Goomba Editorial, Titan Quest Patch

The Internet's Coverage Of Sony In The Months After E3 - Inaccurate And Overzealous Bandwagoning Or A Legitimate Response To A Company Headed In The Wrong Direction?

by a Goomba

Oh man I'm hungry. I'm so hungry that I'm grumpy and my eyebrows reflect this. I thought I was supposed to photosynthesize, what the hell. I bet I'll find some food if I just walk to the left for a while.

Who's that chubby guy in the overalls? Maybe he knows where... why is he jumpin- OH GOD MY SKULL!

Oh my God I'm disappearing! This is the end!

What is this place? The ground looks a little different and there are unmanned cannons firing all over the place. I should get out of here by walking to the left. I bet I'll find some food there.

No, I bumped into a wall and now I'm walking to my right. Damnit.

Great, here comes that jerk again. Only he looks different somehow.

Hey buddy, thanks for crushing my head before! Real nice! You toss pizzas with those feet?

Did you just throw something at me? What the hell? It's a good thing you can't aim for shit, otherwise I'd come over there and - OH GOD I'M BURNING!

Where am I now? This cave is cold and dark. I bet there'll be an exit to the left.

Titan Quest 1.08

Coming a mere week after the game's retail release, Titan Quest's version 1.08 patch tweaks various gameplay elements and addresses several show-stopping bugs that were rendering the game unplayable for many users.

• Entering caves at night no longer crashes the game and permanently corrupts your character's save file, but exiting does. This encourages players to only enter caves that they have a really good feeling about.


• Fixed a number of inaccuracies pointed out by customers who actually knew something about ancient history and mythology. Romans no longer ride bicycles, Cyclops' hip hop slang has been made much more subtle, and all characters have fully functioning nipples.


• Added a system message which periodically flashes "NOT DIABLO 3" in a needlessly large bold font across the screen


• New enemy type, "Large Trout". Much bigger than a small trout and nearly impossible to defeat without the Nature mastery's "Eat Trout" skill fully maxed out.


• The most requested feature for Titan Quest is a shared character stash, which would allow you to move items you come across between multiple characters without the hassle of joining an online (decentralized and unsecured) game and finding someone you trust to mule for you. We've listened, and as a compromise we've added a new color to dye your character's tunic with.


• Fixed a bug where players could run in the wrong direction at the very beginning of the game and wind up at the final boss


• Drinking more than four health or energy potions within the span of a minute will now stun your character momentarily as he vomits up the contents of his overfilled stomach


• Removed the "Exploding Cigar" epic tier accessory, as it was rendered pretty much useless by the resistances of monsters in the endgame


• Added several hour-long quests in Asia centered around the popular song stylings of Tom Bombadil


• Removed the Shadow detail settings in the option menu since setting them to Medium caused crashes 100% of the time and setting them to High sent an electrical pulse through your mouse to shock your hand


• Summoned creatures no longer bump into talking NPCs and abruptly end important dialogue unless they really have to walk a few feet in a random direction to stave off boredom


• Fixed a physics glitch where hitting a Satyr with a club would simply knock it down, but avoiding it altogether would send the Satyr flying straight up into the stratosphere


• Added Titans


• Ion Frigates are now only available once you have invested a point in the first tier of the Hyperspace Drive skill


• Removed quests


• Equipping the entire Fancy Pants item set now adds a 2x bonus modifier to the Wrinkle Free aura


• Giving the player a choice between a basic male or female character model provided far too much customization. All characters will now default to a unisex model with a breast on one side of its chest and a mustache on the other.


• Fixed an error where completely worthless grey-tagged loot items would drop from enemies and chests, taking up valuable memory and decreasing the game's performance. They now spring up from the ground you walk on as well.


• Made skill descriptions even more vague, leaving players to have fun discovering the exact effects of every ability and the math behind them


• Added a hoverbike quest to the Battling Toads cave in Legendary difficulty


• Changed skeleton death animations so they no longer produce top hats from thin air, tip said hats with theatrical bravado and dance sideways off the screen while shouting "Exit stage right!" in falsetto voices

Terra Wars: NY Invasion
All those in favor of generic lizard men and texture art circa 1998, please vote by dancing in a rust factory's Chair Room.

2/10

Prey
I haven't had this much fun with portals and gravity since GravPortalCon '05, and I haven't had this much fun with a shooter since the last mediocre shooter I played. 7/10

Glory Of The Roman Empire
Rome wasn't built in a day, but apparently the whole empire was built in 30 simplistic missions that presented no difficulty and left the planner feeling thoroughly underwhelmed. 6/10

Chromehounds
Finally, a mech game for people who hate substantial single player campaigns and love spending more time screaming at squadmates than screaming at their own families. 7/10

Lord Of The Rings: The Battle For Middle-Earth II
An RTS that actually works reasonably well using a gamepad, making it official that the only PC genre which can't be done more profitably on a console is now "Illegally downloaded hentai game that actually turns out to be a virus". 8/10

Frogger
How can you possibly refuse to buy the arcade classic Frogger in HD (with the game itself occupying a tiny space in the center of the screen) for only $5 if you've got a gun to your head and the man holding it will kill you and your family if you don't buy the game? 6/10

– Dennis "Corin Tucker's Stalker" Farrell (@DennisFarrell)