Last night, I purchased Torchlight on Steam, based on the positive reviews I've been reading about the game. At only $19.99, it's a definite bargain. I've only played about two hours worth so far, but man is this game fun! Torchlight is an action-style RPG, much in the vein of Diablo (in fact, it's made by a bunch of old Diablo developers). The graphics are beautiful and cartoony, spell effects are fun to watch, and the voice acting is pretty decent. But what I want to focus on in this post are the pets your character can have.

When you start a new game, you get to choose a pet (either a dog or a lynx-style cat), which you can then name. Your pet travels around with you and can aid you in battle. It will attack enemies if you put it into an aggressive stance, it can carry loot for you, and it can even wield items: a couple of rings, two spells, and an amulet. You can even send the pet around to gather up loot on the dungeon floor!

By far the best ability, however, is that your pet can travel back to town to sell items for you! Can you believe that? No longer do you have to teleport back to town to sell your unwanted loot. Just load up your pet with the stuff to sell, tell it to go back to town, and it will. The obvious downside to this is that you lose your pet's abilities and assistance for a while, but it's oh-so-worth it in the long run.

I'm having a blast so far with this game, and I'd much rather be at home playing it right now than at work. I definitely recommend checking it out. For only $20, it's a great value!