by Kevin on 03/18/08 • 2 Comment(s)
It’s not very often when you see an RPG come along that has the capability to one-up the Diablo series but Titan Quest happens to be one of those games. So it was a Monday evening and I knew that I had the next three days off of work so I decided to go check out the shrinking PC game section of GameStop to see if there was any cheap games that might catch my attention. I saw Titan Quest: Gold Edition which comes with the original Titan Quest, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, the soundtrack CD and a decent art book, all for $20. Sure it sounded like a good set for the price but I was a little reluctant to make the purchase. I usually find that I am pretty picky when it comes to RPG games. I have never been able to get into the Final Fantasy games with their somewhat boring control system. I had a similar problem with the Neverwinter Nights games. Besides the Diablo series, the only other RPG that I could truly get into was the Dungeon Siege series.
Well I decided to purchase Titan Quest anyways. I figured it would be worth the $20. After spending a few days with the game I can easily say that this is one of the best RPG I have ever played. One of the things I appreciate a lot in Titan Quest is how easy it is to get in and understand how to play the game. You don’t need to sit down and read a 200 page manual to try and figure out how to work everything. The game brings the same intuitive gameplay that made Diablo and Dungeon Siege such lovable series. If you know how to play those games then you will be able to master the controls of Titan Quest within minutes. The game offers all of the flexibility you would want from an RPG but without all of the confusion. Click below to continue reading.
It is a shame that the company behind the Titan Quest games, Iron Lore has recently shut its doors due to lack of sales. They were a new game developer who took a gamble with a couple games and ultimately filed Chapter 11 after the curse of PC gaming fell upon the company. THQ Creative Director, Michale Finch blamed PC piracy and Intel’s integrated chipsets in computers as the reason why Titan Quest sold so poorly causing Iron Lore to shut its doors:
In a post on the Quarter to Three forums, he writes,” If even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today.”
As it stands, the game’s reputation was marred by pirates who couldn’t properly crack the DRM on the game, dumping users back to the desktop after a play session. He also puts the blame on hardware vendors for making “integrated audio and video” cards that have “little or no driver support, marginal adherence to standards, and sometimes bizarre conflicts with other hardware.”
Fitch also blames the game reviewers for not paying attention to the game, as well as the audience, who can’t carry out “basic stuff”.
“Making PC products is not all fun and games. It’s an uphill slog, definitely. I’m a lifelong PC gamer, and hope to continue to work on PC games in the future, but man, they sure don’t make it easy,” he concluded.
[Via DigitalBattle]
Beyond the intuitive controls, Titan Quest offers up the best visuals anyone has seen in an RPG game. Titan Quest will push your computer’s graphics capabilities to its limits and that doesn’t happen often with RPG games. Some amazing effects are offered in Titan Quest and you will notice stuff like waving grass and other forms of vegetation, water ripples as you walk through it, footprints form in the sand, fog floats over swamps and other gloomy locales, birds and other animals roam around, shadows are cast down upon the ground from the sun shining on the trees, day and night cycle and at times you will find yourself looking over a high ledge, looking down at a busy city, perhaps boats floating in the sea, ruins of an old city and much more. Scenes like this really give the game an ‘awe’ effect. The levels, both inside and outside are so pretty that you may want to take a second to look around just to notice all the work that has gone into polishing the environments.
The music in the game is also pretty well done. Nothing remarkable but definitely gets the job done. So how about length? Thankfully this game is huge. The first game will take an average of 40 hours to complete and an additional 30 for the expansion which is automatically combined into the first game. This game is huge. I probably clocked in 7 hours and I am still on Act 1 and there are four acts when you include the expansion pack. The game also focuses multiplayer both online and over LAN so you can have a friend join you in the adventure. The story for the game is pretty run of the mill. The story focuses on the ancient Greeks and the gods. The lands are attacked by evil vile creatures and basically you need to save the world. You will be greeted by a short intro video and like Diablo and Dungeon Siege, characters will further help push the story out there. Each NPC in the game speaks so you won’t have to read everything to get the story tidbits. You will find enough content to satisfy your needs if you are someone who is interested in storytelling.
So is there anything bad about the game? Well nothing big. One can nitpick but generally the game is awesome. Sadly you will notice that many weapons, armors, etc. all look the same much as it did in the Diablo games. So you will see many weapons that look the same but will offer different attributes. The Diablo series did the same while the Dungeon Siege series actually had unique items that were all different looking. It’s nothing thats going to ruin the game but it may bother you at least a little after playing for countless hours. Obviously things do eventually change and you do see different stuff but you will still see a lot of items that look the same. You will also find yourself stuck using the same weapon you may have got in one town, like four hours later, many levels more into the game and it seems like the stores in the towns you reach end up selling older stuff then you have most likely found simply from killing random enemies. This area of the game could have used some more polish. Some people might think that the game can get repetitive after awhile since generally it is a hack and slash game where you need to get from point A to point B but I don’t really consider it that big of a problem. There are a lot of side quests in the game where you will be able, as an option, do favors for towns folks in which they will give you money for. For example, help defend their cargo, go kill something for them, go look for something they lost, etc.
Titan Quest is a game that I can recommend to almost any gamer with a beefy computer looking for an awesome new RPG game. You may not have heard of the game and that is truly unfortunately but don’t let that sway your interest in picking this game up. Had I not made a purchase of this game then I would have missed out on a truly great game. Titan Quest is now one of my favorite RPG game and takes everything that Diablo did and improved upon it. Titan Quest is the spiritual successor to the Diablo series. If you want a cheap $20 game that offers a ton of value then Titan Quest: Gold Edition is that game. For those interested, you can check out the trailer above to get a glimpse of what the game looks like and what other aspects of the game that you can look forward to.
Pros:
- Amazing graphics and art style.
- Intuitive controls.
- Lengthy game that will take several days to complete.
Cons:
- Not much variety in the designs of the items you get. Same with enemies.
- To big of a gap between getting a weapon and finding one that is better.
- Some poor voice acting.
- Cookie cutter storyline, game may get repetitive to some after awhile.
Score:
8.5
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