Torchlight is a quick and dirty Diablo clone, and there's no two ways about it. You've got three classes, a base city, point and click movement and attacking - hell, you've even got scrolls of identify and town portal. With Blizzard North co-founders Max and Erich Schaefer key members of Runic Game's leadership, we can't really complain. If you're going to copy Diablo, you might as well do it with the folks who made Diablo.

We'll have a full review of Torchlight next week, but for now we bring you news that the game is getting a retail release in January of next year. Encore Software is packaging the game up and shipping it off to retail stores on January 5th, with a modest price tag of only $19.99. Max Schaefer approves.

"We are very happy to partner with Encore in bringing Torchlight to retail locations. Torchlight is a AAA title for an affordable price, and in concert with the experienced Encore team, we look forward to bringing this game to all fans of the Action RPG genre."

Look for a MAC version of Torchlight in 2010 as well.

Tripwire Interactive started off as a modding team, taking its win in the Make Something Unreal contest for Red Orchestra and transforming themselves into a full-fledged developer and now a publisher. Tripwire has taken its own game, Killing Floor, to retail, and now they are doing the same thing with ACE Team's wildly popular Zeno Clash. Zeno Clash was released on Steam earlier this year, building up a rabid fan base relatively quickly. Now Atlus is bringing the game to Xbox Live Arcade, and Tripwire is bringing it to PC game resellers across North America.

Tripwire vice president Alan Wilson comments on the parallels between the two developers.

"Zeno Clash is one of those truly stand-out games that we are really proud to be associated with and to have as our first third-party title to publish. The game is genuinely memorable and has the best melee combat mechanics we've ever seen. What makes this deal even more memorable for us, is the fact that the ACE Team's history parallels our own – an ex-mod team that has funded themselves and succeeded in developing and releasing a great first title."

Zeno Clash should be hitting retail shelves "soon."

Apr Media may specialize in porting PC games over to the Mac, but they've been making a name for themselves lately in the PC publishing game, and the upcoming release of D3pusblisher's Puzzle Quest Galactrix continues the trend. The PC version of Galactrix should be hitting store shelves around the 24th of February, when the game also launches on Aspyr's gameagent.com website.

I'll probably just stick with the digital download version myself. I'm surrounded by empty boxes and scratched disks as it is. Still, good to know new players will be able to stumble upon the game at a retail store, unsuspectingly joining the ranks of the Puzzle Quest-addicted.