Titan Quest is admittedly a clone of Diablo, Blizzard's classic hack and slash role-playing game. It uses the same basic game mechanic of clicking the mouse until your index finger is rubbed raw as you kill wave upon wave of various monsters. Even the inventory system is the same, and yes, you suck down red health potions and blue mana (energy) potions to in order to use spells and special skills. However, just because a game uses the same premise as another doesn't mean it's a write-off. In fact, Titan Quest is a hell of a good time.

There are some significant differences between the game and the one that inspired it. The "class" system is more detailed, for instance. In Diablo you picked a basic profession and off you went. In Titan Quest you select schools of Mastery such as Defense or Hunting. Each character, after reaching a certain level, will have two schools which opens the door for a wide array of character archetypes. There are eight schools in all so the possibilities are numerous. Inside each of these areas is a skill tree, which further adds to the customization of your character. The game forces you to make important choices when you spend your hard earned experience points. Each skill tree has several branches so picking the right skill for you is very important, and also a lot of fun. Thankfully there are mystics located throughout the game that allow you to spend money to unlearn skills if you want to try a different combination.

Spending money isn't a big deal as by the 11th level or so you are literally swimming in cash. Selling loads of magic items to vendors will earn you serious coin as magic items litter the landscape. Money is used to buy items from vendors but you're just as likely to find great items on the battlefield after slaying monsters and opening high level chests. For the first half of the game the vendors are best used as potion sellers and a way to unload your unneeded items. It's only after you reach a higher level that the vendors start to carry more powerful equipment. The loot in the game ranges from common, magical, rare, epic, and legendary. There is a truckload of various magical items in Titan Quest and finding the right sword, bow, spear, or armor is really the game's dangling carrot, and just like Diablo, this works like a charm. Finding that perfect blade is a heck of a lure to keep playing – and you start getting good stuff very early in the game which provides an early dose of accomplishment.

Titan Quest is set in the Classical age. It's the age of Sparta, Greece, the Greek Gods, and terrifying creatures of Classic Mythology. Your travels take you from Greece to Egypt and beyond. As a result you do battle with harpies, Minotaurs, satyrs, and gorgons. In addition, the game throws a lot of typical fantasy creatures at you as well, mainly in the form of the undead. You kill a lot of skeletons in Titan Quest – and bats -- lots, and lots of bats. This is actually one of the game's annoyances – there isn't enough monster variety. Actually, it's not so much a lack of variety as there are a lot of various creature types in the game but it's that some areas are simply too long and you fight a lot of the same monsters in each area. A bit more monster mixing and matching in certain areas would have gone a long way.

So you have a game with an addictive (albeit repetitive) game design, tons of cool loot, a fantastic character design model, and a wonderful setting. What pushes Titan Quest over the top is its art direction, powerful game engine and its utterly addictive multiplayer component.

Titan Quest is simply a beautiful game. The setting of Ancient Greece provides the backdrop but the design team at Iron Lore really manages to bring it to life. The animations are silky smooth, the magical effects crystal clear and the environment feels alive as trees sway, water ripples as you run through it and grass bends as you cut your way through a field. The 3D engine allows for things never dreamed of in Diablo, such as a fully zoomed battle between a Minotaur Lord of your intrepid adventurer – and the more you zoom in the better the monster models look. There is an amazing amount of detail packed into the graphics package and in a game like this, such a feature stands out. There is some slowdown, however. The game tends to pause for a few seconds periodically for no apparent reason. It's not to load new data as it seems to happen at random times and not when traveling to new areas. You'll want a beefy machine and a nice video card to get the most out of the game.

Playing Titan Quest as a solo adventure is certainly fun, but the heart of the game is in multiplayer. Up to six players can join the fray and you can easily swap your single-player character in and out of multiplayer play so you don't have to create a new persona. What's particularly cool about multiplayer is that you aren't forced to stay in the same area. You can host a game and players and enter and leave as they wish, fighting in separate areas if they so choose. Playing on a LAN is a blast (as was the case with Diablo) but if you're going to play over the 'net it's best to have some form of voice-chat enabled as being able to talk with your group is vital, particularly when someone finds a powerful item that another member might be able to use.

Titan Quest is long – playing solo the campaign can take easily up to 40 hours to complete. That's a lot of mouse clicking, and if you're already worn out of this style of action-RPG it's doubtful that Titan Quest will re-kindle the fire simply because at its heart it is still a mouse click fest with better trappings. That said, for the rest of us, Titan Quest is an addictive, beautiful, well-designed game that is easily at the top of its genre. - William Abner