Gameplay and items
Of course, this being an action orientated RPG, you’re going to get in lots of scraps and this e is where Titan Quest feels most like the Diablo series. All you have to do is click on an enemy and hold down the attack button to keep on swinging away with your chosen weapon. Iron Lore have gone to great length to make the death animations realistic, with slain creatures dropping to the floor in a variety of ways making it feel like there’s more behind the game engine than just an animated death sequence. If you manage to score a critical hit on a baddie, you’ll send the creature flying through the air to crash down in a heap or, if you’re lucky, you might even send them into a nearby tree for a really satisfying, bone-crunching demise.
Click for larger imageThese little touches really make you feel like your character’s attacks are getting stronger as you progress through the world, more and more often you’ll see the weedier creatures getting lifted off the ground by your attacks, though I’ve yet to see a Cyclops take a proper tumble. On the downside, some of the magical attacks can be a little frustrating to use and whilst you’re struggling to get the magic going you can get pummelled. When you select a magical attack that you’ve equipped in the quick access slots, a crosshair pops up for you to aim with. This proves tricky to use when the pressure is and even more difficult is you’ve got a laod of giant spiders chasing after you. With a bit of practise you do get the hang of it and I suppose it a way of making magic trickier to use… still, I reckon you can’t beat a decent bow or dirty great sword for sorting out a spider problem, so maybe it’s just me.
Click for larger imageThe actual game interface is fairly standard stuff and regular RPG players will soon be right at home. Pretty much everything you need is onscreen in one form or another, all the usual stuff like the map, quick slots and shortcut buttons linking to menus and quests are there within easy reach. Obviously Iron Lore have looked at the current crop of RPGs and decided to not try and fix what isn’t broken so you’ve got an efficient, uncluttered screen giving you a decent sized playing area whilst allowing easy access to the various essential screens.
The inventory is system is very much the same Diablo or Dungeon Siege with a grid for your items with different sized items taking up varying amounts of space. You start off being quite limited in space but once you’ve levelled up enough you’ll get an extra bag for carrying your gear in. Once you hit Egypt, you get another bag too. Unfortunately there’s no banking system to store items in chest in nearby towns and retrieve them later so you’ll often find yourself selling items that you think might be handy when you’re a few levels higher.
Click for larger imageThankfully, if you visit the same merchant you can see what you’ve sold to them in the past and buy your items back for the price you sold them for, which is cool. And if you’re thinking that trekking all the way back to a low level area sounds like too much hard work each town and city has a portal that you can hop out of from wherever you are, providing you activated that portal when you were in town last.
As you’d expect from an action RPG there’s huge variety of armour, weapons and items up for grabs, either from vendors, drops from dead beasties or as rewards for completing quests. For the fighters there’s a vast array of axes, swords shields and armour and ranger types are well served with bows, staffs and other foresty type goodies. The beardy mages can find a goodly selection of wands and everyone can get their mitts on magically enhanced items. A lot of this stuff is found in the merchants shops though quite often you’ll need a fair bit of cash and the experience level to use the better items.
Click for larger imageSome of the best equipment is dropped by monster you slay and with the colour coding system, you get some decent yellow named items. The ones to really look out for are the green items and the orange shards. Green named weapons and armour are worth hanging onto, even if they’re above you level as these have excellent attributes. But, and probably because, they’re so good, they’re also pretty rare. The orange shards work in the same way as the gem stones in Diablo; you can add them to your armour and weapons to gain extra attributes or you can keep them to try and create a full ‘emblem’. Getting a full emblem will give you a completed artefact bonus making it worthwhile to try and get all of the pieces.