Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

"Fallout? Nope, But Almost"

When i first started playing this game, I was like, Wow! this is very familiar to one of my favorite series/games fallout. There were a couple of things which were way different, there were things which were the same. I will seperate it into little columns to get more detail out for you guys to look at.

Gameplay - 9
First things first, gameplay. The game itself was pretty awesome. With all the different choices you have in character selection, All you things you can do, Theres so many options!!!. If you always dreamed to be a strong magic user with a shotgun the size of a dwarf, then hell, do so in this game. Interacting magic and technology is a pretty sweet idea. This game has no limits, Make your guy however you want. The fighting style is like baulders gate and fallout. You can choose to have a real time battle, Meaning no turns. Or you can have turn based battle just like in fallout. I got to admit though. The game did get boring after a little while because it can seem to be continous at times. You can always find quests in towns. As many up to 20 in each of the towns!. Thats alot of exp.

Story - 7
The story was something that brought the game down. It wasn't a in your face story. It was one of those storys that brings mystery. Heres the story. You on what is called A Zephyr when suddenly your thing is attacked by orcs in planes. The orcs collide with the Zephyr thus causes it to crash. At the crash site, a dieing gnome tells your guy to bring a ring back to someone or all is lost. Exciting?? Not really.

Sound - 8
I liked the sound, it matched the game very well. The combat needs better sound but you can't be to picky now right? But besides combat, everything else was pretty good.

Replayable - 10
I don't find that much pc rpgs that are replayable. Fallout series and baulders gate series were definitely replayable. This game is now put in the list. With so many choices on what to do with your character, who wouldn't want to replay it?

Borrow or Buy?
I will say Buy. For only 20 bucks you can buy this magnificent game. If you aren't into computer rpgs, just borrow from a friend and see if you like it or not. You could always use that 20 for fallout if you don't like arcanum.

Conclusion
If you like fallout and baulders gate, you will love this game. Go out to bestbuy, get out 20 bucks from your wallet, find arcanum, AND BUY IT!
This games rocks.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/09/03, Updated 07/09/03