Titan Quest: Immortal Throne

8.0
Good

Gameplay	8.0	"Good, but doesn't stray far from the formula"
Graphics	8.5
Sound	9.0
Value	7.0

By Alan Bell

Titan Quest, released in June 2006, was welcomed with open arms by fans of the action RPG genre. Sure, it didn't stray too far from the formula defined by Blizzard's Diablo II - but if you're going to create a game in the image of another, you could pick far worse titles to work from. The original Titan Quest featured three "acts" (or major sections of the game) and the Immortal Throne adds another act to the epic tale. You require a copy of the original Titan Quest to play (there's a bundle available for new players) and you'll need to complete the first three acts before you can get stuck into the new one.

The game, like the genre, is 70% action and 30% RPG. That is to say there's story and there's levelling, but it's not terribly complex, and the focus is on rapid progression. Taking control of your character (you may choose male or female, as well as the colour of their robes - everything from then on is determined by choices you make as you play), you traverse the environment from an isometric third person perspective, clicking where you want to go or on enemies you'd like to attack.

In addition to increasing your level, levelling up gives you new options in your skills and abilities. It is through these choices that you define what kind of character you will ultimately become. Ranged? Melee-focussed? All about controlling pets? This is where Titan Quest diverts from the familiar class model - instead of picking your class at the start, you make a series of selections and sub selections as you play through the game that define what sort of character you become.

In addition to the top level selections featured in the original Titan Quest, players can now choose to specialize in Dream Mastery, allowing the player to "manipulate the power of dreams". In practice, this new set of skills allows players to summon nightmarish allies, put enemies to sleep and do large damage to creatures within a certain area of effect. There are some seriously cool abilities in this tree, including the Phantom Strike which, much like the x-men character Nightcrawler, results in the player popping out of reality only to reappear on the target enemy at which point they do massive damage to the targeted foe. It's seriously cool.

There are many new items to discover, of course, but in addition to expanded itemization for known types of items (weapons, armour, etc), Immortal Throne adds several new concepts to extend your fascination for loot. A new Artifact slot has been added to your character, which can be fitted with a variety of artifacts that you yourself create from various items you find or buy from vendors. In addition, many items have sockets on them, allowing you to enhance those items with enchantments such as relics you find on your journey. You can even get these relics removed, too, either to use the relic in another item or to put a better relic in your existing item. No need to keep that relic in your inventory and walk around with unsocketed items, hoping to find a better item to use your relic with.

The inventory system, alas, hasn't changed as much as we would have liked. While you no longer automatically loot items (hold down "Alt", like Diablo II, to see what lies on the ground for you to pick up), your inventory is also not automatically arranged for you. You can still get that annoying "I don't have room for that" message when there is technically space in your bags, so you have to stop and move things around to make space for the new item. It was annoying in Diablo II in 2000, and it's no less annoying seven years later. All other action RPG games have fixed this particular issue by various means; there's no reason for it to still exist in Titan Quest - let alone in the expansion.

The new areas are vividly coloured, with imaginative enemies and environments that the non-randomized engine handles so well. Multiple-level areas abound, with considerable detail throughout and, whilst definitely different and new, they still fit within the Titan Quest universe fans have come to love.

Graphically the title is a joy to behold, with lush environments and cool effects (score a critical hit, for example, and your foe flies away to crash into a nearby wall, thanks to the inbuilt physics engine) that really help to bring the world to life. It's a bit hard on your computer, however - so make sure your rig exceeds the minimum specifications on the box. If it's close to the minimum you're going to have a seriously sketchy time extracting good performance out of it. The only real downer in the visual department is the seriously odd animation of your character: he runs like... well, like he found an inventive place to stash all those weapons he's been collecting along the way. Or he spent too much time on a donkey. It's very odd.

The audio stuff is top notch. A grand score, satisfying clangs and wooshes as you dispatch your various foes, and a cornucopia of atmospheric background noise really help bring out the epic feel that a game of this ilk strives for. It's rare to see a game really nail the audio so admirably. You can tell some serious effort was put in here.

Should you buy it? If you're a fan of the original and are looking for more, the answer is a resounding yes. You'll like the new stuff and you'll like the way the new stuff spices up even the old stuff. If you're not really into this kind of game, however, Immortal Throne won't sway you. It's not particularly innovative, and doesn't really bring much that we haven't seen elsewhere. However, it is what it is, and it does what it does particularly well.

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