Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

"Good Concept ... Poor Execution."

GRAPHICS : 6
Its ok, but the color is a bit dull. It looks like Fallout.

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SOUND : 5
Voices are ok too... but there's so few, it'll take a long time between parts of the game for you to hear NPC's talk with voices, the majority of followers don't have voices, and those that do don't feel real/interesting (ie. as if they say something for the sake of saying something... / try to make the conversation longer than necessary but not really saying anything/ stereotype dialog).

Background music is ok, but the music in Arcanum tries to give you the feel of a low-tech world, it is slow and tends to make the game boring at times (alot of times actually... especially when you're treking the huge world not knowing what to do next). Sometimes, the mood of the music makes an otherwise exciting event dragging. While not really bad, it is not something you would be humming to remind you of how thrilling your game was.

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GAMEPLAY : 8
The RPG element of the game is very good, it would probably be the best, if not one of the best in its class. American-style RPGs are ofcourse different from japanese-style RPGs (such as Final Fantasy) which have linear gameplay (you play the role of a given character). Arcanum is more like Fallout or Baldur's Gate where you make your own character, shape your destiny. In that respect it is very good. The degree of customization is very high, infact you'll probably spend alot of time thinking what kind of character to play. When you level-up in Arcanum you choose from 48 statistics to put it ! Its not only that, but the ways of solving quests are plentiful and varied, and people react differently depending on how you do them, heck you can even just kill anything that moves right from the start. This ability to do all kinds of things (like hire prostitutes/murder people/be a sacrificing hero...) is really what makes Arcanum fun and unique.

The combat element however is poor. Here are the reasons.
1. It is too easy. After the first part of the game, the VAST majority of combat becomes easy and then it becomes too easy. I know, I know, you can always change the difficulty (at any time in the game), but raising the difficulty has one ''uninspiring'' feature ; it lowers the amount of experience point you get, and what RPGer would want their character(/s) to get lower XP ? Its like self-torture, you do quests to level-up and want fewer XP at the same time ?!

2. Imbalance. Melee combat is just TOO powerful, too powerful that other elements of combat such as magic/technology/bow/throwing are just left behind in its dust. I am not exaggerating when I say melee is WAY TOO POWERFUL in Arcanum. In fact almost all followers will put lots of points into melee regardless if they're magicians/healers/technologists. I would even advice not to putting skill points in melee or take melee followers, because it could make combat VERY easy.

3. Poor follower AI. You cannot directly control your followers, you can give some instructions like spread out/move close/back off/attack... but thats about it, they pretty much move on their own (like in Fallout). The problem is, well, um... is that whoever they are, they always rush to hack your enemies ! Its quite annoying to have a high level 'mage', with all his level 4 spells, with his trusty magical staff, wearing a robe and has low HP, rush in to hack dangerous monsters ! Although this is not always true (they act differently when your team is low on HP or when againts really powerful monsters), the majority of opponents fall into the not-so-powerful-but-still-dangerous-melee-combatant category. Generally, your non-melee followers give you the impression that they are not trying their best.
Your followers also choose from their inventory what weapon they use. You can give them a weapon, but if there are other weapon/s in their inventory that they like better, they'll use that instead. This can be very frustrating, because they weapon they like is not necessarily the best for a certain opponent, and the only way to force them is to take all the other weapons in their inventory so they use what you gave them (which is more of a task than you think).
Also, your followers pick almost anything from the ground. Which can be a problem when your looking for something, and your follower has already picked it up - and when you do realise, now you have check all their inventories to see who has it.

(... and you know what's more annoying than the poor AI ? Its when your followers do everything wrong , weak members rush in, pick the inappropiate weapon, use the wrong type of healing on another follower... AND STILL WIN !!!! Because Chukka the ogre bodyguard hacked to death half your enemies in 1 turn)

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VALUE : 10
The nature of the game makes it very replayable. As I'm sure you cannot possibly play all the type of characters through the game. The game responds very differently depending on your character. And you'll probably want to finish quests in a different way. Also because Arcanum is very non-linear (even compared to other non-linear RPGs) , so no game would probably be the same.

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TILT : 7
I liked it, but not as much say Throne of Bhaal. The game is a little more choice driven than most RPGs, you can probably compare it to Fallout or Planescape Torment, a little more advance... but only a little. I'm a bit disappointed because this could have been a GREAT game, instead of above average.

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OTHERS
Learning Curve : 1-5 hours ? Mainly because it takes a while for the skills you chose to be put to use, so you'll probably not understand the consequences of your character design on your first try. Plus the long manual and unintuitive interface will probably have you guessing for some time.

Performance : For a poor looking game, this game can slow down, especially in cities/ crowded areas. My PC has a 900mhz AMD Processor, and 32MB video RAM, and it can get annoyingly slow (ofcourse my character had 8 followers tagging along).

Stability : Pretty stable, alot more stable than Fallout2. Very few crashes on my PC. Get the patch though.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/25/02, Updated 01/25/02