Getting Old and Slow, Plus Torchlight II Impressions

Forget having to get bifocals, it is getting slower in video games that is getting to me. A couple of things have proven this to me the past week. While never one of the best, I could at least game on the hardest or second hardest settings the first time I played a game. With the release of Black Mesa, a remake of most of the original Half Life, I find myself having to continuously lower the difficulty in order to progress.

I did fine until the Marines showed up. Then it became a ridiculous exercise in getting killed twenty or thirty times just to clear one area and limping out of it with under ten health. And getting killed with one shot in the next area.

I used to waltz through Half Life at its hardest settings, so this is a body blow for me. Older games were harder than the current ones,yes --  but this is painful.

The second thing was talking to one of my younger friends I game with. He can’t understand why he beats me handily in PvP when I can run through single player games on difficulty levels he can’t handle. That is simple to answer: twitch reflexes will always dominate in PvP with tactics being a secondary factor. Guile and tactics often compensate against AI opponents who follow predictable paths. Humans are a lot more random.

Watching him play at his house, I was amazed at how fast he could flip through screens, type, and fight without missing a beat. That is simply beyond my ability these days.

At least Torchlight II is something I can still play at veteran level and not die very often, in fact only once so far and that was due to stupidity on my part. So far it is much more like Diablo II than the first game and the graphics look great with no slow downs on max settings despite amazing waves of enemies. The changes all work to the better from what I have tested through level 11 casual and level 7 veteran ember mage builds.

But…

It is buggy. Horrifically buggy. I have a friend who can’t launch it without completely locking up his computer. One side quest I accepted couldn’t be done because the entrance to it refused to trigger. Then there is the multiplayer which was not functioning because Runic Games could not handle the traffic. I could not even create an account last night.

It is as bad as the Diablo III rollout, which is incredibly ironic.