Titan Quest - review so far

This morning I had the chance to sink my teeth into Titan Quest. Think 3D Greek Diablo. I must say I had fun with this one, and It seems like a well polished game from the folks at IRONLORE. Its pretty, the voice acting is good, level layout is creative, combat is interesting and flows really well.

Visually, titan quest is the best looking game of its genre. The details on the characters and monsters are very good. Especially enjoyable is the lighting, from the gloom to the caves to the shadows cast by ruined fortresses. The animations are all nicely done and the levels aren't too repetitive so far. Being able to look over a cliff and see the little monsters you will fight later is kinda cool and shows off the 3D nicely. Another subtle thing about TQ is there is no loading. Don't ask me why, but all games should have that.

In terms of character creation, there is 8 trees. 4 magic, 4 combat. You pick one and then another at level 8 (focusing on just one tree seems beneficial though) The standards are all there: ranger, summoner, rogue, DPS magic guy (warrior is actually divided into offense and defense which I personally like). Each 'mastery' has a set of actives, triggered and passive abilities and there seems to be some cool builds when you mix up different mysteries. The summons are really cool. The flame elemental guy is sick and the Lich is way cool. They definetly carry their weight and seem essential to most casters.

Putting your skills together can be tricky, especially as some fight are very tough. I choose the Spirit tree and built myself around life stealing and my summon. This made fighting undead difficult, as I discovered they had no life to steal... and they mob you and do ridiculous damage. So to minimize my panziness, I picked some anti-undead skills to deal with those bags of bones. Pretty cool, IMO. As for bad guys, you get a wide variety of creature from Greek mythology (plus the standard spiders and demon imp things, this is a D2 knock off after all) and they are mostly easy, though some boss fights require a bit of thinking. gear is as to be expected, but from an early stage you are forced to focus one being a mage or fighter, as the requirements for items are really savage.

I am glad to see that the team decide to try an improve on its foundations, rather than replicate them with new shiny bits. Adding a average DPS for you basic attacks is an excellent idea, as is making the basic attack of a staff magical. I can't think of any gmae ideas that make it inferior to Diablo 2, but it does seem a little old already. The quests have no real drive, and I was progressing because the game gave me one path to follow. Some of the side quests have nice rewards which encourages the player to explore a little.

I have enjoyed this so far, but it isn't completely enthralling. I think if we added a few more dudes to the party the skill diversity could make things pretty interesting.