People seem to be under the impression that massive multiplayer (MMO) games (such as World of Warcraft) are the digital equivalent of heroin. In my opinion, that analogy is flawed because, while both are addictive and can reduce your life to smoking ashes, heroin is reportedly pleasurable in short spurts.

But I digress. My point is that MMOs are not the addictive sleep-killers of the gaming world. That crown belongs to the action role playing game (ARPG). Torchlight belongs to this family of games, resting on the mantle next to Diablo, Titan Quest, and many others. The formula is simple — give the player a weapon, give the player a mission of the “save the world” variety, chuck a dump truck-full of enemies at the player, then go make popcorn and let things develop as they will.

Torchlight strikes the bulls-eye with such force and accuracy it pins several attacking skeletons to the target — something you’ll be doing with a high degree of frequency once you fire this game up.

The premise is simple and elegant. The town of Torchlight is under attack by creatures which are coming from the mines underneath the town, and it’s your task to descend into the bowels of the earth and root out the source of the offending critters.

You can select one of three character classes — melee, ranged, or spellcaster. Your choice determines exactly what methods you’ll be using to send enemies to meet their respective makers. Melee players carve through the horde with swords, axes, warhammers and the like. Ranged characters slaughter from a distance with bows and flintlock firearms. And spellcasters use a combination of death-dealing staffs and spells. All characters can use any weapon type, provided they meet level and stat requirements. However, your class type will determine which weapon type you are most effective with.

Fast-paced action is the name of the game here. Enemies rarely last longer than a second or two, and even the enemy hero characters fall without too much trouble. It didn’t take my melee character much more than thirty seconds to make the end-game boss run weeping to his maternal entity.

Gameplay is a near-perfect mixture of enemy-stomping, loot-collecting and level-progression. New gear is dropped from vanquished foes, found in assorted chests and crates, or purchased back in the town of Torchlight. As in all the best games of this genre, finding a sword that does more damage per second than the one you’ve been using for the past thirty minutes is a feeling not unlike Christmas morning. More accurately, this game feels like Christmas morning every thirty minutes. If that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is.

The game’s premise of an infested mine provides a convenient and believable explanation for level progression: going deeper and deeper into the mines. Each level will take 20-30 minutes to sweep through. There are also a few “lost dungeons” which are accessible via scrolls or side quests, providing an occasional change of pace.

The game also addresses some of the common frustrations with ARPGs. Most prominent is the full inventory issue. Nothing breaks up the pace of an epic slaughterfest like having to trudge back to town to sell off excess gear. Torchlight eliminates this by providing you with a pet who will not only fight alongside you, but will also carry loads of unwanted trinkets back to sell on the surface, leaving you free to continue dungeon raiding. You will still have to go back yourself occasionally, but even this is made painless by the ability to use portal scrolls almost anywhere, which will save your progress and whisk you back topside instantly.

There aren’t many content issues to worry about. The ranged character dresses a little provocatively; cartoonish blood gets splashed around. Overall, the game is relatively accessible and appropriate for its rated audience (the game is rated T for teen).

Most importantly, this game is just plain fun. It doesn’t require much effort or thought, but it’s an addictive and entertaining experience that will definitely feed that hunger you’ve been feeling since finishing Titan Quest. It will also keep you up to all hours of the night (I’ll never get those hours of sleep back … and I’m strangely ok with that.)

Torchlight may have lower production values than Blizzard’s upcoming Diablo III, but it’s still a great game, and it has enough replay value that you might still be playing it when Diablo III comes out in 2034.

Jerod Jarvis is an independent gaming journalist and founder of Duality Games. He maintains gaming columns for The Washington Times Communities and for The Outpost. When not blogging madly about games, he freelances for the Spokesman-Review in his hometown of Spokane, Washington and attends school at Whitworth University. Check out his presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay up on Duality Games updates and the inside scoop on the gaming news you care about.