Titan Quest

The Good
This game is addictive. Not quite in the 'one-more-turn, Civilization' sense, but close.

I played a demo of Diablo when it first came out and at the time did not enjoy it. So I never played it, and for years afterward tended to shy away from the genre that Diablo essentially created (except for a brief and bored foray into Dungeon Siege and a bewildered jaunt through Sacred). The reason I picked up TQ at all was a simple intersection of 1) I'm bored and 2) it was on sale for cheap.

Needless to say I was quite surprised at how it drew me in.

The graphics are spectacular, given the game design and format. The sound design is sufficient, though not spectacular.

What really piqued my interest though, is the sheer volume of STUFF to be had. Over the years I'd read much about the Diablo games' variety of loot and not paid much attention to it. Once playing TQ though, it became a near obsession to get more and better stuff. So I played the game like mad until I beat it. And then I played it again, which leads directly into what I didn't like about it.

The Bad
Repetition. Gobs and gobs of it. I beat the game and then was promptly invited to play it again on "Legendary" level. As I already noted I haven't played many games of this genre, the first being Dungeon Siege which I didn't finish due to boredom, and Sacred, which I did finish and have precisely the same complaint about:

Playing through the EXACT same game but with bigger numbers (hit points, weapon and character stats, monster stats etc.etc.) doesn't really qualify as "more game." Now I'll admit I played most of the way through it again with my original character, but quickly discovered some fundamental limitations of that character as I'd formed him that made it exceedingly difficult to proceed past a certain point. But I couldn't simply create a new character and play at the "Legendary" level, I had to start over at a lower level and work up to it. Again. So I never did get to see that wonderful, high powered stuff, because I sure wasn't going to play the SAME GAME four times. It replays EXACTLY the same each time, there is no deviation aside from character choices, and while there is a wide range of character advancement options, after 100+ hours of playing, they all blend together pretty well in execution... An arrow is a fireball is a whack on the head with an axe.

The Bottom Line
The story was mostly irrelevant, some drivel about a Titan on the loose, a chase through exotic locales, etc. etc. blah, barf, blah. Which is really quite odd when you consider that the writer is a chap by the name of Randal Wallace. Yeah, that guy. The one related to Mel Gibson's Oscar. The story in Titan Quest isn't bad in the same vein as "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" was bad, it's just..... inconsequential.

Ultimately, this game was a blast. The first time through, anyway. So if you're into hack n' slash, loot-heavy games your money is well spent on this one. Just get the expansion, too. It adds quite a lot of new loot immediately accessible in the original game.

The Good
Iron Lore and THQ have taken the action-RPG concept and dropped it right in the middle of ancient Greece. All the usual trappings of hack-and-slash gaming are present and accounted for -- you'll single-handedly slug it out with hordes of mythological creatures, chug more health potions than the human body could possibly assimilate, grab more loot than ten dump trucks could ever hope to carry, and do it all again in the name of somewhat repetitive, but still undeniably addictive dungeon-delving action.

As the hero, you'll be spun into an epic tale that spans from the shores of Sparta, through the Tombs of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Great Wall of China, on to the eventual final confrontation on...er, well, no sense in spoiling anything now, is there? More to the point, the locales you visit in Titan Quest help keep this game fresh with a nice variety of environments to explore, as well as solid level design within each locale.

The monsters are also pretty interesting, from the lowliest satyr to some of the larger and more brutal animals like minotaurs or dragonkind. What really helps to differentiate Titan Quest's bestiary from other RPGs is that most of your opposition will don weapons and armor the same way you do, and if you see a piece of equipment on a creature, that piece will drop to the ground when you kill it. As well as equipment, some of the more powerful monster you face will have access to the same spells and abilities as you, which is a unique take on enemy design in this type of game.

