Arcanum has got to be one of my favorite RPGs ever. It just has so much to offer. Unfortunately, when the game came out, it had about 9001 bugs and issues in it; some of these were as benign as a misspelled word or a misused comma, and others could occasionally prevent you from completing sidequests--or even the main quest. A pack of psychos latched onto ths game and slogged through all the files and coding to eventually fix most of the bugs and even restore some content that was inexplicably removed from the final game. Now, the game itself . . . my God. There's almost too much to do. Your character can progress in any way you want, without regard to the background or race you chose. Magickal dwarves who speak like morons? Sure. Eloquent, gentle half-ogres? Absolutely. You could even have sex with a sheep if you wanted. The main story, unlike many open-ended RPGs, is actually pretty interesting, and they're about a million endings. Throughout this story, you will inevitably become sidetracked by one of the plethora of sidequests, almost all of which can be completed with the use of combat, persuasion, or stealth; this level of freedom holds throughout almost all of the game, with the exception of a few quests that are more geared towards certain types of characters. The loss of one star comes from a couple different things. First off, stealth-based characters, though possible, feel severely gimped in comparison to fighters or mages, or even talkers. It is incredibly hard to manage some of the stealth specific quests--look out for one involving a gem and a path surrounded by monsters--and even the quests that can be optionally completed with stealth are difficult. Second, there's the real-time combat, which is almost useless. Most characters are going to end up with scores of spells or items to use in combat, and the overly-frantic real-time mode completely negates the use of most of these. Luckily, there is turn-based combat available. The main reason for removing that fifth star, however, is because of the presentation. The hand-drawn sprites are rather nice, but there aren't that many of them: monsters often look very similar, and half-elves and half-orcs have the same sprite. Armor and weapons do display, of course, but all swords look the same, all axes, all hammers, all suits of chainmail, all plate; the only difference is an occasional palette swap. Helmets, hats, boots, and gloves don't even show up; your character's appearance is based solely on race and armor. The HUD, too, is kind of annoying, and is probably my biggest qualm with the game; it takes up a huge amount of space and is a little bit clunky, what with text in the chat box appearing and instantly disappearing, requiring you to page back up to find it, and with the rather odd layout of the buttons along the bottom. The sound, on the other hand, practically makes up for the rest of the game's presentation issues. Voice acting is actually quite good, though only the most important characters have voices. Spells, guns, hits, deaths, howls, growls, screams . . . these things all come through pretty good in combat. The best part, however, is the music, which just HAS to be heard. Arcanum is great, and I really wish that Troika were still around to make a real sequel. A lot of people compare this to Fallout 1 + 2 and say that they're better than Arcanum, but I disagree. The Fallout games laid the foundation, but Arcanum really took advantage of the system.
I really, really like this game. I played it years ago at a friend's house and loved it, but somehow never ended up actually buying it. This is one of the reasons I joined this site. HoMM 3 is an amazingly complex and addictive game. Building up your town--and any you conquer!--adventuring through the landscape, and battling it out with opposing armies are all equally fun. Scenarios can last incredibly long times, if you have multiple players of even mediocre skill; the maps can be quite large, and it can be a bit difficult to finally pin down an opponent and completely eradicate him. The campaign itself is engaging enough, but the real awesomeness comes from the multplayer. Levels can be handcrafted using the editor, you can pick one of the pre-built ones, or--because of the inclusion of the expansions--you can have the game randomly generate a map based on a set of criteria such as size, underworld inclusion, water, etc. This literally allows for near-infinite matches that will never be the same. This holds doubly true because of the massive diversity between the various factions; each favors different kinds of fighting and different tactics, and each has a completely unique set of units to offer. The heroes, too, add yet another layer, with each faction being able to choose from between two kinds of hero: one more physical, who boosts his soldiers attack and defense ratings, and one more magical, who instantly has access to potent spells to aid in combat. On top of that, however, there are multiple variations of each of these two hereoes for each faction, with each specific character having a focus in a certain unit or spell to further boost its effectiveness, as well as their own set of starting secondary skills. I really can't say enough about it. The statements from other reviews about how you just want to do one more turn, just get that next building, get into next week so you can restock your army . . . they're all true. The game is addicting and immensely fun. Buy it.
