Before starting this game, I was certain I was going to zoom through it in just a couple of days. It seemed like exactly the sort of game I can play for hours on end without complaint. And nothing I've seen in my first five hours has disabused me of that notion. Unfortunately, real life events have limited my available game playing time to less than 3 hours a day (a tragedy, I know).
But given the small and sporadic time I've had with this game, I'd say my first impressions are favorable. Its plot is probably the shallowest possible interpretation of Greek mythology and history, but that's more than forgivable. Any excuse to bash satyrs and centaurs and maenads is fine by me, though the stretch where I had to tackle zombies felt more like generic arpg fantasy than anything specific to the setting.
Titan Quest's biggest flaw is probably its loot system. The basic Diablo-esque idea of randomized loot drops of varying rarity is strong. It makes every enemy into some kind of beautiful death pinata. Unfortunately, the gambling-like thrill is somewhat mitigated when all the prizes are blandly interchangeable and so weak statistically that they aren't even worth the inventory space to sell . I'm at level 9 and I'm still picking up level 3 equipment. It's a huge letdown.
I do like the class system, though. It's not spectacular, but it does a very specific thing that always makes me smile. You have two "masteries" (broad categories of skill like "warrior" or "storm") and each of the 36 possible combinations has its own distinct class name - like Conqueror = Warrior + Defense or Elementalist = Storm + Earth. It doesn't add a lot to any particular playthrough, because you only get two masteries and you can't change them, but I enjoy the knowledge that there's a broader possibility space. And I find the interlocking nature of the masteries to be very satisfying.
From here on out, it's just more hacking and slashing for me. I'm looking forward to it, but I can only hope that I have the time to really get into it.
No comments:
Post a Comment