Titan Quest

I currently find myself dabbling with Titan Quest, a nice-looking Diablo clone released a few years ago by Iron Lore Entertainment (a now-defunct developer, sad to say). My journey to this game is not typical of others. There's no stories of playing countless hours in Diablo II multiplayer for that one rare drop. Actually, there's almost no Diablo II involved in this story at all. Having spent a fair amount of time playing the original Diablo on the PSOne, but not following the franchise further, I did purchase the Diablo II battlechest and loaded it onto my PC. Unfortunately, every time I've tried to sit down and play through it, the low-res graphics just look muddy on my newer monitor and cause me to not want to play it, even though the underlying concepts, mechanics and (most important of all) loot-whoring are all there. With that being said, the game still sits on my hard drive, and there's a faint hope that these negative feelings will fade and I will stick with a playthrough, if only to experience what countless others have.

This brings me to Titan Quest. The game was only $5 during a recent Direct2Drive promotion, so it could be fairly characterized as an 'impulse buy' on my part. Having read so many positive reviews and comments about it since it's release in 2006, the expenditure seemed safe and justified. I was immediately struck by the stark contrast between this game's graphics and those of Diablo II. The clear increase in visual fidelity and overall 'lightness' of Titan Quest's setting really won me over, but would the main draw of these games, the loot system, quench my thirst for unabashed loot-whoring?

I'm happy to report that it has, at least so far. I'm currently near the beginning of Act VII, somewhere around 10-12 hours in. My conqueror (warfare/defense masteries) has served me well up to this point, and the plot and setting keep me coming back. The endless mouse clicking to kill enemies, mixed in with some hot key presses on occasion, can get repetitive at times, but it's the loot gathering that steals the show here. Clearly the game is meant for multiple playthroughs and extensive multiplayer sessions, as the truly rare items drop infrequently enough to realize that accumulating a full set of one of the named rare armors would take significant time. The only fear I have for this game is that it will get lost in the shuffle of the two new releases I've been waiting all year for, Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins. Those and the fact that my wife is going to give birth in a month to our third child. :)

Until then, though, I will most likely be found in the basement, clicking away on my mouse, hunting for the next rare drop. Or until the wife needs me to drive her to the hospital...