Loki

Aside from the mythical settings, pretty visuals and mostly throwaway story, Loki plays out much like a standard action-RPG. That's to say, you see an enemy, click on it repeatedly till it dies and rinse and repeat until your fingers are worn down to bloody stumps. The skill trees are governed by which of three (character-specific) gods your hero or heroine is currently worshipping. This system provides you with a decent selection of spells and abilities to choose from - the Aztec's jaguar transformation and spirit-walking being of particular note - with good opportunities for customization. There are notably fewer drops than in most games of this ilk, which thankfully means fewer return journeys to town, and there are some other additions too, which, though helpful, don't really break any new ground.

Where Loki should do well is in the online market. With Cyanide putting a lot of effort into this side of things, you can take part in full six-player co-op in the main game, one-on-one and party duels, and challenges where up to six players can take on some of the game's tougher monsters. A full online ranking system and online storage of multiplayer characters are also provided, hopefully deterring some cheaters.

Thanks to its genre and settings, the comparisons with Titan Quest are pretty much inevitable. Although the graphics here aren't quite on a par with TQ's stunning visuals, Loki does score over its rival by offering an adjustable camera, with full pan and zoom. But whereas TQ feels beautifully polished all over, as though a team of dedicated testers has spent years buffing up its mythical carapace, Loki can occasionally feel a little bit rougher round the edges. Creatures sometimes get stuck on scenery, exploding chests often don't show the animation but still play the sound effect, walking in some areas of one level makes the water become static, frame rates suffer a drop in busy areas and we even suffered the odd crash to desktop, too.