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First 15 : Titan Quest - PC

by Nick Haywood on 29 June 2006, 11:56

Tags: Titan Quest: Gold Edition (PC), THQ (NASDAQ:THQI), RPG

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaf5p

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Hack up Medusa...



In the first 15 minutes, Titan Quest really pulls you in, with a start similar to Dungeon Siege and then gradually building up to some huge battles… This is great stuff... superb. The visuals and sound seem to give a feeling of the ancient world, not that I know what that was like, but it feels right. Everything an NPC says to you is actually spoken as well as having subtitles and, surprisingly for this genre, the voice acting is very good.

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There is a downside to all this positive stuff though in that I’ve noticed a few minor bugs even in the short time I played before writing this. I’d like to stress that these are minor bugs and don’t hit the gameplay (with one exception). Occasionally the character screen becomes transparent and you can’t see the grid the items you are carrying are on. This makes it tricky to drop an item into your inventory…so you have to close the screen and re-open it to get the grid back.

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Secondly, I have noticed that for some bizarre reason the game can slowdown quite badly even on low detail and resolutions. Whilst the game is in slowdown if you open the inventory screen or the quest screen the text is corrupted and you can’t make it out at all. We’ve had a good look as to why this should happen and so far, despite checking all the drivers are up to date, which they are, and making sure we’ve got the minimum running in the background, we can’t figure out why the game would slow down. Thankfully, these slowdowns don’t happen that often and the rest of the game is such fun that, for the purposes of this quick look, they can be overlooked. Once we do the full review we’ll bring you more on this.

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So what do you get in the First 15 of Titan Quest?

Well, you get an easy to generate character that the game let’s you try out first before deciding on a skill route and class, which is unusual for games of this type and very welcome. You get some cracking gameplay in an immersive world full of monsters and heroes. You get Diablo 2 style gaming with a Dungeon Siege twist and a sprinkling of Oblivion and Guild Wars tweaks… In short, it’s clear that rather than just bang out another RPG/Strategy game, developers Iron Lore Entertainment have focused on giving the gamer an experience that accessible, playable and enjoyable right from the off… Anyway, I’m off to go and give Medusa a haircut.

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HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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Posted by Ferral - Thu 29 Jun 2006 12:39
I like Titan Quest a lot.

Havn't been hooked on an old school action rpg in a good while now. I got hooked on Guild Wars till completion. Currently I have been playing Oblivion and Guild Wars : Factions in short bursts and before that it is going back to Dungeon Siege (didn't like the 2nd one at all) and the classics in all sense of the word Diablo 1 & 2 and the excellent Lord of Destruction expansion.

Titan Quest is simply awesome from what I have seen of it so far.
Posted by slugs - Tue 04 Jul 2006 14:11
got bored with oblivion now. needed something else to take up some of my time. going off to purchase a copy
Posted by Lee H - Tue 04 Jul 2006 14:16
I cannot wait to play this, I bet the multiplayer is fun as well on a LAN :)
Posted by Lee H - Thu 06 Jul 2006 14:52
Well… I've played this for more than 15 minutes and I have to say it's possibly one of the best games I've played for a while.

It's not unique - Hell the whole hack'n'Slash RPG has been done more times that Debby was done in Dallas, but it's the style and genre of the game that works extremely well.

Awesome game - I can't wait to play it on a LAN with 4-5 mates now :)