"If you liked Titan Quest, you’ll love this". That is pretty much all you need to know about this finely-crafted expansion to last year’s Titan Quest, and if one-line reviews are your thing, then you’re done here. But if you want to know more, read on... it’s not just a few extra hours of gameplay, trust me.

Bringing Diablo suitably up to date was an admirable feat, and Titan Quest for the most part was a worthy homage to the classic action RPG gameplay. Immortal Throne adds another 10-15 hours of gameplay, beginning immediately after you defeat Typhon at the end of the original game. A portal opens up which takes you to the gleaming white city of Rhodes, which like many other locations in the game has been devastated by the rampaging demon hordes. From there you eventually end up travelling to Hades, with a stop in the beautiful golden fields of Elysium thrown in for good measure. Of course, there are suitably mythological beasts for you to slay as you go, including my personal favourite the three-headed dog Cerberus, who guards the way across the river Styx. The tone is a little darker, as befits a journey into hell. All in all it’s a pretty good addition to the storyline, and well worth your time.

The other major addition to the game is a new mastery for you to choose, namely Dream mastery. Words - or even screenshots - cannot express how cool the spells and effects from this skillset look during gameplay. My favourite two skills are Distortion Wave, which sends a pulse of wavy black energy towards your enemies, and often throws them high up in the air (plenty of fun to be had here), and Distort Reality, which is a nova-like version of Distortion Wave, spreading out from you in all directions. Even if these did not a single point of damage, they still look cool and throwing satyrs around is always fun. Other notable skills are the three Trances, from which you can select one at any given time to function as a buff, giving you improved regeneration (Convalescence), a damaging aura (Wrath) or a thorns-like aura (Empathy). You also get a pet, appropriately called Nightmare, which among other things can boost the abilities of any other pets you may have. All in Dream mastery is a very nice addition to the available skills in Titan Quest, and definitely worth starting new character for.

Two issues from the original game have also been resolved in the expansion. Firstly, the new Enchanters will separate relics/charms from equipment, allowing you to re-use either the item OR the relic - one must be sacrificed. It’s pretty costly (over 10,000 gold) but you should have plenty of money by the time you need to worry about such things, so it’s no real problem. Secondly, the problem of not having anywhere to store items you can’t use but may want later has been sorted by the addition of Caravan Drivers. These guys appear in several towns in each Act, and function like a stash for you to store any gear you want to keep but not carry around with you. If you pay them some money (10,000) you get extra storage space; you can also use them to transfer items between characters. All in all a very welcome addition, especially with the introduction of craftable Artefacts to the game.

Ah yes, artefacts. Don’t expect to find these dropping from that big boss monster you just killed. Artefacts, which come in Lesser, Greater, and Divine varieties (the latter only appearing on the higher skill levels) are very powerful items, and as such are not easy to come by. First, you must find an Arcane Formula, which drops as loot from various creatures and chests. This will contain a list of items needed to craft the Artefact - invariably these will be completed relics and charms. If you manage to collect the necessary ingredients (good luck!!), bring the items, plus the formula, plus a large amount of gold to the nearest Enchanter and he will craft the Artefact for you. At last! Even the lesser Artefacts convey a range of bonuses to your character, with the Divine items - as the name suggests - boosting your character to god-like levels of power. With all the relics, charms and formulae you will be holding on to, it really is a good thing you have those friendly Caravan Drivers on hand to hold onto all the bits and pieces for you...

Other minor additions include scrolls - one-time use spells with awesomely powerful abilities, including summoning a giant cyclops or giving you a massive attack power boost, very handy for boss battles (though a long cooldown ensures you can only use one scroll per boss), improved multiplayer features, improved pet control (three levels of aggressiveness to finetune their behaviour), and a host of little tweaks to the interface and gameplay. Far from being a lazy mishmash of glued-on extras, Immortal Throne polishes and rounds out the original game nicely, and while it probably won’t change your mind if you didn’t like Titan Quest, it comes highly recommended for those of you hungering for a little more mythological monster-bashing.