The way your own skills are handled in the game is pretty unique as well. Instead of picking a class from the outset, you choose from one of eight completely independent skill trees when you gain your first level. Another tree of your choice will become available at level 8, giving you a total of two to play with. These trees are categorized by conventional RPG terms, and anyone who's ever played this type of game before will know what to expect from masteries like Hunting, Storm, Rogue, or Warfare. For the less initiated, there's a brief description of what each mastery is capable of so you can make a informed choice.

Those of us who have walked Diablo 2's hallowed ground for any significant length of time knows all too well how stale the graphics of that game were getting in the later years, and by comparison, Titan Quest is a serious breath of fresh air. Everything, from your character, the environments, your enemies, and even the items that drop from each kill are meticulously modeled in beautiful 3D. The effort on the part of the design team shows -- every facet of this game is gorgeous. If you're lucky like me, and you bought the Gold Edition of Titan Quest, you'll get treated to a book of the concept art for the game, and it's well worth tracking down.

The sound department deserves a nod as well -- there's lots of candy for the ears here, especially the soundtrack. There's a main melody which follows you closely throughout the game, but changes instruments and style depending on what part of the world you're in. The sound effects do an excellent job of adding to the experience in their own right - every roar, impact and spell effect hits with enough clarity to be effective.

The Bad
While Titan Quest manages to do everything right in terms of being a solid Action RPG, it just doesn't do anything to move the genre forward. In spite of some innovations in terms of character development and presentation, this still feels very much like a by-the-numbers hack and slash game. In essence, this is Diablo 2 with better graphics and a few different features.

The voice acting, though not outright bad, does come off as over-the-top at times. This becomes especially evident when you start conversing with folks from Egypt and China, who try their very best to speak English while still maintaining as much of a foreign accent as possible. With some characters it's not too bad, but others are downright laughable, which puts a jarring chord in an atmosphere that Titan Quest works so hard to build.

On a more personal note, I really wish single player RPGs could structure a storyline in such a way that everyone isn't just sending you on random errands until you finish the game. The number of times someone said to me "You're our only hope!" during the course of this game seems to suggest laziness on the part of the writers. I know there's only so much you can do with the "one man against an army" storyline, but surely to God there's some writers out there that can pitch material that hasn't been recycled from Diablo 1.

The Bottom Line
Titan Quest is a solid and very playable action RPG, but aside from the source material, there's not a whole lot going on here that we could classify as "new". Anyone looking for something fresh and original probably shouldn't even look twice, but fans of this sort of game who aren't completely bored by the conventions of the genre will have a great time with Titan Quest.

The Good
It's not hard to say what I liked most about Titan Quest, it's the graphics and the fantastic soundtrack. I'm not really too enthusiastic about having a soundtrack running along in the background while gaming (at least not the provided soundtrack), because in most cases the music doesn't hold up well for continuous playback and I usually decide to turn it off altogether. But in Titan Quest you can set the music to play only occasionally (which is also the standard setting, I believe), and I absolutely loved it! Also, when it plays it's lovely and relaxing to listen to, subtly running in the background. That's the way it ought to be by default, not taking centre stage as is usually the case, and being overly orchestrated and penetrant to the point of brainwashing the player. I hate that, and this also goes for most movies.

As for the graphics, I don't think I have to mention the absolutely beautiful presentation of the game. Lovely rippling water and leaving a trail behind as you wade along on the shore, for example. Or take the steaming wetlands, as much as I hated them they were a pleasure to behold anyway.

The monsters and the player character are animated lovingly and smoothly, it's a mere pleasure just hacking away and watching monsters fly, turtles toppling over. The spiders and spidermen are also particularly mentionable, they're giving me the creeps whenever I think about them. Or take the neanderthals along the Silk Road, and how they're hopping around and screaming to their peers for aid. And the whole tigerman set is amazing. The statues, the Terracotta army, the walking mummies, the zombies, the stone guards in the Minoan labyrinth. It's all really amazing stuff, if not to say art, yes a stunning piece of art, hands down!

