Like Diablo 2 and Dungeon Siege but with better graphics.
Unlike Diablo 2, which only supported 640x480 resolution when it was released (though support for 800x600 was added with the expansion), and unlike Dungeon Siege, which only supported resolutions up to 1024x768, and DS 2, which maxed out at 1280x1024, Titan Quest seems to support just about every resolution out there, including widescreen. To be honest, however, I've only played it at 2304x1440 and 1920x1200. I have a high-end system with dual GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB cards in SLI, 4GB RAM, and an Athlon64 FX-57 CPU. The game is just playable at 2304x1440, but runs noticeably smoother at 1920x1200. I have found, however, that after many hours of playing, the performance can degrade, and I have to reboot my system to get smooth framerates again. This may be a driver issue.
Unfortunately, Titan Quest's UI is not scalable, so at 2304x1440 the mouse pointer and interface elements are kind of small, and they are still small, but more useable, at 1920x1200. Since the interface is almost entirely mouse-driven (although there are several hotkeys that you will find useful), a scalable UI with the option of a larger mouse pointer would have been an improvement. I find that I have to run the game with v-sync disabled, because when I enable it, the backgrounds become rather blurry as my character moves about the game world, and you spend the vast majority of Titan Quest moving about.
There is some downtime messing with your inventory, due to the lack of an autoarrange function and the fact that there is a lot of loot to be picked up, most of which you will sell for gold, though sometimes a rare item will be found that can improve your fighting ability. Fortunately the game has a convenient portal system that allows you travel quickly to a merchant who will buy all your excess loot, and sell you some of the often needed healing potions.
One of my biggest disappointments with Titan Quest is the simplistic camera, which can be zoomed in or out (I spend most of the time with it zoomed most of the way out so I can see more of my surroundings) but not revolved or rotated to allow me to see the game's beautiful environments from a different angle. Titan Quest has a 3D graphics engine, similar to Dungeon Siege in that respect, but the camera controls are more like a 2D isometric game, such as Diablo 2. It just doesn't feel right. I would prefer optional camera rotation so that I could explore the game world properly. It would make for a much more immersive experience, and would be helpful in some combat situations as well. Apparently the developers left this option out for performance reasons and to cut back on development time. I personally think the game could have used a six month delay to implement better camera controls (and to let computer hardware catch up with the game's powerful graphics engine). I believe that this would have greatly increased the value of the finished product.
One problem I have had is that the pathfinding could be improved. For instance, my character sometimes gets stuck behind a bush or at the edge a cliff and I have to click or hold the mouse button in just the right spot to get moving again. Another minor complaint is that the game’s physics are slightly exaggerated. In rare instances, when you kill a monster, it will go flying up twenty feet into the air. In one case, when I opened a treasure chest and the loot went flying out, as it always seems to, a shield ended up falling off the bottom of the screen into the ocean, and I was not able to retrieve it.
I could also complain that the game is very linear, a follow-the-yellowbrick road experience, similar to Dungeon Siege. On the other hand, Titan Quest was not meant to be an open-ended adventure like the classic Ultima or Elder Scrolls games, so the linear gameplay works, and is actually quite addictive. It is following the formula of the very successful Diablo 2, afterall.
The sound is good, as far as I can tell. I am running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition with the latest drivers (the May 30, 2006 beta drivers) from Creative for the Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music. I find that there is frequent stuttering and static. However, when the sound does work, the environmental sounds, music, combat sounds, and voice acting are all very good, and all contribute effectively to Titan Quest's mood and Ancient World setting.
I have not had any crashes, and the game seems to be stable, at least on my system. The only bugs I have noticed, apart from my audio difficulties, are very minor.
I can confidently recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed Sacred or Diablo 2, or the Dungeon Siege games, and who also has a fairly powerful computer. Titan Quest's environments are well-crafted and simply beautiful. The gameplay is enjoyable. The game is available in both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM versions. I bought the DVD version because I abhor unnecessary disk-swapping. The version reviewed was 1.01 and I hope that future patches will improve upon the camera controls and other issues with the current version.