Developed By: Iron Lore
Published By: THQ
Released: June 2006
Single/Multiplayer up to 6 players
ESRB Rated Teen for violence
Pros: Simple yet addicting game play, excellent community following
Cons: Annoying patch glitches, mythical gods System Requirements
1.8 GHz. Processor
512 MB RAM
5 GB free HD space
NVIDIA GeForce 3/ATI Radeon 8500 or higher Titan Quest is an older game developed by one of the co-creators of the Age of Empires series. it is a click and kill style RPG that lets you customize your character and the powers that they can learn and master. When you level up, not only do you get to boost your typical stats like strength, dexterity, intelligence, health, and energy, you also have skill points that you can apply to your tech tree for areas of mastery. You can harness the power of the elements, summon creatures, become a master of weapons, defense, or the winds. Some of the mastery skills allow you to command pets to help you do your dirty work. They have a mind of their own but you can override their movements. The game starts with you saving your town Helos from monsters ravaging the townspeople and fields nearby. Once you secure the village you\'ll take orders from a general who will send you to Sparta. You\'ll explore Greece, Egypt, The Orient, and even Mount Olympus. There is the main quest, which involves defeating a Titan (big spoiler I know) and several side quests that will often reward you with experience and enchanted items. There are plenty of opportunities to stray off the path and do some exploring. There are many towns, caverns, caves and village to explore. You\'ll encounter monsters such as giant spiders, tigers, rats, skeletons, dragons, raptors, goblins, zombies, minotaurs, cyclopses, and so forth. Many of these enemies attack in hordes and often have a leader or a tougher hero among them. There are many mini bosses to defeat as well. I like how the game keeps track of the toughest creature you have defeated. It also tallies how many beasts you have killed and how many times you have died as well. When it comes to saving, the game pretty much is played and saved in real time. If you use up potions on accident, when you quit and reload they will still be gone. As you explore and enter towns they will have a re-spawning fountain that you have to activate so that you will re-spawn there when you are killed. Many towns have portals that you can use to travel between the lands. You have the ability to create a portal anytime, anywhere. This is a great tactic to use to stock up on potions before a boss battle. Be cautioned that when you portal in the middle of a boss battle, the boss may heal while you are re-stocking your supplies. Fighting monsters usually involves a lot of clicking. You can designate your hot keys to use your potions and skills that you learn. There are settings to allow for multiple weapon/attack configurations. Potions, and many attacks and skills, carry a recharge time before you can use them again. Many of the bosses will require hit and run techniques to defeat them. There are three levels of difficulty for the single player campaign. (Normal, Epic, Legendary) After you beat the last boss, Typhon the titan, you can play the game on the next difficulty level. You get to bring all your gear and goodies to the next difficulty level . The harder the level, the better the loot. There is quite a strong community following and there are many community released tools, maps and patches available. There are plenty of multiplayer servers to join. The multiplayer game play is pretty much the same when it comes to the map and quests. The main difference is the war party benefits from shared experience, which is nice. Since the game was released in 2006 there have been a few patches released. As of this review it\'s up to 1.30. Unfortunately, that\'s likely the last since Iron Lore (the developer) closed its doors in 2008. I have quite a few complaints about the patches, though. For starters they changed the Titan boss battle at the end. In the early versions of the game you can remove the Titan\'s abilities by destroying the statues that give it power, in the current patch you cannot do that. I think my Warrior/Defense master may have had a chance with the old patch. In order to beat the game I had to use a program called the Defiler and re-class my character to a Storm/Defense master. When applying one of the patches my character lost some levels and equipment. My last gripe is that I often transfer my saves between my laptop and my desktop. In order to get my save file to be seen I again had to use the defiler to get the game to recognize it. The bottom line here is, get the Defiler if you plan on playing this game. Graphically this game is a few years old and it STILL looks beautiful. The enemies, spells, caverns all look so colorful and detailed. The only downside is that when there are a lot of monsters on the screen your system may slow down a bit. It can choke up my quad core SLI system at times. This is the prettiest click and kill RPG I have played. Each monster and attack has its own unique sound effect. Many of the towns folks have stories or quests to tell you about and their voice acting is quite good. The background music is pleasant to listen to. I like the credits song after you beat the game, "Rock of Mages". From an appropriateness standpoint there is violence but it\'s not super gory. There are references to the undead and gods from greek mythology. Magic can be used by the player but it will definitely be used ON them. I was happy to see no occult symbols in this game. As fun as this game is, it definitely has its flaws. The stability and patches were annoying but the community support for the game made up for it. I look forward to playing the expansion pack Immortal Throne. It\'s a real shame that the developer has closed down, as I would have looked forward to other great games and more Titan Quest content. You can get this game with the expansion for $10 or less, and I would definitely recommend checking it out. Just make sure you have the Defiler handy. Game Score: 41/50 Game Play: 17/20
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 8/10
Stability: 2/5
Controls/Interface: 4/5
Appropriateness Score: 40/50
-3 for violence
-3 for minor occult references
-4 for magic