Loki: Heroes of Mythology isn't a bad game, it just doesn't do anything to set itself apart from other (both past and present) action role playing games. Borrowing liberally from Diablo, with a splashy mix of decent high-res graphics, a unique storyline and some original features, Loki: Heroes of Mythology suffers from tiresome execution.

Loki is the historical tale of four different mythologies that span four different time lines. The central story revolves around defeating Seth (the Egyptian god of chaos and evil) who has returned from the Kingdom of the Dead and wants to take over everything. To stop him you must play through each mythology (in any order) before fighting big bad Seth, thus you'll become an Aztec shaman, a Greek fighter, a Norse Barbarian and an Egyptian magician. Each hero gets imbued with a completely different set of skills and powers, and has a different pantheon of gods they worship. It's up to the player to help these gods fight off Seth and earn their respective favor.

With each mythological hero come different settings and quests. History buffs may enjoy taking part in major historical events such as joining the apocalyptic battle between the gods at Ragnarok, laying siege to Troy or helping Hernando Cortes wipe out the Aztec empire. Players will even meet legendary heroes such as Achilles, Quetzalcoatl and Thor during their quests. Furthermore, the game has randomly generated maps and items (weapons, armor, spells, etc.), so players will always have a different experience no matter how many times they play the game. This is great in theory, but due to the boorish presentation, one isn't keen on spending much time within the game world.

Leveling up accrues skill points that can be spent on spells and special abilities via the various skill trees associated with each hero type and god they worship. There are two separate counters -- one tracks experience points (to level up), while the other tracks "faith." Twenty five percent of experience obtained from vanquishing enemies goes to filling the faith counter. Once the counter is full, players earn one skill point they can use to acquire skills from one of three different "god" categories. They can only worship one god at a time, but players can change that easily enough by visiting an altar. Players can even abandon their gods altogether, which gains no faith points but allows for faster accumulation of experience points and provides faster leveling.

The ability to customize weapons, armor and other items will undoubtedly keep some players very busy. There are 15 classes of weapons and armor and over 500 objects to collect (i.e., Achilles' armor, Thor's hammer, etc.). Virtually every item gets combined with other things (collected throughout the game) to enhance their abilities, or to even create new gear. By visiting the local blacksmith, players can have their weapons and armor made into better items, broken down and reassembled into something new, melted down into their raw components or have magical ruins attached to them to imbue them with special properties.