When Titan Quest was released last year it proved to be one of the more enjoyable games of its type. The game is a hack-n'-slash RPG that placed you in ancient Greece, Egypt and Asia and charged you with dealing with The Titans that had escaped their eternal prison. I really liked the game and definitely found it one of the best games of its type since Diablo II. It didn't do anything wildly different from the many hack-n'-slash games that had gone before but it was highly addictive and very enjoyable.
Immortal Throne adds an Act IV to the original game, so if you finished off the Titan Typhon, then your finished game is now at the city of Rhodes, where you're told by the ghost of Tiresias to seek out Medea (of Jason and the Argonauts fame). Thus begins your quest to take on Hades, who decided that the Underworld wasn't enough and he wants to run everything up top as well.
The new act is fine but the real appeal of the expansion comes from all the cool things added to the base game. The big one is the new Dream-Mastery skill set which adds an additional nine player classes to the game. For instance, if you're magic-focused, it's got a trance that will increase your energy regeneration rate, some good passive defense, and some killer new attack skills. If you're melee-focused, it gives you a couple of group-attack skills, boosts to physical damage and defense, and the Phantom Strike skill is great for busting up those deadly groups of archers or mages. If you're a ranged character, you can manage crowds much more effectively with stuns and the new Sleep skill, as well as being able to reflect damage back at attackers or damage them when they get up close to you. The Dream master also gains access to a flying eye pet called the Nightmare that can be used in combat and can also boost the effectiveness of your other pets.
Then there are the artifacts. These are the super-weapons of the Titanic world, and demand that you find the various elements required to craft them, including the recipe, before taking them to a enchant-o-matic vendor and getting them created. There are also spell-scrolls on sale from vendors, allowing you conjure up new abilities on the fly, and allowing you to face boss battles a little earlier than you might have otherwise been able to at a certain level. Besides, they're almost necessary for beating some of the new bosses in the Epic and Legendary difficulties.
Inventory management is now much better thanks to being able to auto-sort your inventory and caravan drivers that will look after your items and deliver them to you whenever you need them. The pet AI has been improved making them even more assistants that are useful. Monster AI has been improved too, to make the game a more challenging experience. The game contains plenty of new artifacts, scrolls and items that all help to make the game a richer experience.
The length of the additional campaign content is approximately the same as one of the chapters from the original ~ +10 hours (it depends on side-quests). If you're new to the game or haven't finished the original Titan Quest then you're going to have to play through the original storyline first. In other words, you will need a save game from Titan Quest to start to play Immortal Throne immediately. So, if you've lost your save game, you'll need to start right at the beginning again, something that could have been avoided easily by having a pre-rolled character included to jump straight in to the new area, but for reasons unknown this isn't the case.
Overall, Immortal Throne is a great addition to the original Titan Quest. The new inventory options and the new mastery skill add a lot of fun and convenience to the core game and the additional Hades act really extends the game nicely for players who have already completed the rest of the campaign. I would recommend it to anyone who loved the original!
related links:trailer, cheats, trainer +14, forum.
System Requirements:
Minimum: Windows 2000 or XP, 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent or AMD Athlon XP or equivalent, 512 MB RAM, 64 MB NVIDIA GeForce 3 or equivalent or ATI Radeon 8500 series with Pixel Shader 1.1 support or equivalent, DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card, 5 GB free hard drive space, 8x CD-ROM drive, Keyboard, Mouse
Recommended: 3.0 GHz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent, 1 GB RAM, 128 MB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or ATI Radeon X800 series, Soundblaster XFi sound card
Required for Multiplayer: 1 set of discs per computer, Internet: Cable modem, DSL modem, or better for online multiplayer play, LAN: LAN or broadband WAN