I've just about gotten bored of Titan Quest. It wasn't really bad, not in the way that some other games were totally horrible. The real problem with it was that while interesting at first, the novelty quickly wore off, leaving a homogeneous, repetitive grind. Okay, so the other games I play are also repetitive grinds, with little variation other than the style in which the grind is carried out. However, it is this very quality that determines whether or not the game eventually sells for $20 in the stores...
See, even though Titan Quest mirrors Diablo II very closely, it just lacks this feel to it that made the Diablo series fun to play. The first problem is that there's a large lack of impact effects. When you swing your axe at a monster, you want to hear the sound of a blade hitting dull flesh. Titan Quest just doesn't have that. It's the same for when monsters attack you. No sound worth listening to.
Also, music. Good games have lots of music. Good movies are famous for their music. The people at Ironlore must have been on a budget. I can run from Delphi to Athens, killing stuff all the way(a process that takes at least an hour), and I hear maybe a minute and a half of music. It's not even good music, either. The attempts at creating ambiance in this game are so weak that I get more fun out of playing some Weird Al and thinking about how horribly they go together.
The next problem is a gameplay issue. For no reason, your character doesn't respond instantaneously to your mouseclicks. There is always some delay between the commanding mouseclick, and the firing of your bow. This is generally very annoying. I thought that I would get used to this, but I ended up hoarding equipment that decreased the time needed to shoot stuff so that I wouldn't feel the delay. After less than a week of this, I booted up Diablo and marveled at how my Amazon warrior could do stuff without suffering from "real-world acceleration".
They had really better not screw this up in Diablo III. When I click something, I want lightning bolts to fly out and destroy it immediately.
On the upside, I did learn a few things about Greek mythology. For instance, one person I really would not want to be is Actaeon.
Actaeon was a hunter, who, long story short, stumbled upon Artemis bathing in the woods. Artemis, being a goddess, turned Actaeon into a stag out of anger. Actaeon was then killed by his own hunting dogs.
I mean, come on, seriously? You'd think that a god would know better than to bathe in the mortal realm where hunters were likely to come for a drink. She probably set the whole thing up because she was bored and wanted to practice her turning-people-into-animal skills and cruel irony.
Anyway, I'm going to start work soon. I kinda had to lie to my mother about where the stem cells came from. Oh well.
I will make this.
-Joe