Titan Quest

"Diablo Clone that fails to live up to its hype."

Titan Quest is a hack'n'slash / RPG adventure game in the vain of Diablo and Diablo 2. You play the part of a Greek hero who must explore a world full of humans and mythological beasts to complete various quests and objectives. Your character eventually takes on the characteristics of a various class (Mage, Warrior, Ranger, etc) and you build up the skills and abilities of the character as you gain experience in a manner similar to an RPG. Unlike Diablo 2, you cannot select different types of characters; you can only choose a class for the default character.

Graphics & Sound: 8 of 10. I found that while the graphics surpassed Diablo 2 in terms of sophistication, they fell short of Diablo 2 in terms of originality and creativity. The sprites are very detailed 3D polygons, and the backgrounds are also fully 3D. But so what? It doesn't look better than Diablo 2 and it requires more sophisticated hardware to run. You will need something along the lines of a Radeon 9800 Pro or a Geforce 6600 to even get close to what the graphics are intended to look like. The graphics have a very generic and drab feel to them. Despite their technical superiority (such as being able to scroll in and out) the graphics just aren't as captivating as Diablo 2.

Gameplay / Control: 8 of 10.
+The game controls well and doesn't suffer from some of the problems of another Diablo clone called "Sacred". You are able to teleport anywhere in the game which is useful. The system for arming your character with weapons and armor is basically the same as Diablo 2, albeit less sophisticated. There are many interesting skills and magical powers you can aquire and utilize throughout the game as you gradually gain more experience.
-I don't like how you can only choose one type of character. Even though the character can evolve into one of several classes, its sort of lame that they all look the same. I like being able to choose my character (Barbarian, Elf, etc) at the beginning of the game, rather than being forced to pick the same old boring shmoe.

Fun-factor / Replay Value: 6 of 10. This game is just not that much fun. Its a bland Diablo clone. The fact that most people would have to upgrade thier hardware just to play it doesn't help the game. You need a 256 meg Geforce 6800 or 6600 GT to play this game at anything but the lowest settings. I found another game called "Sacred" to be far superior to this one, and "Sacred" does will run on a computer half as powerful and looks better than Titan Quest.

Over all: 6 of 10. This is a mediocre Diablo clone. I would choose Divine Divinity and Sacred over Titan Quest anyday. This is NOT the heir to the Diablo legacy that the hype makes it out to be. I would not recommend that someone purchase this game unless they can get it for next to nothing. Its just not that good.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/09/06