Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

I bought this game when it came out and have probably spent over a thousand hours playing and replaying it every few years. Obviously, it has huge nostalgia value for me. It is definitely a flawed game (less so with bug fixes) but one that I still found to be very enjoyable. The atmosphere and music are my favourite parts of the game, they are both rather melancholy but beautiful. I love the setting, the open world style, RPG elements and the sheer volume of content this game contains (each playthrough has taken me over 100 hours). As to the character build imbalances, I have played the game through as a tech-based gunslinger many times. It's my favourite build, because it's what I have the most fun roleplaying and to me a gunslinging lady fits the setting perfectly. It might be easier as a magic-based fighter, but playing other builds has never been a big problem for me. So, if you are not put off by the old graphics and turn-based combat and you like the idea of an interesting, open world to explore in a huge game, give Arcanum try. It's truly a GOG, just not for everyone.

I've played through both Baldur's Gate 1+2, Icewind Dale 1+2 and Fallout 1+2 and I really wanted to like this game but, unfortunately, after 7 hours or so of playing, it just didn't click with me. The steampunk-ish theme is really not much different than standard fantasy with its swords, bows and magic. As has been mentioned in many of the reviews, the combat is inconsistent at best and, more often than not, just plain excruciating. I'm sure there is more story and characters to discover, but that would require a level of patience that my middle-aged time constraints just can't muster. Also note, the GOG.com version of the game ran *very* poorly on my Windows 10 system. The game would suffer from horrible slowdowns after 20 minutes of so of play, requiring a restart. And don't even think about alt-tabbing out of this one.

Does not run on windows 10. This should be made clearer on the product description, especially as GOG.com have tested this and know it to be the case.

...but this game have awesome atmosphere and it is worth to complete it many times with various character builds and choices. Gameplay could be very hard or awesome easy (my magician just go trough and kill everything thats stands in his way). I remember I tried this game about 15 years ago, with technic character and it has rejected me back then but now it is still a very good game. It would be nice to have a continuation or game with similar fight/craft system (magic vs technology).

Considering the Fallout developers helped make this game was insane! The game play has been really great so far. I got it and played the game the game play is good so far. You can either go and do side-quests or stick with the main storyline. The fact you can pick from lets say...2 factions or types of...I don't know this is hard to explain without spoiling. Well if you pick to use guns you can only go to merchants that sell guns/armor you'd become a "tech fan" if you decide to use magic/armor you'd become a "magic fan" and the fact that some stores are limited to what type of technology/magic you use just makes this game one of my top 10's!