Still looking for something to do until Diablo III hits, and you’re done with Torchlight? Iron Lore Entertainment’s Titan Quest is here to bring you some mythological era looting and level grinding. After deciding the name and gender of your character, you arrive on the shores of the village of Helios, you find that the city is besieged by monsters. You are then recruited by the order of Prometheus to help bring order back to the world. Your quest takes you from Greece to Egypt and the Orient. The base game contains three acts, and the Immortal Throne expansion, which is included on this edition, contains an additional act, so the game takes around 40 hours to complete. You’ll encounter several types of mythological monsters, and you’ll even face bosses. Unlike Diablo, the environments aren’t randomly generated, but the custom crafted backdrops are visually pleasing. You can customize your character’s class and abilities, and you can join up to 5 other player on either local area network or online multiplayer. You can even create custom quests with the game’s editing tools. Like Age of Mythology and God of War, Titan Quest shows players shows how cool Greek mythology can be and how well it translates into video games. Not only that, it’s another fun way to get your dungeon-crawling fix until Diablo III hits.

Years before Microsoft/Fasa Interactive took a steaming hot leak over the franchise, Beam Software and Data East produced this SNES masterpiece which bought PC-style role-playing game mechanics to the console. Based on the tabletop RPG of the same name, Shadowrun, combines real-time shooting action with RPG customization elements. Shadowrun takes place in the year 2050 on the streets of Seattle. Players take control of Jake Armitage, a Shadowrunner who wakes up in the morgue with amnesia after a near-successful assassination attempt. After giving the workers a good scare by walking out, Jake’s quest is to discover his identity, who wants him dead, and why.
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Forget about Twilight and all these other vampire films that make the creatures of the night look like goth-emo jerks. White-Wolf pen-and-paper role playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade has been doing the modern-day vampire bit for years, better than anyone else. Bloodlines is the second PC game based on the series (the first was Redemption, although Bloodlines isn’t a direct sequel). Despite the bugs and glitches that were present when the game was first released, the pen-and-paper RPG mechanics translate well to PC, and the game offers a number of options to play through it. Besides Half Life 2, this was the one of the first games to make use of Valve’s Source Engine, so the graphics were pretty good for their time.
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Years ago, there was a game known as Gauntlet. Alongside up to 3 other players, you took control of one of four characters and descended through enemy-infested dungeons. You had to work together in order to takeout the monster generators, secure items, and keep each other alive, but of course there were players who shot and destroyed food as well as douchebags who swiped up all the healing and food items. That was one of the best early co-op games, and it helped lay the foundation for co-op gaming as it is today. It’s dungeon crawling also helped to set the stage for future action RPG games such as Secret of Mana and Diablo. Years later, Midway released a modern-day revamp of the game. Although it was given a graphical face-lift, RPG mechanics, and a storyline, it retained all the co-op fun from years earlier.
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Looking for something to do until Diablo III comes out? Torchlight does a good job of taking care of your dungeon crawling fix until Blizzard gets done. Developed by Runic software, a team which includes people who have worked on Fate and Diablo I and II, Torchlight is a simple-to-play yet complex dungeon crawler. Just like Diablo, players take control of one of three character classes, each with upgradable abilities, and explore the mines below the town of Torchlight, battling monsters, gathering items, and completing quests. The town of Torchlight serves as a hub world where players can purchase and sell items along with other stuff. The player also travels with a companion animal whose form can change. The game isn’t graphically intensive, and there is even a graphics setting for netbooks. Players can create their own adventures using Torchlight’s easy-to-use modding tools. Unfortunately there is no multiplayer, but the developer is working on a free-to-play MMORPG set withing Torchlight’s universe. If you’re looking for some good dungeon crawling to take your mind off the fact that Diablo III is a while away, you’d do well to give Torchlight a visit.

Hope you guys had a good laugh for April Fools day. As you guessed by now, those aren’t this week’s real $20 GOTW and Lost Classics. So, for being a good sport, here you go. To make sure there is no hard feelings, I threw in an extra $20GOTW. All three of this week’s features allow players to flex their creative muscles, so click below and read the rest.
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Encore/Black Ops entertainment are no less than geniuses. By tapping into America’s post-9/11 desire to kill Osama Bin Laden and assorted other brown and black people, Fugitive Hunter deserves a special place in every PS2/PS3 owner’s collection. Playing as Jake Seaver, a former Navy Seal turned bounty hunter, you pursue the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives throughout the world. You run through various global hotspots blasting at anything that gets in your way. When you get to the target in question, the game switches to a side by side fighting game in order to take down the criminal ALIVE. That’s right folks, although you’ll blast dozens of his henchmen to pieces, the game teaches humanitarian values and civil rights by having players beat their opponent down with kung fu moves and bring them in alive! No matter who you’re facing, all the bosses seem to know the same style of Kung Fu, even Bin laden!

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Developer EV Interactive (whose staff is made up of people who worked on JetFighter and Decent no less) and publisher Vivendi Universal are no less than genius. Few videogame developers have attempted to tap into the non-wrestling and non-NASCAR demographic as flawlessly as EV has done here. The companies have banded together to give us the first videogame based on professional Lawnmower Racing! And you thought those things were just for yard work! Licensed by the United States Lawnmower Racing Association, players can customize their racer and go mower to mower against legends such as Bobby Cleveland, George Herrin, and Chris “Mr. Mowjangles” Powell in the Sta-Bil circuit, Free mowing, and multiplayer racing modes! The soundtrack features the music of bluegrass legends, The Outlaw Family Band! Forget about Burnout, Midnight Club, Forza, Gran Turismo, Mario Kart, and every other racing game! It’s all about LMRM2k7! This game should be on the Xbox Originals, but shockingly, it isn’t! Click after the jump for hints and tips as well as our exclusive powet interview with Mr. Mojangles himself!
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