Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Like all Black Isle games, it is not without some flaws. But once you get past them, this is perhaps my favourite RPG of all times. A rich, open world, with countless choices.

I havent been able to finish this game cause i got bored. This is solely due to the countless hours i played on fallout 2 right before purchasing arcanum and they are somewhat similar. I find the combat in this game( unless you change the option to turned base instead of real time which would be stupid to do) to lean more towards a diablo type of game. that also goes for armor and other items you can find or buy. As far as interacting with other npcs and taking on quests it is very much like fallout (except for the dialogue style that was used) Moving around the map seems almost impossible and frustrating at first but it doesnt take long to get used to it and once you do its easy to overlook.(with exceptions in some of the larger city's where you will at times get very frustrated) There are also a lot of options when it comes to creating a character. like race(ogre,elf,human) and the style of character you want to use although i found the game to be very biased towards magic. If you don't pick elf as your race and go with being a full out mage then you are just going to have a harder time with any other type of character. This especially goes for melee characters don't even bother with them. I have a lvl 16 mage that could easily kill my lvl 30 something melee character(using harm which is an amazing spell by the way) but i have rambled on much longer then planned so yea that's it.

I never played Arcanum before seeing on Gog and I wondered for several months before considering to buy it. Then I gave it a try, and what try it was ! If you asked me what was my top 3 games I would without any hesitation put Baldur’s Gates 1 & 2 in my overall. I’ve been looking for years for a game that would involve a true old role-play and had more than two lines of dialog. (Like all these games that begins with the You-are-the-hero followed by “arrrrghhhh” (enemies dieing words) and They-lived-for-long-years-and-had-many-children) Arcanum takes you into a universe where magic and technology are competitors ; game’s background is so rich that will spend hours understanding the history of this land. It will bring you inside a mysterious plot that you want to undercover at all costs. Combat system will both fulfils players that like turn per turn or active combat with an easy way to change the system while playing. Progressions of characters are most interesting because you there’s no class system : you build through the game your own profession. In a way that makes me think about Morrowind or Myst you could go almost immediately to the solution of the game but you will only be able to do so if you have played the game at least once. And in the same spirit you are free to go wherever you want. The game also have a nice companion system with interactions, AI battle scripts, own personalities and skills. Furthermore the thing that makes the game more interesting is that you can spend all you skills points in a single skills but it will remain useless until you find a mentor to teach you how to use it, preventing munchkin attitude. A word about the music, it was the first time I heard vanilla classic music inside a game and it really fits to the ambiance. Though it can becomes a bit boring after hours. But it remains definitely a good soundtrack. As a conclusion : buy it, try it, love it.

I have been gaming for years, I found this game one day while in canada at a small game store, that game is the only one i have purchased over 4 copies of quickly trying to replace each one that was broken by my young hands. Now playing it again, its just as great as I remember, this game gives you so much freedom, you can be a sociopath, a prostitute or a saint, did I mention this game actually lets you become a prostitute!!! The story is entertaining, the options are massive and the freedom is great, it never says no just lets you go. the side characters are entertaining, the twists are actualyl surprising!! when was the last time you had a game like that. to this day this is still my favorite game I have ever played. Get this game, its the greatest deal in gaming!!

At first glance, I overlooked this title because I thought it was another hack n slash. Boy was I wrong. This game has the combat style similar to fallout, an amazing story line,and way ahead of it's time. If you liked fallout and baldurs gate, you will love this game for it's complexity and challenge. A game truly worthy of 5 stars.