The Video Game Revue

Sam & Max, Titan Quest, Spellforce 2

Steam has been having great deals on games lately. These past three weekends I've picked up Sam & Max Season 1 for $12, Titan Quest Gold (that's with the expansion pack, The Immortal Throne) for $10, and Spellforce 2 with expansion pack (Dragon Storm) for $15. Each of these has been worth the money.

Sam & Max is a quest game in the style of the LucasArts SCUMM engine classics (the one that I'm most familiar with is Full Throttle), which is not surprising given that Telltale Games was started by some of the same people that worked on those old LucasArts games. It also plays out a lot like a graphic novel--which happens to be what the original Sam & Max is. Go figure.

I've only played through about the first episode and a half of Sax & Max. The highlight so far has been the writing; the grand achievement of which has been getting me to laugh aloud, which games these days have rarely been able to do. The low point of Sam & Max has been that there's not as much of an exploration element to it as I'd like.

Each of the first two chapters is short (takes only a few hours to beat) and takes place within a relatively small geographical area. What I've found is that there's a lot of walking back and forth within that area which makes the game feel tedious at times. This effect is compounded sometimes when the solution to various situations is both obvious and requires backtracking to a prior location, thereby creating the effect of a dull errand.

That having been said, Sam & Max is excellent, and a bargain at any price under $20. On top of that, it's nice to see that the quest game genre hasn't fallen completely by the wayside. Sam & Max is a must-try for players who have never had the opportunity to play classic LucasArts or Sierra quest adventure games from the 90s.

Titan Quest is, basically, a Diablo II clone set in ancient Greece. As such it has addictive, fast-paced gameplay, and powerful multiplayer potential. On top of that, the game has good visual appeal and a decent atmosphere. I was really excited to get this for only $10.

After playing about 11 hours of TQ, I've found that the game is--unfortunately--flawed. I progressed through single player with a Conquerer class character (Warfare and Defense masteries) to level 9, and then through 2-player co-op play over the internet with a Ranger class character (Nature and Hunting masteries) to level 11. I'm not finished with the game yet, and may end up playing it for a long time to come, but there are definitely things that grate on me.

Like Diablo II, TQ just isn't as much fun single player. It's a good experience, but you can practically taste the great experience just around the corner if you could get somebody to play with you. That's why I twisted Matt's arm into it, and he was happy to oblige. Together we've had a great time playing the game, and it was easily worth the investment of both time and money. The single player experience just can't compete.

The flawed part of the game is simply that there's not enough polish put into it. Multiplayer play sometimes lags, and it gets frustrating during the heat of battle. Looting items is unnecessarily painful, as quite often items are stacked over each other on the ground and you have to hunt for the right pixels to click in order to get what you want. Targeting spells and abilities could be a lot easier and more responsive. The framerate is sometimes noticeably bad, and one time Matt and I had multiplayer connection issues that were fixed by restarting the game. All of these are flaws that are made glaring by the ever-present World of Warcraft, and all of them are things that could have been addressed with more technical production resources put into the game.

On the up-side, there's a massive amount of content in Titan Quest (not when compared to WoW, but still). There are thirty-six distinct classes defined by choosing among the game's eight masteries, and another nine classes are added by the Immortal Throne expansion pack by introducing one additional mastery. Each mastery has its own skill tree (the equivalent of WoW's talent tree), the gear system is classic Diablo II style, and the game world is nice and large. The only thing I'd like to see is if the world was less linear in layout and allowed for more open-ended exploration (that reminds me, I picked up a bargain bin copy of Dungeon Siege long ago and never did play very much of it; I wonder how it stacks up).

I also have to wonder what kind of balance issues are lurking within the character leveling system, but that may end up being part of the game's appeal for many players. In fact, playing Titan Quest reminded me of just how polished and somehow "tame" World of Warcraft ends up feeling. You never really get into a situation in WoW where a boss fight, a loot drop, or some such event is ridiculously unbalanced; everything has been fine tuned. TQ seems to retain a bit more of a wild edge to it, which is refreshing.

The end result is that TQ is a really good game that could have been a great game except that it feels somewhat cheap. I've had excellent fun playing it and I do recommend it, but if you're a Blizzard fan you will notice the difference in quality. On the plus side, Titan Quest may help to sharpen your appetite for the looming release of Diablo III.

And then there's Spellforce 2, which is as much a Warcraft 3 clone as Titan Quest is a Diablo II clone. I was actually surprised to find out just how much of an RTS game Spellforce 2 plays like, given that what little I'd read about it described it only as an RPG. It certainly emphasizes RPG elements--in much the same way that the WC3 expansion, The Frozen Throne, plays like an RPG.

I've only played a couple of hours of Spellforce 2, and I'm happy with it but I'm already questioning whether or not it can hold my attention. It's very polished, the writing is surprisingly decent, and as an RTS-RPG hybrid it has managed to raise my curiosity. But it requires more than solid execution for a game to sink its hooks into me.

One issue with Spellforce 2 so far is that the game has been too easy (I'm playing on "Normal" difficulty) and the levels have been extremely linear. Titan Quest captured my imagination because within minutes of playing it I'd already gotten in over my head and died--that's part of the "wild" aspect about it that appeals to me. I hope that Spellforce 2 manages to incorporate that somewhere, but so far I haven't seen it.

Another thing about Spellforce 2 is that the character leveling system seems to be dumbed-down. This is in keeping with the game as an RTS style game rather than a true RPG. There are many levels to play and areas to explore, but they have the feel of Warcraft 3 style maps rather than a proper RPG world. I find all of this disappointing because I bought the game hoping for an RPG rather than an RTS, but when I'm in more of a RTS mood I may not find these things to be such a problem.

I'm already starting to wonder if Steam will manage to keep the ball rolling next weekend. Will there be yet another $10-$15 deal up for grabs that's just too good for me to pass up, or will I be able to content myself for now with what I've got? If there's a lack of tempting budget gaming available, I may hunker down with something a bit pricier, like Fallout 3 or The Witcher.

posted by Parappa @ 3:00 PM