Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

... for releasing such an awesome game. This game is made by (nearly) same developers from Fallout series. Instead, This game is set on Victorian Steampunk-ish Fantasy theme instead of Post Apocalypse. There are LOADS of freedom and options offered for your characters, and character development possibility is near-infinite. (I played as a Gnome Gunman, while my friend did an Elf with 8 companions at a time, and other friend did a Half-Orc Berserker who tried to destroy everything on sight) There are no class but you can spend stat point on skills or stats, including 16 types of magic(5 spells each) and 8 types of technology(7 item recipes each, plus obtainable recipes that require combined knowledges). Only the sad thing in this game is that it's filled with bugs, exploits and some other problems. Fans are working on them to make them better, as another Troika's game, Vampire Bloodlines did. If you love Fallout. Buy Arcanum. NOW.

If you liked Fallout 1 or 2, you will really like Arcanum. The game / play style is very similar, but the world / setting is very different. You create a character (or chose a pre-made) and allow you to develop your character along technology skill pathways, or magic (not both). A great mix of magic and tech competing with each other in fantasy 1920's feel.

I remember playing Arcanum, when I was younger, during the Fallout/Baldur's Gate years and I thought it was absolutely amazing! I'm glad that GOG finally put themselves together and released this game :D Oh, and by the way, there's an high resolution patch available to this game, it higly reccomended you try this game out with the high res patch: http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/ and here's a link for a couple of unoficial patches, mostly fixing typo's and other stuff: http://www.gamershell.com/all/arcanum/downloads.html Anyways, this is a great game, and it comes highly reccomended! :D

If you remember old Fallouts fondly, or if you are into tech/fantasy worlds, I'd say try it out. The gameplay is sadly rather awful and character development a bit hard to figure out (and if you mess it up you can have hell of a hard time), but the multiple endings and immense world with a sense of both tragedy and black humour hovering about can be worth it. The music is awesome, the atmosphere of the Industrial revolution going all wrong and magic trying to survive is really unique, and the game has just a very different feel about it than most games of the fantasy genre. Pity the interface and combat are bad, though not entirely horrible. If you decide to try it - worth the money, I'd say - be prepared. This not the RPG of today. You die fast even to the lamest, three-legged, two-teeth wolf.

There are two things that make this game stand out: 1) A cyberpunk setting that, sadly, has been largely ditched by the rpg devs with time. Choose magic or technology as your path or try to balance both. 2) The devs - Troika games - featured people working on the Fallout series and responsible for their own Vampire: The masquerade series, famous for their originality. Result - expect Fallout-style gameplay (multiple ways to solve quests, random encounters, witty humor in dialogues and stuff that generally makes an RPG a real RPG and a not just a click-kill-loot game like Diablo) with a few Arcanum-specific twists. Not to be missed by any serious RPGamer.