbonated, but the beer is definitely thicker than any light lager, and almost gives the venerable Guinness a run for its money in the thickness department. It is a slight bit more effervescent than other darks, but the bubbles are tame, and know their place, not foaming up unnecessarily or bloating the drinker from the inside. The 5.5 alcohol content is also nice, somewhat above average, and bearing an intoxication which comes on easy, sits nicely for a while and leaves just as peacefully. The whirls this beer gives are light and clumsy, with no anger or aggression to be found. All in all, 1554 is a great beer that really deserves more attention, particularly since it's a brew domestic to the U.S.

The Matchup
So, at the end of the day, what do we take away from all this? Well, that largely unknown properties can not only surprise, but stupify and amaze as well. In the case of Torchlight, a no-name developer has come out with a game that isn't known for having huge production values, isn't a new concept in any meaning of the word, isn't geared up to have the greatest graphics or marketing, and still manages to steal my leisure time away from wholly more expensive and high profile games on a near nightly basis. In the case of 1554, a beer I've never heard of, which sits quietly and inconspicuously on a a store shelf, bought through pure happenstance is now perched firmly in my top 5 beers. It is so full of flavor and character that I'm almost ashamed of myself for not discovering it sooner. Both 1554 and Torchlight prove that wondrous treasures can be found in the most unlikely of places.

Cheers/Game on.