Game Review: Arcanum

[Optimus Prime]

A small interview about an excellent game.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura

A very long-winded title, eh?

I installed the game, it is a simple matter of choosing what options you want installed, where to install it to, and what short cuts you want.

After you've installed it, the game starts up and you are treated to a fairly nice FMV, depicting you aboard the IFS Zephyr starting a new life.

After the FMV finishes, you find yourself in the middle of the IFS Zephyr... where it is burning as a wreck on the floor.

The game progresses and you find yourself immersed in the excellent storyline, voice-overs, combat and character editing.

The background graphics are stunning, exquisitly detailed and remind me much of the Icewind Dale graphics.

The sprites, which are used for character and items are of fairly decent quality, but not as detailed as the background, they stand our enough so that you can tell the difference, but they have a good level of quality to them. Although the running animations look a bit dodgy.

The character creation is amazing, you can advance in three directions. You can take the magick path, where you twist nature to suit your needs, creating fireballs, or summoning mighty golems to do your bidding.

You can take the technological route, creating gun master-pieces, or traps that decapitate your opponent when sprung.

Or you can choose both, equally favouring both sides to get a nice mixture between the two.

Also, there are several different races you can pick, from the humble, but versatile Human, to the dumb but brutish half-ogre, to the nimble, but light-weight halfling.

The AI can be pretty stupid at times. If you come across a group of enemies you cannot defeat, you can move back aways, shoot one and let them come to you, whilst the rest of the group, seemingly ignore what is going on.

The music is fairly decent, treating you to a different tune depending on the area, although nothing special.

The sound effects are OK, once again, nothing too special, but they do the job.

The voice overs are quite good, not cheesy, but not over-dramatical.

The area where the game really shines is the non-linear gameplay, character generation, and the simply amazing storyline.

All in all i would give this game a steady 88%.