MaximumPC 2006 10

reviews Tes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized

00 MAXIMUMPC october 2006

Y

ou remember all the boring classical

Greek mythology classes you sat

through in high school? Sure, sit-

ting through the yarns about gods fighting,

making up, and occasionally molesting a

particularly attractive human were bet-

ter than an afternoon in calculus, but you

wouldn’t want to relive those adventures

again today, would you? We sure as hell

don’t want to struggle through Bullfinch’s

Mythology again, but we’d love a second

helping of Titan Quest.

The story is simple. Some young whip-

persnapper gods locked their parental

gods in a god prison. Then, over time, the

elder gods got pissed and broke out of the

prison and commenced wreaking havoc

on everything around. Your job as a lowly

mortal (with nothing more than a meager

weapon and a tenuous grasp on magic) is

to defeat the god elders. Naturally, you’ll

begin small, facing off against centaurs,

skeletons, and zombies before you move

on to more frightening fare.

For people who enjoy the typical mind-

less action-RPG, Titan Quest is a lot of fun.

It adds a few small cosmetic touches to the

genre—ragdoll physics replace the tradi-

tional death animations, for example, and

makes the game much more entertaining to

watch. The graphics are superior to every

other action RPG we’ve played, and the

game world is positively massive. We spent

more than 30 hours beating the main quest

the first time, which then unlocks a higher

difficulty level so you can run through the

quest again, picking up still better loot and

learning even more skills.

The multi-class system adds a multitude

of choices to the game. In the beginning

portions of the game, you’ll choose two

of the eight available classes, then spend

points (which you earn each time you gain

a level) to learn new skills, improve them,

and unlock even more powerful abilities. By

choosing different classes and skills, you’ll

get a different experience each time you

play the game.

Co-op play kicks ass; we spent several

happy sessions playing through the main

quest in small parties—with each player con-

trolled by other people. Playing multiplayer

opens new doors for character customiza-

tion. You can specialize in one particular field;

instead of a good balance between melee

defense and ranged magic use, you can

focus on one or the other. No Jacks of All

Trades are needed in a large group.

There’s plenty of room for improve-

ment in the game, though. The utter lack of

inventory-management in the game’s UI is

frustrating, especially for a game that deliv-

ers such an unbelievable amount of loot. We

spent way too much time rearranging our

loot to fit in the extremely limited inventory

space. Furthermore, the game only gives

you a vague indication of what the differ-

ent items are worth, so it’s difficult to know

what you should keep (to sell) and what you

should just drop. Also, we found the melee

combat to be frustratingly difficult. We fre-

quently ended up chasing fleeing enemies,

and the boss monsters were too powerful

for toe-to-toe tussles. We ended up kiting

them—a very difficult prospect with short-

range weapons only.

Despite its few minor flaws, Titan Quest

delivers a ton of extremely fun content for

the RPG aficionado. The story is engaging,

the graphics are beautiful, and the mon-

sters are plentiful.

—Will Smith

Titan Quest

We like this romp around the ancient

Mediterranean

During your epic journey, you’ll fight increasingly impressive enemies with all sorts of

different powers.

Beware the bosses and their impressive

spell effects. the flames really sting!

Because the baddies are animated with

ragdoll physics, large explosions will chuck

their corpses across the map! $50, http://www.titanquestgame.com, ESRB:T

titan quest

cronuS

Great story, graphics, and

gameplay. 30+ hours

of fun!

Saturn^9

Loot management and

inventory need some work.

Too much loot!