I have purchased it a couple of years ago for the PS4 (sorry GOG), thats why I am not a veryfied owner In short: this is the best immersive sim ever. Even better than any Deus Ex, Thief and Dishonored game Athmospheric, smart, replayable. I really hope that Arkane studios will make a sequel sooner or later If you like immersive sims... Just buy it
TR2 is without doubt the best game in the series (TR4 and TR3 very close) The athmosfere and the exploration are still the same as they were The game has that old scheme of control (tank) which I understand may not be well received by players who didn't play these games back then I understand why modern gamer may not like this... but if you were born in the 70s or in the 80s, then this is one of the best classics around
I've played all of them - all the golden age RPGs (Baldurs Gate 1&2, Fallout 1&2, Planescape Torment , Icevind Dale, temple of elemental Evil, etc etc) and also many of the new ones (Torment Tides of Numenera, Pillars of Eternity). If you look on how the game is on the surface Arcanum is probably the worst of all: "so many bugs", "such a terrible combat balance and AI system", "how clunky", "what an outdated graphics"... But if you scratch below the surface just a little bit Arcanum is second only to Planescape Torment no doubt. Some of the unique aspects that makes it so great: - incredible variety of dialogue options and choices/implications dynamic giving an amazing sense of freedom and strong replay value - very good story, great cast of charachters and a large and amazing world (without spoilering too much there are steampunk cities, fallen reigns, remote wild islands, hidden towns of various nature, lots of totally optional locations) - very original (altought not very simple) technological vs magickal system, with broader implications than one may think initially Like Torment, there are no other games like this, and maybe there will never be... Just save often (some of the bugs are really annoying) and have fun...
Premise. I first played this game long time ago, and I was lucky because (1) I had a PC equipped with a Vodoo card (2) I hadn't played any other Ultima game before. I remember had really a lot of fun. Now. I purchased the game from GOG and I confirm that the game is far from perfect, but it's still a load of fun. The plus + the game world is not small, not huge, but is well done and interesting to explore. + the dungeons are good! they seems to be a bit Zelda insipired, rather than classical RPG,... but if you like the genre than they're pretty fun and with nics enigmas + the controls are good! the jump system is one of the best ever seen. the interactivity with the world is fluid. Combat hand to hand is average but not really bad, bows are better. And... I love the rituals... a lot more satisfaction than the 'modern games' click-a-button stuff! + technically it's really impressive. The graphics is excellent for a '99 game, there's no any transition between overworld, houses, dungeons. It's amazing that every item you drop around stays there + zero fetch quests (one of the greatest sickness in modern games...) On the minus side - the dialogues have huge mixed quality. I see some high peaks (Some of the storyles of virtue restoration, Trinsic first), but other dialogues are really badly written (oh God the love story...). Looks really like a semi-draft (and if you know the development and realease story, actually it is...) - in the GOG version I experienced a few crashes, altough nothing critical. Save often and you can have a decent experience, I think - RPG elements are a bit weak. Maybe the game is too much action oriented... it's something that somebody may not see as a problem, but a bit more depth I think would have been appreciated ps. all the "what's a Paladin " controversy is quite nerdish and I think also a bit sterile .. other great games franchises (see Zelda, again) have very little consistency among the stories across games... but who cares?
