Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

"The Fine Line Between Technology and Magic"

Being mainly a console gamer, it is rare for me to find a PC game so good that I forget about my consols. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is one such game. This game was the brainchild of Tim Cain,the creator of Fallout.

Arcanum takes place in a world where the traditional arts of magick are starting to become infringed by the wonders of the industrial revolution. This phenomena iss making many of the old wizards nervous because technology rivals the powers that they hold. THe story, however begins on the maiden voyage of the IFS Zephyr, the world's first zepplin. Your character starts as a passenger abord this doomed airship and soon becomes the only living survivor of the entire ordeal. Naturally, you must figure out why this ship crashed as well as a large scale conspiracy that could possibly destroy the world of Arcanum itself...

So, how does this game rank in? Let's take a look!

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics are outdated by most people's standards, but they still convey the necessary information on the screen. The character models are well rendered and you can see the effect of wearing different clothing as soon as you put it on. The spell effects are good, especially the higher level ones that show off some major fireworks. The character portraits that come with the game are all nice and accurate, but you can import new ones if the default crop doesn't suit you. The buildings are all nicely designed and range from crumbling castles to grungy factories.

One issue, however, is that some video cards have a hard time with this game. My Voodoo 3 has no problems, but cards that have 64 mb of RAM on them might run into a few technical problems. Thankfully the patch solves most of them. If you still have problems with them, there are many forums that can help solve that pesky problem.

Sound: 10/10

The music is quite nice in Arcanum. The soundtrack features some string quartet music that gets repeated often in the game. Though this may be a turn off for some, the low amount of music in this game doesn't hut it one bit. The tracks easily blend in with the background and keeps the player from being bored.

THe sound effects are also guite good. Everything from the hum of a steam engine to the sound of a spell are quite nice. THe sounds are all appropriate and sound as if they were created speciffically for the game. They do not use any stock sounds, so that is always a plus in my book.

The voice acting in this game is fantastic. The few characters that do speak all have a unique personality that is portrayed quite well. The good voice acting is a direct result from having a good cast, including people like Rino Romano and Dwight Schultz, lending their voices to convey such memorable characters.

Gameplay: 9/10

As with any game, the way it plays can make or break it. Arcanum's combat is fast paced and furious in real time. It also gives the player the option to play it in a turn based fashion, a la Fallout. There are a few bugs in combat, but they mostly are for the good of the player (like in turn based mode, you do not lose action points for tossing grenade weapons like Molotov Cocktails). Also of note is that you have no direct control over what your followers do in battle. They all have a mind of their own and battle as they see fit. This can lead to some of them charging to their doom, but this is usually a problem in realtime combat. As meantioned earlier, this game plays like Fallout, and the followers here act like the followers in Fallout.

The movement in towns and dungeons are all done by the click of your mouse. You want to go open a door? Click on it. You want to go into a house? Click on the house. Occasionaly there are AI hiccups that cause your character to walk into walls, but that is a rare occurence and really is not that big of a problem. One thing can annoy people as they play through these areas, however. You can't walk through your followers or summoned creatures. This makes sence and really, it adds at least SOME reality to it.

Character building is where this game shines. You have the option of playing a premade character or you can create your own. You have the option of choosing one of eight races to play as, your background, being male (all races) or female (only four of them), and after that, the choices are yours. There are no speciffic classes in Arcanum, so you can do anything you want with your skill points. You could be a technology master, magician, warrior, thief, or anything in between. You are alloted five skill points when you start the game and you can do anything you want with them. Put a point in Gunsmithy, put one in White Necromancy, do as you like. As you gain levels, you gain one additional character point per level, and two points every five levels. You can only level up to level 50, so choose your skills wisely.

The most enjoyable part of the game is the abilities you can learn. The colleges of magick are all powerful, but within each college, you can learn only five spells per college. That is not a detriment at all because these five skills become more and more powerful as you proceed with the game. Technology is a different ballgame. Though there are only 8 degrees, with 7 schematics each, you can buy or find new schematics everywhere. Some of these schematics require you to be adept at two different degrees of technology. One example would be the Pyrotcnic Axe. You need to be good at Smithy and Explosives to build one. Sadly, if you choose to be a melee/dodge character, you do not gain any special attacks, but you can pretty much kill anything in your path.

Difficulty: 7/10

This game is easy in comparison to most PC RPGs. The game goes at your pace, so you have no need to rush through anything. You also get more powerful as you level up, and enemies will stay at a static level. If you are too weak, you can complete a quest or two to get to your next level. This game can also be easy or as hard as you want it to be. If you want an easy way through, invest alot of points into charisma and speeach. You can talk your way out of anything and when you can't do that, your followers will do the fighting for you. If you want a harder time, be a pure melee/dodge and have an intellect of 1. Sure, it's funny some of the dialogue you get, but you have to fight your way out of most situations if you're character is stupid. This game is balance on how you play, so the experience will be different everytime you play.

Overall: 9.5

I feel Arcanum was probably the best game to come out of 2001. It had a good story, fun characters and a character editor that was the best thing to come out since Fallout 2. I highly recomend this game.

Oh, and I might want to suggest to get the patch. When Arcanum first shipped, there were a few bugs that could cause you to get stranded on the main quest. There were also other bugs that pertained to abilities. Also, you might want to update your installer to get the game to work. Other than that, it was an awesome game!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/27/02, Updated 05/27/02