And the locations blend over perfectly and without any loading screens to put up with. There are so many different settings to enjoy. Admittedly, I got a bit bored with the Egyptian desert environment and it was there I had to take a break from the game, only to return with a renewed thirst for more of the same: fantastic visuals and music.

The Bad
Unfortunately, this game goes to show that presentation isn't everything to keep the player satisfied in the long run. It all looks so great that I really hate to say it, but the stale game mechanics get so utterly tedious after a while that I really only continued to play on to improve my skills and equipment and to get to see even more beautiful settings. The game and its plot itself didn't really interest me at all. Every second or third word in the NPCs speeches was 'monsters'. Apparently there wasn't enough time on hand to elaborate on the storytelling bit of the game, because it simply isn't compelling. And in an action RPG like this you have to put in some effort here if you don't want the player to just click the 'dialogue' aspect away just to get on with it.

Also, as much as I praised the design of the monsters and the player, I was disappointed to see the other NPCs in the villages and towns didn't move around much, in fact always staying fixed in their spot. And they didn't put on any lively communication among each other in the background. To see how this can be bettered, have a look at Sacred 2. Okay, it may not be fair to compare a 2006 game with a 2009 game, but it doesn't matter, the NPC acting in the background is not a new thing. Even in the old Ultima RPGs, most prominently in Ultima IV, from the 1980's the characters were moving about freely, and vendors weren't in their shops at night time.

Even though you get your day and night cycles in Titan Quest, they're purely cosmetic. The vendor presence is unaffected by the time of day, and also the player never needs to sleep. Okay, fair enough, we just want to have fun here, and this is what it was made for. Having said that, I think I did notice that some beasts like wild boar appeared to be resting at night because they didn't notice me approaching. But it could just as well be my imagination.

Another thing that ruined the game was the well-meant introduction of the much praised two-mastery system. It does sound interesting with the thought in mind I could replay the game with my advanced character. Which you can, in fact, in Epic mode. By the time I reached the finale I had reached level 31 or so, and none of my masteries had been taken to the highest level by that point. It takes an awful long time to bash your way through a seemingly endless progression of always the same type of monsters or two for a stretch of half-hours each before there'd be a variation, and then you still have to fight another thousand of them or so to finally get the chance to invest three more points into your two skill trees. Ridiculous. Progression is really slow. It would have been perfectly okay to choose only one class and focus on that throughout the game. Like this, you really HAVE to replay the game once you're through so that you can see the effects of other skills you may have not been able to unlock yet.

And this is where I eventually gave up on Titan Quest. It's too freakin' long for its own good. It wouldn't be that bad if there would be anything new once in a while to keep the whole thing interesting in some way. Of course I have tried a couple of different character classes to see the differences, playing them up to level 12 or so. Nothing changes in the game, it's always really the same, no random monster generation or placement. It's alright if the map stays the same, but at least they could have hidden the monsters in different places. And mix them up a bit, too! Who wants to be faced up against Sartyrs and crows for hours on end? This is cruelty! The AI isn't particularly clever, so fighting gets boring. I was only replaying the stuff in order to see different effects upon impact, like poisoned strikes or seeing a thunderbolt in action (which was disappointing), or summoning a wolf. This could have been so much fun if the game had to offer more diversity and maybe a twist in the 'story' apart from the ever-changing settings.

I got so annoyed by all this in the end that I didn't even bother fighting the final Telekine or the titan, and I will never get so see the underworld of Immortal Throne. But you know what? I don't care any more, it will just be more of the same but with different graphics. And I've got other games that manage to keep me riveted, so this one's got to R.I.P. in my shelf. Such a shame, it could have been so much better.

The Bottom Line
How I would describe it to others? A beautiful to look at action role-playing game which is not too difficult to begin with but gets tedious after a while. If you're happy with slashing and bashing the same monsters over and over for hours on end, then you'll be happy. But I doubt that even a hardcore gamer would enjoy 'more of the same' after about twenty hours into the game. See for yourself, Titan Quest Gold can be had for little money these days, and it's a relaxing experience for a Hack & Slash style game.