No game to this day has ever captured the feel of table-top role-playing like Arcanum. It's varied, non-linear, open world style is just awesome. Unlike modern games where there are a thousand places to go kill people, Arcanum has a fairly small world. But almost every NPC has an interesting story to tell, a fun quest to give, and atmosphere to add. Arcanum's greatest strength by far is that you can play through it in many different styles. You can kill your way through in a dozen ways: as a deft swordsman, a brutish ogre, a master of the bow; you can be a master gunsmith and craft yourself a machine gun; you can master the many schools of magic. In addition to force, nearly every quest can be solved in other ways. You can sneak past enemies and steal whatever you need. You can seduce NPC's with your beauty, or use your gilt tongue to persuade them to see your point of view. The character creation system isn't always balanced, but it has so many wonderful options. Charisma may seem like a dump stat to some, but a high score allows you to recruit additional party members. I once played through as an orc with the background "just plain ugly"- I figured how much could a low beauty score really hurt? Well, aside from constant racial slurs, merchants would charge me 5 times as much as in my last game. Sometimes people would outright attack me on the streets. The story is a bit standard at first, but before long it takes off and twists into a really epic tale. Honestly, the ending of Arcanum might be one of the most sadly beautiful in any game. Humor, philosophy, creativity, ethical dilemmas- Arcanum is really a treat for anyone looking for more than just a dungeon romp. The combat system is pretty bad though. You can switch between real-time and turn-based and exploit the game with this. Spamming molotov cocktails is an easy way to get through the game. Magic is clearly better than technology, though less rewarding. Most of the items in the game are not very interesting. There are also a good number of annoying glitches. Baldur's Gate this is not. If you just want to run through the game killing monsters and amassing treasure, this isn't the game for you. If you want to be immersed in a crazy, funny, different world, to try new things, you will LOVE it. Since getting this from GOG, I've played through the game 4 times already.
