Gaming Signal: First Impressions: Titan's Quest by Iron Lore

First Impressions: Titan's Quest by Iron Lore

First, I want to preface this by saying that this is really not a full review in that I have not finished the game. I would venture that I am only just one third of the way through this game, but I would like at least get my early feelings about the game here for those who may be on the fence about it. Want to know more? Read on...

Basically, the game is a Diablo clone. I mean it is incredibly derivative in the fact that it is yet another entry in the already packed action RPG field which includes games like Dungeon Siege, Beyond Divinity and others. Now this may seem like yet another clickfest- this game does add some fantastic visuals and a pretty good story. I am a sucker for mythology, and this game is full of it. The part that I have finished involves the Greek gods and from a story perspective the game is pretty good. I anxiously look forward to see how things pan out.

Another well done element of the game is the visuals. They have updated it to be much more a 3-d game versus some other games out there. It is not the first game to add 3-D elements, but the scenery and models look pretty good at almost all the zoom resolutions. Furthermore, the game supports widescreen monitors without any funky command switches which is a good thing.

Now with these good things, there are some negative things. That 3D engine is a pig from a memory and hardware utilization standpoint, and lags at times on my PC. My hardware is only a year or so old, but this game has some issues with respect to running on older gear. Now, I am sure that if I had the latest Core-duo stuff from Intel that my problems would still exist since they have some memory utilization issues that are being patched (and from what I have read 1.11 is far better than the version at release.)

The other negative thing is that sometimes the targeting gets a bit wonky, and I have no other word for it. I mean I know I have the given creature targeted, but I seem to be moving versus hitting it. This could be attributed to the lag issue from above, but I think this might not necessarily be true.

In summary here, this derivative game has its problems, but its fun. I like the kill stuff, get new gear, and kill stuff some more. I have not tried multiplayer, but for the most part I look at MMOs or games like Battlefield 2 for my multiplayer needs. If you are looking for a well done action RPG clone with a decent story, I think you would be well served by this game.

On Tim's recommendation, I bought the game today and have played through a little bit (my character is level 8, and hardly anywhere with the main story.)

The Greek mythology setting is quite cool - reminded me why I liked God of War so much. It also does have the best graphics I've seen in an action RPG - shadows look right, grass moves when you walk through it, water looks awesome, etc.

The gameplay is fun - exactly in the way that Diablo 2 was fun. As an aside, I know they love to take their sweet time, but Blizzard is really missing out on some ready cash by waiting so long to get a 3rd installment of that franchise out the door. I know they have more money than anybody thanks to World of Warcraft but still - who wants to leave money on the table?

The skill system seems very interesting - I wonder if I'll be able to respec if I find I've made mistakes? Hmm, maybe I better dig out that manual...

My complaints are that the NPCs are lifeless - they have voiceovers but the art seems nondescript and the writing is uninspired. This is an epic struggle, and I guess I expect at least Jason and the Argonauts level dialog to go along with the graphic style. Alas, no.

And finally, the copy protection solution is pretty annoying. I use Daemon Tools to mount ISO images all the time (legitimate, legal uses - like all those MSDN CDs) - but this game refuses to run if DTools was started with Windows. It wasn't enough just to exit out, I had to tell DTools not to startup, reboot, then install and run TitanQuest. It's getting quite irritating when game companies are telling you what other applications they will or won't allow you to run on your PC.

Posted by Scottsh on Friday August 11, 2006 at 12:50 AM

I concur about the Daemon tools thing, but it seems to take issue with version 4.00 of the tools that use that new SSPT driver. I reinstalled version 3.47 which has the right level of support for my MSDN ISOs and all is golden. I no longer have to uninstall stuff to get it to work...

As for respecs - yes you can from Mystics, but its more about buying skills back in the two chosen Master skills that you selected for your character. I have a whole post for "respecs" and skill based systems coming soon (note the key writing element called foreshadowing which indicates a higher level of blogging not seen many other places )

Posted by Tim on Friday August 11, 2006 at 1:24 AM

Guys, I run Daemon tools too and if before installing you got to the Daemon tools system tray icon and r-click on it and then select 'Emulation>All options OFF' you should not have to unload Daemon tools.

