Titan Quest

[gillies]

Titan Quest

 

 

Genre: Action RPG

Developer: Iron Lore Entertainment

Publisher: THQ

Online: Yes

Release Date: 26 June 2006 (US)

Ratings: ESRB: T, PEGI: 12+, OFLC: M

Players: 1-6

Multimedia:

 

 

Introduction Titan Quest is a Diablo-esque Action RPG from one of the designers of Age of Empires, Brian Sullivan. I'm not familiar with Diablo so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect in this game, but I always like games based on mythology and the demo version looked quite good, so here is what I think about it after completing the full version.

 

Graphics The graphics are pretty good looking for a game where you will probably need to zoom out as far as possible most of the time. The antialiasing support could have been better though. It features day-night cycles which make for some nice lighting at different times of the day, but can make things on the screen a lot harder to see. The areas you travel through while playing through the storyline provide some interesting scenery changes and also a lot of different kinds of enemies you will come across. Rather than having any loading screens, transitions between interior and exterior areas involve the different worlds fading away from eachother into the one you are entering, this is a fancy enough effect but there can be a few glitches associated with it. 8/10

 

Sound The sound is something that seems a bit neglected. Even though there is a bit of music you will notice sometimes, most of the time it is really quiet so all you will hear are fighting sounds from all the carnage that is going on. When you get low on health an adrenaline rush type sound effect kicks in to let you know you are about to die if you don't do something, at the beginning this can be useful but after a while you will probably die if you get this low on health so it doesn't help much. The small amount of dialogue from NPCs is pretty good, and they all have decent accents. 7/10

 

Gameplay The game manual boasts that you can be up and playing Titan Quest within seconds, and it is right. This is because unlike most role-playing games there isn't any class selection before you begin playing, instead the specialisation of your character occurs at the point where you gain your first level. So, just pick between muscular man or muscular woman, the colour of their tunic, a name, and you are ready to go. Once you begin the gameplay involves you using your mouse buttons which can be mapped to fighting commands, and 1-9 keys which can be mapped to potions and any spells you acquire, to battle your way through the game environments from rebirth fountain to rebirth fountain, fighting all manner of enemy monsters along the way. The rebirth fountains allow your character to respawn if it dies, the good thing about this is that getting killed isn't a huge deal, the bad thing is that you lose experience which at first is only a minor problem but after a while getting killed all the time will slow your levelling down a lot.

 

The areas in the game are usually small enough to explore without having to worry about getting lost and there is usually only one way in and out of an area. Your game gets saved in real time so there is no way to undo something once you have done it, but the world doesn't preserve its state so if you reload your game to continue on instead of picking up where you were you respawn at the last rebirth fountain you activated and all the enemies respawn as well. This means you need to set aside some time to play or you won't make much progress. The loot system only makes monsters drop any items they were using at the time they were killed so they don't drop a whole inventory of things, also annoyingly it gives you a lot of things in random loot that your character can't use due to the way you have specialised them. If this was done so you would have lots of things to sell for gold it partially makes sense, except that there is nothing to spend the enormous amount of gold you will rack up through the course of the game anyway. There is a toolset of some kind to allow you to create custom scenarios, also cooperative multiplayer for up to six people that is available through the game interface, it allows you to form a party to travel through areas from the single player game or a custom area, there is some emphasis on using this and forming parties to get through the higher difficulties. 7/10

 

Storyline Your part in the story begins on a dirt road just outside the small village of Helos in Greece, talking to the guy standing nearby will inform you that the villagers are having a little trouble with some monsters, and so you set off on an adventure that will span Greece, Egypt, and the Orient, and by the end have people everywhere pointing out that you are truly a hero whose deeds are worthy of the tales told by the bards, or something like that. The story has quite good length compared to some other recent games, and even if you don't really want to you will probably end up doing most optional quests as well to get as much experience as possible and be strong enough to fight the enemies you run into later on in the game. 7/10

 

Conclusion For fans of the genre this is probably something you would like, for other people if you are looking for a game that you can play for 30 minutes to an hour now and again and eventually get to the end after quite a while then this is a good one to buy, though you might get drawn in by it and end up playing a lot more. If getting all the best equipment for your character interests you then there are lots of reasons to replay it at the higher difficulties, if not then the first time through will most probably feel like more than enough. Titan Quest is out now for PC, and an expansion pack called Titan Quest: The Immortal Throne is coming soon.

 

7/10

Edited June 23, 2007 by gillies

[crazyanurag]

that's a good review mate...top draw, as always...i might even give this one a try

 

You'll Never Walk Alone

[RearEndCollision]

How did I miss this? Odd.

 

Regardless, great review gillies. (I wouldn't expect anything else for you.)