dmarusz's Full Review: Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura for Wind...
One of the great games that you may have never seen or heard anything about is a jewel that needs to be played. This game is Arcanum. It is a great role playing game that most will like, even those who are not typically RPG buffs.
This game is similar to the Fallout series. If you liked that series, this one rivals it and is sometimes even better. The whole game is enthralling that is based around the plot and the gameplay. The plot involves a place where gnomes, dwarfs, humans and much more coexist. It is a common uncovering of who's the bad guy, but it is interesting because it is placed historically around the industrial revolution. So, you can gadget things together, or you can use magic. Old ways or new ways, it's up to you.
I think that the multitude of ways to do things really set up what is great about it. You can be bad or good or somewhere in between. This isn't that different from a lot of modern RPG's, but whichever way you pick becomes a rich developed way to go. You're not wishing you had picked a different way because the story would have been better. There are also many individual choices that you can really make the game specific to you. Let's see if I can break these down.
In the beginning, you may set your ability scores similarly to a D&D game. However, you can use boost things in different ways. The biggest way is your charisma. Not that different from a usual game, but it directly affects how many people that you can have in your party. So, you can play the tough lone wolf, or the lesser adept leader with many other who can help you gang up on your opponent. It also helps you jump up in discussion where you can get different answers to question that you normally wouldn't. You'll also even get different quests based on it.
All of your traits are like this. They all seem to have real importance. I know that I feel that in some games, I have a choice of boosting strength or intelligence but it doesn't have much broad effect. In another words, I can deal out 20 points of damage with a sword or 20 points of damage with magic. It's just a thin veil for the same thing. Here, you choice appear to make a difference.
In getting back to the group comparison, battle isn't tedious having multiple persons, as in some game where your team goes face first into someone's fist. It's turn based and multiple strategies can be delivered based on your decisions. In fact, the turn-based aspect in this game came off real well. This option was better than others like it.
In going beyond your attributes, you can also pick up many skills. Like I was saying before, you can follow a magic path or a machine path, or try to straddle the two. In any path, it breaks down into different studies where you can investigate many different ways. This makes for excellent replay-ability.
Even the characters and places that you run into are diverse. Your teammates can be diverse. Townsfolk are not all the same saying the same things. The town themselves are quite different. One city in particular was so large it felt like a real city. It was great except for the fact it took me days to remember which street was where.
All of this packaged up with an enthralling plot makes this a winner. Now, are action loving guys going to find this to be great. Maybe not everything, but they'll like it. It will probably be a turn off in the fact that graphically it is very simple. It's not a shareware type of game, but it's not Half Life, either. The sounds will be looked at as mediocre to bad. I actually found them entertaining. The soundtrack and effects are minimalistic but they have a nice fit into the game. They just put you into the game and let the game playing take you over.
Other bad things stem from the games good points. You really need to level up a lot in order to really shape your player. The problem is that you get beat up a lot on that way such that in some spots it just doesn't seem like your ever getting past a set of villains. This is true in a scenario very early on in the game. People may even be too unique sometimes. The other problem is with leveling, you don't want to make a mistake with your points that you can assign. I tried to start out with a well-rounded character and almost lived to regret it. Luckily, I caught on just in time. If you get stuck with this, you may even feel like starting over is a better option.
However, don't let these bad things affect your decision. Just be aware. As I started off, this is a real gem. Give it a try.
NEW RETAIL EDITION Character Creation: No More Character Classes. Arcanum uses a classless, point-based system where players use points to "buy" attri...More at eBay
Automatic character management features let you delve into the quest at hand for action-oriented players. Explore a huge game environment, with dozens...More at Amazon Marketplace
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