14 DAY TRIAL // 
While I was trying to find an approach to this review I got this wild idea and please bear with me: what if I present this with just a little professionalism and not make any references to Diablo and Dungeon Siege? I find this method and comparison trend to be completely unprofessional. What if we take a game just for what it is? I'm sure that Iron Lore, when deciding what project to do next, didn't reach the conclusion of making a Diablo clone. I think they just wanted to take what was already well implemented in all the hack and slash games and put it in theirs. It's like considering all the FPS' from Doom to this day as being clones of the same game just because they share the same playing perspective (and this even happened a lot for some years after Doom's release).
You will argue that there is more than just the playing perspective; the inventory, the way items are marked and the spell system. We'll probably find even more if we put our minds to it and maybe somewhere, hidden very deep in the game, in an undiscovered cave we'll find a resemblance with Halo (this is one of my comparison nemesis). I'm not going crazy but I'm trying to make a point: it's stupid to compare a new game with something you might have liked in the past.
Story And now it's time for some history or in this case Greek mythology: it all began with Uranus and Gaia (mother Earth). He gave her twelve children (among other), the titans, but he hated what they were: one hundred arms giants, hecatonchires, and one eyed giants, the Cyclops. He imprisoned them in the bowels of the earth, later know as Tartarus, and they caused their mother a lot of pain. She sent Cronus to castrate (don't ask) and overthrown Uranus which he did. He was later overthrown by Zeus, one of his sons with Rhea. After a long war called Titanomachy (War of the Titans), Zeus imprisons the Titans back in Tartarus, from where they escape in the intro movie from "Titan Quest".
This is a very smart move from the producers to use something that is already well sunk into the general knowledge of our collective. They don't have to get the player familiarized with the subject and to make a story believable. No new characters, demon, hordes of the orcs and stupid fantasies worlds where the clash of good and evil is made by someone with the coolest ebony armor. I have to say they did a pretty good job of representing the ancient world and it's by far the most credible environment in this genre.
After escaping from prison, probably with the help of a third party malevolent persona, the titans - keep in mind that they are the forebears of the Olympian gods - unleash their power on the first flimsy creatures they encounter, the human race. Unfortunately, being in prison, they are out of the informational loop, so they are unaware that somewhere a mighty hero will rise from the humans and throw them right back in.
The part where the Titans escape is not in the Greek mythology and is just a premise for the game so Iron Lore decided to employ a great writer, Randall Wallace, who did some work on Pearl Harbor, We Were Soldiers and Braveheart. I have to say I was a little disappointed because the script in this case is not that bright. There aren't any dialogs to talk about, just different individuals giving you quests. On the other hand the job of a writer is not just to write dialogs, he has to imagine the entire plot and to figure out how it can it be implemented in the actual game. The story isn't half as bad and I think that it couldn't had been done any better giving that the game doesn't have any cinematic content except the intro and not even something made by the game's engine. It's hard to tell a story just with the gameplay and some random dialogs, but he has acquitted very well for this task.
Concept This is the part where I could compare him with any other genre related game but as I said before I will not. Most of you are well acquainted with the concept of hack and slash even if you don't play them or even like them. Running around killing trillions of monsters, gathering items and advancing on different paths as wizards, fighters, summoners or any other class combination is not exactly brain surgery and is quite addictive as I painfully discovered for several nights at 4 AM.
Gameplay
I feel I should have warned you that I'm not a fan or a vicious player of this sort of games and I even have some issues with Blizzard but I'll not get into that right now. Nevertheless I have enjoyed this game more than any other in its category and I think we can even set him up as a retroactive example. As usual, at the beginning of the game, the player has the option of choosing the sex of the character and the color of its tunic. It's not much and is considerably less than most player expect, but in this case choosing wrinkles and eye color is irrelevant because the game is viewed from an isometric perspective most of the time an most probably at the highest zoomed option possible. Even if the game is using this kind of view it doesn't mean it's not 3D. It is, just that the camera is stuck on a single axis. This measure has two possible explanations, even complementary ones. By allowing the player to get a full 3D perspective the power hog on the system would have been tremendous because it's already crying for a patch to better optimize the game. The second reason is the line of sight which could increase too much if the player can place the camera behind the player. Anyway, the camera is just fine the way it is and I had no problem adjusting to it. Just in like any other self respecting game, the main character starts his journey in just his underwear and with a knife in one hand; no sword, shield and even a helmet for protection. I'm going on a riot not to kill some gods. The progression is common and holds no major surprises.