I am running the two successfully. And once the game is installed I seem to have no issues going back and selecting 'Emulation>All options ON' and everything is back to normal.

On the game: I'm done with the Greek missions, and I'm about 3/4 the way done with the Egyption missions and let me tell you. The game actually gets better. You can tell the art and the sound work for Egypt came after Greece. OR the content was made by two different developers and they Egypt guy had hisd head screwed on straight. Either explanation still means MORE FUN.

On combat: Point at the guy you want to kill and hold down r-click (versus just clicking) until he's dead. This is the only way to NOT develop an repetitive motion injury. Also, "Z" and "X" are the buttons used to find the loot but unfortunately you can't fight people with the loot buttons ON. You'll just run around people and never fight them. Ranged combat looks like it would be needed, its really not. Put your skill points in to melee combat and just run away from the BOSS mobs. Kite-ing seems to be the method of destruction that works best. Map the r-mouse click to "drink a health potion" seems to be convienient as well. Also, if you have one of the upgraded melee attacks dont forget to map that to the l-mouse button as those effects are cumulative and constant. "War aura" (I think that is its name? maybe combat aura?) would be an example of a skill you need to remap to the l-click button.

All in all I really like the game. I think they "one-upped" Diablo in that the maps are not as repetitive (predictable?) as Diablos were. But then again, maybe Titans Quest the maps are more linear, so I guess its a trade off. In contrast, the Dungeon Seige series seems to be the least inspiring of this genre. I can't decide if TQ is better than Diablo, or not, maybe just different?

cheers!

Posted by tditto on Friday August 11, 2006 at 4:26 PM

I finished the game once on normal mode - very interesting. The plot remained interesting and unique to me until the very end - surprised even.

I'm glad I played it, and began experimenting with the next level of difficult - epic mode. Exactly like Diablo 2, the game just resets to the beginning with 30 being added to all monster levels. I looked online an Legendary (the next higher level of difficulty) starts with 50 being added to all monster levels. Of course, item drops are bumped as well.

I enjoyed the game - quite fun.

However, it is not without its issues. The gameplay got strange near the end for me - some fights were trivial while some were flat-out near impossible. I'm not talking about the major boss fights - just combat along the way in the wilderness. There are this monk catpeople who seem to crit on nearly every hit that proved to be lots of trouble for me.

I think my major complaint is the poor balancing. I played my first character as a Spellbreaker - he is a melee character with necromancer like spells. It sounded good - but in the end, I dropped all the Spirit Mastery abilities and went purely for the Warfare abilities. Even here I ran into troubles, as dual wielding ended up being a nearly useless ability - I always did far more damage while taking less if I used a shield. So I dropped from that too and went purely as a Warrior.

I started a second character as an Earth Mastery character, and this was like 'easy mode' compared to my Warrior. Earth Mastery has this great damage shield that ended up being so good, it killed most monsters without me having to do anything - I just ran around kiting them a bit while they died from being near me. I frankly never had a fight that was all that hard - I have a pet that tanks for me, while I do uber damage just standing near mobs. Maybe things will get harder as I level this character up, but so far it seems like the easy way to play.

I also don't understand the purpose of armor sets in games like this. It would seem to be so unlikely to end up getting even 2 of the items in a set you might actually want to use. I like the idea of set bonuses, it's just too rare to have it come into your game, it seems to me.

I played around a bit with the mod editor and found this to be quite cool. It seemed easier to use than Neverwinter Nights tools, but it might just appeal to me. They did crash frequently though - seems like you have to be careful what you do with it. There isn't much in the way of documentation, but I saw they released some videos showing how to do it which should help. I hope to see some cool new mods for it soon.

Posted by Scottsh on Wednesday August 16, 2006 at 11:26 PM