|
The would-be Diablo 3 arrives courtesy of THQ and Iron Lore. Although not based on Blizzard’s venerable franchise, Titan Quest has more than some inspiration from the Diablo series. That means that the game is sure to please fans that want a lot of action in their action RPGs though the game perhaps sticks too closely to a formula that’s already several years old.
In Titan Quest, you play as a hero who wants to stop titans from causing problems to mortals. You see, the Olympic gods including Zeus gained their powers by defeating other, older gods called titans. When the Olympians won, they locked up these titans in prisons. As the game opens up, the titans were freed; they’re mad, and they show it. I say that you play as a hero because you actually create your character although you’re only able to name the character, choose his or gender and change the color of your clothes.
The gameplay is very similar to the Diablo series or games inspired by the Diablo games. As you travel to caves, ruins, forests and countrysides and more as you kill enemies upon enemies and gain treasure after treasure. Though the game does have an overarching plot, many of the details involve killing a specific person. The enemies that you kill include Cyclopes, satyrs, centaurs and other traditional Greek mythology enemies. Some of these enemies will call friends or try to run away when you’re about to finish them off, helping the game keep away from being monotonous. To combat these enemies the game gives you countless pieces of armor, weapons, potions and even jewelry.
Though there’s plenty of action, the game does have some RPG elements. You gain experience points by defeating enemies and finishing certain missions. As you go through the different levels, you can boost your hero’s attributes in health, strength, intelligence, among other features. You can also allot points into specific skills such as nature, storm, earth, warfare, defense, etc. If you want to focus on magic, it’s probably good to build up the elements (spirit, earth, nature and storm) while if you want a good fighter you should focus on hunting, rouge, defense and warfare. If you find that you wanted a skill but later find that you don’t like it very much, the game gives you ample opportunity to take those experience points back and allocate them elsewhere—though they expect a cut of these points.
Titan Quest isn’t short by any means. The game includes a solid 35 or 40 hours of gameplay; it includes even more if you choose to complete the optional side missions. To add even more replay value, the game lets you create your own maps and quests via the included editor tool. Titan Quest also includes an online portion. You can use your single-player hero in multiplayer. You can enter an existing game or make your own. Online, the game plays a lot like it did offline, though you have additional human players helping you out. You can potentially use this to complete a particularly tough area and then go back to play offline.
Visually, the game is solid. As I mentioned above, the game doesn’t have a shortage of different environments. All of these have a lot of detail, they’re often huge and interesting to explore, and you’ll notice some nice visual tricks along the way. Grass sways naturally as you run through it for one. The game has fancy lighting and shadows that realistically follow the onscreen characters and really helps bring the game to life. The characters themselves also have a lot of detail and stunning animation. Titan Quest does require a relatively powerful machine to run, although we received solid visuals even on relatively dated technology.
The game’s audio is equally impressive. The background music fits the game well for the most part but there are times that you’ll wonder if THQ just acquired random music and placed it in here. The sound effects are perfect, bringing the game to life. The voice acting is okay—not too great or bad—but sounds uneven.
Titan Quest is a solid approach to the Diablo formula. The game gives you a lot of flexibility with regards to your character, it lets you play online if you want, and you can create your own maps and quests. Add to this a stellar presentation and it’s hard to fault the game. The most noticeable fault is that the game is perhaps too similar to the Diablo series. If you are tired of that kind of gameplay, Titan Quest won’t change your mind.
Minimum System Requirements: Windows 2000 or XP, 1.8 Ghz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent or AMD Athlon XP or equivalent, 512 MB RAM, 5 GB free hard drive space, 64 MB NVIDIA GeForce 3 or equivalent or ATI Radeon 8500 series with Pixel Shader 1.1 support or equivalent, DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card, 8x or faster CD-ROM drive, Keyboard, Mouse
Recommended System Requirements: Windows XP, 3.0 Ghz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent, 1 GB RAM, 5.0 GB or more free hard drive space, 128 MB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series or ATI Radeon X800 series or equivalent, DirectX 9.0c compatible or Soundblaster X-Fi series sound card, 8x or faster CD-ROM/DVD drive, Keyboard, Mouse -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Jul 6, 2006
|