Every mastery has 20 abilities so you can imagine the applications. I guarantee that it will take a very long time to test all the combinations and it will ensure a replay value that goes through the roof. At the second level the player has to choose from eight different masteries which I'm going to describe:
Warfare: It's exactly what is says and it holds pretty much what someone would expect; better handling of weapons, more damage, warcry, dual wield etc.
Storm: No secrets here either; lightning damage, storms, ice shards and some extremely useful passive abilities that I found to be completely necessary.
Nature: It's most useful because it's about group healing and can summon multiple heroes to the battlefield.
Spirit: This is the equivalent of a necromancer class: life-leech, panic inducing spells and passive abilities that can be transmitted to party characters.
Earth: This is mostly based on dealing with the possible amount of damage using the elements of earth and you can even summon a very powerful elemental.
Defender: This is more about shielding and it has one of the neatest ability called the colossus, which can enhance the size of the player so he can fit in a battle with a Cyclop for example.
Hunting: It greatly enhances the bow and spear's handling and damage.
Rogue: This is more of an after ability because it adds poison and bleeds damage to weapons and I think is the best suited to work with the warfare mastery.
Advancing in the game is made in the old fashioned way, by experience points that can be received in battle and solving the main and secondary quests. At every level, the player gets three points to distribute at his masteries either by advancing a skill or the mastery itself. Anyway it would be almost impossible to get them all the way up just from the first game. After the first time you finish the game you can get to play it again, on a harder level setting, with the old character, improving him even further. Furthermore, some towns have so called mystics that for a price (where did I hear that before) can help you redistribute points that you may need in other abilities. Not a new feature for a game but certainly one of the most useful ones.
I almost forgot that not only the masteries can be upgraded but also Health, Energy, Strength, Intelligence and Dexterity. I'm pretty sure these ones don't need any description.
I would like to use the word cool again but I feel that I can do better in explaining the drop system used in Titan Quest. For the first time ever, what you see is what you get so if the enemy caries a sword and shield, after he dies you get exactly that (and occasionally some money). The system is beautifully optimized and the random factor is at its peak. This realism extends to other aspects as well like animals that can give you only experiences because last I checked boars and crows don't carry any pocket money so don't expect to get any rare artifact from the stupid cow level (I would like to apologize to the Diablo fans but I just couldn't help myself).
What I don't like in Titan quest is the lack of a location to place all the unique and rare magical items like a box in a city or even like a hideout cave; I also miss a rearranging system for the inventory because moving 30 items is not my idea of good puzzle. I don't think it lacks any major qualities that can't be fixed through a patch and the sum is greater than the parts.
Video
Simply put- the game is beautiful. Is by far the most handsome - I'm not sure I should use this word - engine that powers up a hack and slash game. Even if it's a little unstable and always hungry for more resources than the middle computer owners can provide, it's still a sight for soar eyes. I don't think the graphics is mind blowing but it covers perfectly the story and it actually feels like Greece, Babylon, Egypt and China.
Adding to the huge replay value is the Level Editor the game brings. It's really easy to use and it will ensure a happy and long life if the producers decide to maintain constant eye on the community and provide us with patches.
Sound
As I said before, the sounds are great and the small stories and myths some NPC's tell are very well crafted and placed throughout the story. Unfortunately, Iron Lore didn't had much of a beta testing because many players complain about problems with speeches and music stuttering. I certainly hope this is fixable because it's not something I would want to remember about Titan Quest.
Multiplayer
This part has aroused many controversies because the developers didn't choose to insert an internet multiplayer capability. The game can only be played in cooperative, which is not bad at all, and a limited PvP game. This can be also fixed in the future but I hope that they can do better than just implement through a patch, because this is a much too important feature to cover like that. I would prefer an entire add-on based on the multiplayer principle.
Conclusion
The game can be a winner if the producers choose to further support the title. Titan Quest came just at the right time to fill a giant hole that is getting deeper and deeper with the non-sense of Diablo. I loved it and I'm going to play it for a long time waiting to hear of a sequel branded Iron Lore.
