Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Oh, to have a review system more nuanced than 5 stars. There are things this game does better than Baldur's Gate, there are things it does better than Fallout, and there are things it does better than Planescape. On a straight scale, however, it falls gallingly short of any of them. The take: This is a must-play for anyone that is in love with the crpg genre, but go for the aforementioned titles first if you haven't played them yet. The good: The atmosphere and world building are top-notch. There is a "tech" system by which you craft superweapons and grenades and such from blueprints, and it is deeply satisfying. The world is open in a really delightful way and Arcanum features one of the best-thought-out urban areas in the genre. You will come to care about the characters and the progression is extremely open-ended, with many ways to handle each situation. The story is rich and character development meaningful. The bad: This game is unfinished. It was pushed out before all the bugs were dealt with, which range from annoying (get out of that wall!) to frustrating (I swear I got enough of these macguffins to finish this quest!) to exploitable (don't want to progress in the levels the usual way? Take advantage of these never ending wolves in the first area! Welcome to level 12!) All of these are things that will become so much background noise if you play just far enough in to get hooked by the story, which will happen fairly soon for most. The Ugly: It is obvious that the game was rushed out the door, but nowhere does that show more than the plainly truncated ending. Without giving anything away, you *will* get a sense towards the end that huge chunks were left out, when the pacing goes haywire and the endgame just kinda, shows up. That said, you can't miss something you didn't care about, and I found myself missing the end, rather hard. This game gets 5 stars for being an awesome game, but loses because it weren't done.

I was really excited to play this. I think the industrialization of a magical world is a great idea. I really enjoyed creating my character, and the story captivated me as I started to play. However, the game is buggy and the combat is laughable. Your party members are more of a liability than an asset. I read reviews that had said similar things, and I thought, "I'm more interested in the story than the combat." Unfortunately, I was so turned off by the combat that I eventually stopped playing. It's a shame.

but i think it is not for everyone modern player.. not only because of graphic... u need use ur brain really often unlike in most modern games.. so no, this game is not for everyone))

-and its consequences have been a disaster for magick users. Thanks for the sale Mandy!

i m giving 5 stars mostly because game is absolutely worth playing level of minor bugs and funky glitches is insane frustrating quest design where you need to deliver inventory tax and if you don't have space it gets dropped on the floor... There is a lot of items that if you don't take advantage of private property for storage you will get lost Some of the backgrounds and pre-mades are quite useless and sometimes would just take bonus points instead Technological tree is weird, its overpowered by inventory in slots and useless by itself Having to reset shops 30 times to craft items you need in the endgame is a joke Magic gets completely flat-lined by Harm and summon ogre...there is a lot of wonderful spells to play with, but few insanely violent and strong spells dis-encourage people from trying cool things Fate point system is amazing - in exchange for resolving situations more or less as developers wants you, game provide you with points that can be used for minor cheat Karma/morality system is a joke, its nearly impossible to be evil unless you play as murderous-failure or take advantage of Amy's Blade -30 karma per hit... Game itself often see Evil as killing good... but if you are "better" than everybody else killing others is fine... Followers magically sense your karma... Game have neat in theory friendship system... in practice Friendship only goes down and once it gets there you need to bribe your friends unless you intentionally killing them to ressurect... Half of the spells and abilities are completely useless or insulting if you end up investing there Story is very good and World is insanely immersive if you like fallouts/adventure games/immersive sims/mass effect (story-choice side) this game might appeal to you A lot of quests have multiple solutions, Spells can be very creative and wonderful to play with You can make entire playthru around collecting newspaper volumes XD Community exist and i even made nexus mods for this game!PLAY IT!