Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

I wanted to love this game. I'm a big fan of their other games, especially Fallout 1 & 2. I've played those through many times, and though those games have a few minor bugs, they are not bugs that ruin the game experience. If you could cut out the horrendous number of bugs in this game, this game could really be a great game. However, I've been playing this game for a few days now, probably put in about 20 hours of game play so far, and I'm not sure if I even want to finish it. I love RPG's and this is nothing against the actual base of the RPG itself. The leveling system and everything is interesting and the concept drew me in. The bugs started the very minute I started playing and continued growing throughout the gaming experience. For example, my character, being a mage, summons an orc champion to fight; after fighting, I decide to rest to recover my experience, and my orc champion disappears, but his icon remains in the upper left hand corner. No big deal, I think, a minor bug is all. Well, I continue playing and realize, not only will that icon never disappear, it affects my other characters. My NPC's will not fight, not even retaliate when being attacked. They would not walk with me, but would just magically appear by my side every few minutes. I could talk with them, whenever the computer decided. Later on, I manage to figure out that though invisible, I could still kill that orc champion spawned at the beginning of the game, which I do, and voila! My NPC's start working again! Ok, that's fine, I think, but even more bugs pop up, I put on a magical invisibility ring, and turn invisible; take it off again, and I remain invisible, unable to talk to any shop owners or finish my quests, because the people think it's a ghost! Some quests, when they become broken, remain in the journal, while other quests get marked as broken quests, correctly (Bring the ale quest, 1 example). Sometimes, when summoning a creature, my other NPC's get angry and start attacking me without provocation. There are tons of bugs like this. My character is a level 22, almost level 23, half-elf mage. He will probably stay that way, unless I can muster up the willpower to go in and suffer through till the end. My advice: If you haven't played the Fallout series, you're missing out. Go try that one instead.

This is one of the most conceptually original RPGs ever made, and I wish its ideas had had a bigger impact on subsequent developers. However, a lot of design errors ranging from bugs to major game balance issues prevent the game from rising to its full potential. Well worth the GOG.com price, but more for an appreciation of what it could have been than for the game itself.

I love and hate this game at the same time. It has amazing story, interesting quests and complex worldbuilding and that means a lot in roleplaying game. Unfortuantely it has many, many problems. First is the combat - it is real time or turn based. Real time combat is too chaotic and difficult to manage (e.g. archers are firing their bows like mashine guns), turn based is slow (sometimes too slow) but managable. I REALLY recommend using turn based for whole game. Game is also really unbalanced, using magic is much easier compared to making technologist. Last thing I must mention is a lot of padding in the end, we need to travel a lot in the end, but if you endrued to this point you won't complain about it too much. In the end Arcanum is dirt cheap and if you endure begginig hours you'll be rewared whit amazing experience.

This game was rushed in its final days. If you dig through the original files, you'll find a text document named "Eh" which simply reads "well, that's that then" hinting at the frustrations of the developers. That said, in its heyday, it garnered some acclaim as the most replayable game of all time. There are tons of alternative endings and endless permutations of characters. Want to be a dwarf with a machine gun and power armor? Or maybe a snobbish elf with a degree in necromancy? Arcanum can do it. I've played this for hundreds of hours and may yet do so again. I love the music, and the lore. The technology and crafting is fun, if not exactly effective, while the magic system is endlessly entertaining. I've spent hours and hours just dabbling. Pro-tip, if you cast a magic reflection shield onto a mechanical arachnid then target it with a polymorph spell, then deactivate the spider, you'll be transformed permanently into a sheep. I've never found a game with such open ended shennanigans. It's unique and probably not to everyone's tastes, but if you like it then you'll love it to bits.

It's based on a modified D&D system. Primary statistics are expanded Wisdom is split into Willpower and Perception which makes more sense and Charisma into Charisma (mental/social) and Beauty (pysical). Skills have have levels and require training using skill/advancement points. You still have levels and xp but every time you level up to gain 1 skill/advancement point that you can buy things with. Backgrounds are a great tool for roleplaying as well and add lots of replayability. Overall I find Arcanum better than og. Only minor weakness for me is that the whole tech/magick mechanic feels a bit uncooked. Many or most guns seem underwhelming and magic system needs needs a re-design. Fun game with great story, world design and a huge map to explore. Look for unofficial arcanum patch UAP 2.0 which restores cut content, adds dark elves and orcs as playable races, high resolution patch, graphics fixes, bug fixes... Improves the game experience quite a lot while keeping it vanilla.