Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

"This game is eternally good!"

This game is not just another game thatI just saw and decided to buy because my cousin is rich and gives me whatever I want, since I know that this game is a rare game, and since most rare game are good, well, this one is great too. The game is just full of dilemmas, of moral, religion and/or politics, and because of that you character will spin into some place full or scandals and problem of over the place. This time, Sierra and Troika Game really did an extremely excellent work with this game, it is a game that gives us a change of pace of what we look as a typical RPG scene and I asure you that after playing this game, you will not leave unsatisfied and, just like I said, you will love it so much you will want to know more about it.

As some of you may know that this game is oriented on an especific story, but there is also a whole bunch of fighting going on in the game, and because of that, there are two styles of fighting against the enemies. The first style is like a thousand time better than the turn-based style, and it consists on that every single character is allowed to perform and complete all their actions at the same time, and that is done to be able to initiate. And it also lets you know how much fatigue and/or health do you have at that time. The second type is a real-time combat style of fighting, and you can use this option if you want a challenge, but it also lets all of your followers to all your work, this type of combat you can only go as fast as you can click, but you cannot directly your followers the way that you want to and you can’t pause the game. And that thing is one of the things that make this game less better, I hate that you can’t control your followers, the only thing that you can do is tell then to attack or not to attack. But still, this game it has an impressive AI, and mostly throughout the game, it doesn’t presets to much of a deal or problem. Another thing that I do not like about the way that you fight is that it takes too much time to load for some explosive since it have extravagant animations. Sometimes, because the game is too big and long, you computer may have to stop to think when too much movement is going on, but it isn’t a big problem either, but just as all the other games with this kind of problem, you may get annoyed of it. In the end the combat type is basically to point and click, but just because it is easy it doesn’t mean it does not require you to do some strategy, and believe me, you will spend a lot of time doing this.

For what I have seen, this game has a very good interface, it allows you to have a complete customization but as you might know, there are a lot of buttons, the manual of the game is not so informative, and if you are a beginner you won’t understand a bit, first you should spend your time to see how the game is while playing with a first character, and then start over again once you get the idea of how to build a better character. This game uses something that definitely allows you to create any character that you can imagine. This game also has quite good and enough options about the gameplay and the quests you have to complete. If you want to construct something awful such as a since rat made bigger with a a golden tongue that lets you eat the world itself, you could, and that character could then participate on every single type of side quest this game has, if you want to. And with this option you can get involved with your player as much as you want, other character will require you to spend a lot of time to learn new abilities and get a reputations all throughout this game’s world, but if you just want to complete the main plot and know your character there, then you will enjoy it the same way. And this varies the game time required to complete the game, because if you want to complete the side quest and get all in the game, you will have a go through a whole bunch of gameplay to be able to do so.

Tha background music of this game is very good, without it you couldn’t feel so good the Victorian era, and it also has a bit a orchestra, but it is not repetitive music, because if it were, it would be annoying, you can also listen to several violins, in main theme basically. It also changes depending on where you character is, for example, in a creepy place you will here creepy music, so the music adapts to the background. There is also voice acting in this game, and even not everyone in the game actually speak to you, there are like 20 characters that have them, and they are very well used. Some characters were designed to be over the top which it may be that it will annoy you, but for most of the part of voice acting, only some you won’t like, but most of the rest you will really like it. The sound effects of the game make the game more realistic that without it, it wouldn’t be so good, every single detail about sound effects such as creaking doors and all that other stuff, well it is here, and it also has a whole bunch of noises that weapons do, which make the weapon seem more realistic.

This game has been compared to a lot of game which are based on stats of D&D styles adventure, but there is a difference about this game that the others don’t have, and that is that has more involved events in the game. It has 8 character stats like 70 spells 20 colleges, and that make the main hero more original than any other. Also, the world in which this game takes place is much better and realistic than in any other RPGs. There is also another difference than from other regular RPGs, in regular RPGsm all the side quests and optional items are totally optional and are not required to end the game, but in this game, every single piece of anything that can exist in the world is important for the ending of the game. And also each single thing that you do in the game really matters at the end of the story. Unlike in any other games, the game ending is always the same no matter what you do, but in this game, each thing you do in a quest or side quest may change the ending, so the ending may not be the same for everyone, so that means that it has a lot of replay value because each time you pass the game you will get a different ending, so you may never get bored. Trust me, you will never find a game with this feature anywhere than here.

This game has a very good main plot, you are in a world full of mysteries at the very own beginning, and at the end you will see that the plot is very complicated. Every single thing has an explanation, and the story is very long, and it has foreshadowing which lets the player think what will happen next, and I estimated that this game will take you approximately 4 days to complete, that is if you play all day and night, which equals 96 hours, well it always depends on how good the player is.

My overall score for this game is a 10 out of ten, and that means that I think it is 100% perfect, and nothing else could be done to make this game better.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/24/02, Updated 12/24/02