Titan Quest
July 11,2006 - Formulas work in math, and sometimes in video games too. Blizzard’s Diablo has influenced countless games, from Dark Alliance to Dungeon Siege, and the hack-and-slash RPG recipe holds up remarkably well over the years. There’s something intrinsically satisfying about killing hordes of creatures and collecting their loot in the endless quest for better weapons and armor. Level up, earn new skills and spells, spend ability points, and repeat. It’s a pleasant balancing act, and last year’s Dungeon Siege 2 may well represent the ultimate blueprint of what makes these games so successful and enjoyable.

Not to be outdone, Iron Lore’s Titan Quest translates the formula to Greek mythology, and while most of the genre trappings are here, you’ll constantly feel that something’s missing. You’ll ultimately continue to return for the familiar action-oriented combat and addicting level grind central to these games, but there’s nothing that makes Titan Quest stand out in a crowd. Thankfully, it’s a huge package, stuffed with a 40-hour single-player campaign and two additional difficulty levels once you’re done, as well as full multiplayer suite with a burgeoning population. But if it’s enjoyable while you play, there’s nothing distinctive about Titan Quest, and its charms are inherent to the genre, not unique to the game.

The long single-player game takes you across the lands of Greece, Africa, and Asia, exploring recognizable mythological territory. It takes a while for the story to pick up steam, but even after the fog of the narrative is lifted, there’s nothing all that intriguing about it. In a complex RPG like Baldur’s Gate or Planescape: Torment, the story is as responsible as any other gameplay ingredient in encouraging the player to continue. Combat-focused RPG’s aren’t known for their multifaceted characters and diverging stories, but Titan Quest is a little too linear for its own good. Sure, there are a lot of NPC’s to chat with, and they spout a few interesting monologues here and there, but they all sound a little contrived, like their lines were lifted right from Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.

The central gameplay is solid though, thanks to a good set of skill groups from which to choose at the outset, such as Earth, Spirit, and so on. As you level up, you’ll get to spend points towards unlocking new spells and skills, and eventually you’ll choose a secondary profession, opening up a whole new series of abilities. As a result, your avatar is fully customizable, and Titan Quest balances them quite well, making ranged combat, melee, and spellcasting equally enjoyable. Your left mouse button operates your primary weapon, and you can assign any spell or skill to the right button. You can also assign a second weapon arrangement, and a simple click or press of the “W” key will switch you to the other set.

You encounter a good array of enemies during your travels: centaurs, gorgons, demons, zombies, and plenty more, including the occasional boss. While they all have their particular strengths and weaknesses, it’s never really clear what they may be, and we missed the system in Dungeon Siege 2, which clearly showed each foe’s level and Achilles' heel. Specific weapons will have specific effects against a particular type of enemy, though. For example, a certain club may do additional damage against the undead, while certain bows cause poison damage to living creatures. Occasionally, corpses drop weapon and armor enhancements that provide additional bonuses, like bat fangs or crow feathers. You can only upgrade equipment with one type of item, but adding more of the same item will increase the bonus, and if you add the maximum number of equippable bonuses, you gain an additional benefit.

Titan Quest focuses a good deal on phat lewt, and you’ll always be on the look out for magically enhanced items, all of which are color coded for potential effectiveness. Yellow items offer a few bonuses, while green and blue ones are particularly rare and valuable. Any enemy wielding equipment will drop it upon defeat, however, and after an exceptionally intense encounter, the ground will be littered with items of varying value. Veterans will want to pick up everything they can, sift through what they can use, and sell the rest, but Titan Quest presents an enormous problem in this regard: your inventory space is tiny, and it makes it tough to maximize your earnings.

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