The Double-A Team: Titan Quest is a lovely sunny holiday with a bit of swordplay thrown in

A few days back I realised that, even after all these years of clicking away, I didn't really know what Titan Quest is about. I mean I know what it's about - it's about murdering stuff, Diablo-style in Ancient Greece or whatever. But I didn't know who I was really murdering, or for what reasons. All these years and I've never watched the opening cinematic, and never really listened to a full sentence of in-game dialogue. That's ARPGs right? "Oh hero could you--" "Master, we have been waylai--" "Brigands have--" Gotcha. Gotcha. Quest, I gather? Murdering time.

The thing is, the setting, even if I have steadily ignored the finer details, is still one of the main strengths here. When I think of Diablo I think of dark depths with nasty things moving around. When I think of Titan Quest I think of blinding sun glinting off polished gold armour, of implausibly balmy days and beautiful seas. Ancient Greece is a nice place to be regardless of what horrors are threatening the place. Titan Quest is at its best as a summer holiday romp. It's one of the outdoorsiest games ever.

And I don't know if you've read the Iliad, but, as I remember it, it's finely-detailed, sinuous descriptions of a lot of people getting hacked to pieces. Intro Pylon - or whoever, in fact maybe it's not Pylon, it has been a while - then he's out onto the battlefield and someone's had his head off while death swirls down in darkness from above. The Iliad, right, is like reading about a lot of people who were hit full-force by billowing bedsheets on a windy day. This is not a criticism. Homer's a keeper. All I'm saying is that Titan Quest, whatever its story, is pretty faithful to the source material in terms of what you actually get up to.

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