Welcome to Arcanum, a land rich with wonder, mystery and excitement and for the prepared traveler - A land filled with arcane arts of magic and the new arts of technology. Built upon almost six thousand years of history, Arcanum also holds many strange and horrifying dangers for the unwary traveler. Magic or technology, good or evil, it is up to you, traveler, to decide. Be wary however, to choose wisely, for death lurks behind every corner in this dangerous world. So allow us to give you a brief overview, traveler, so that you might better face the challengers and dangers ahead.
Riding on board the zeppelin IFS Zephyr, you feel a calm sense of tranquility as you approach your destination. Suddenly however, that peace is broken by the sound of gun fire. Looking out the window, you see two strange, mechanical flying attack craft zooming towards you, firing away. Stranger still, the crafts are being piloted by ogres, well known for their inaptitude with anything requiring thinking skills. The result - The ogres manage to get themselves killed, while the IFS Zephyr crashes in a fiery ball of fire close to the Shrouded Hills, leaving you as the sole survivor of the crash. However, a gnome nearby beckons to you, and bids you to return his signet ring to a boy who will know what to do with it. He also mentions that something is about to happen, before he takes his last breath and dies. After searching the wreckage for anything salvageable, a strange man approaches you, believing you to be the reincarnation of an elven deity in the Panarii religion, prophesized to arrive on the wings of fire, and known as the Living One. After battling through the denizens of the wild with your new found companion, you arrive at the shrine prophesizing your return. You also meet a strange elven stranger, who immediately attacks you after being told you are the sole survivor of the crash. Later, you find yourself in the village of Shrouded Hill. Here, you learn that the ring you received was crafted by the well respected firm of P. Schuyler & Sons in the city of Tarant. However, the only bridge leading out of the village is being blockaded by a band of brigands. And so begins your mysterious adventures in the land of Arcanum...
In this epic role-playing adventure, you must first create your own character, or pick one out of the many pre-configured personalities available, complete with background history and statistics. A long list of history backgrounds are also available for your selection, such as Lady's Man, Idiot Savant, Raised by Monks, Scared of the Dark and so on. These backgrounds will serve to affect your statistics, for example, take a look at a lady's man : Women swoon whenever they are near you. Being unusually good looking, you gain a large bonus to beauty (+6). Unfortunately, all that primping and powdering has you lacking in the more manly virtues... You lose points for Constitution (-2), Strength (-2) and Dexterity (-2).
Don't be struck by the seemingly complex character editor though, for it truly is not once you look over it carefully. You'll soon find yourself purchasing extra attributes which enhances your character from many different expects using Character Points. Out of all the various kinds of useful information you can find here, perhaps the most important of all would be your statistics. These are divided into two main categories : Physical and Cerebral. Your physical statistics include strength, dexterity, constitution and beauty, while your cerebral stats include your willpower, perception, intelligence and charisma. These statistics serve to decide how you react in live situations. For example, dexterity decides how fast your character can react to a situation.
Another other useful functions of the character editor is truly unique to the genre. It allows you to learn three categories : Skills, Spell Colleges and TechnologicalDiscipline. Skills consists of social, combat, thieving and technological skills. Combat skills include dodge, bow, melee and throwing. Thieving skills include prowling, spotting traps, pick pocket and backstab. Social skills include gambling, haggle, heal, persuasion. Technological skills include picking locks, disarming traps, repair and firearms. Now for the arcane arts of magic, known here as Spell Colleges. Spells are divided into 16 categories : Conveyance, Divination, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Force, Mental, Meta, Morph, Nature, Necromantic Black, Necromantic White, Phantasm, Summoning and Temporal. Each college has five different spells each. As for the new arts of technology, they are divided as follows : Herbology, Electric, Gun Smithy, Smithy, Chemistry, Explosives, Mechanical and Therapeutics. Your level of expertise in each field of technology decides what technological wonders you can create. This comes in the form of degrees, which can be purchased or negated.
Other useful windows are the Auto-level schemes, which distributes your character points accordingly ; Magick Tech Meter, which shows your alignment towards magic or technology ; and finally your alignment towards good or evil.
I played the game with more of a flare for technology. This proved to be very useful, as most missions in the demo require heavy usage of mechanical items. Several items will be like combining filaments and lamps to create a electric light via electric, combining iron ore and steel to create pure iron via smithy, as well as roots with leaves to create healing antidotes via herbology. This however, has consequences. Non-Player Characters dealing with magic will have a negative reaction towards you, as well as refusing to sell you any of their goods. The same applies to using magic too heavily. You can however, choose to walk the middle path by keeping a balance on your magical and technological skills.
Arcanum's graphical user interface is very well designed, including tabs for mixing new technological wonders as well as using learned spells and skills. The bar above the information box also allows you to place tabs for your favorite spells and potions. Finally, the bar above the screen displays icons for your character statistics, journal, maps and inventory in that order. These tabs although useful, requires some practice for one to become familiar with.
The log book employed within Arcanum is a life saver. It has several categories, such as your reputation, quests, information and other useful sections. You won't have to make many additional notes yourself as newly uncovered information and gossip are automatically recorded down in the book. To access them, thumb open your log book and flip through the various pages to find out what you need. Nice and simple not to mention effective in maintaining your grasp on everything that's going on in this huge world.
Kudos for the use of waypoints in the world map, otherwise you might be wandering about forever in this vast, vast world, trying to determine how best to reach your next destination. And the wilderness is no area to simply wander about aimlessly, as many of its denizens are not very friendly, and might tear your head off at a moments notice. To use a waypoint, simply double click on your destination in the world map and push the go button to start your travels. The journey will stop if any unfriendly denizens of the wild block your way. Once you've dispatched whatever enemies the encounter had to offer, simply reselect the waypoint and press the go button to continue on your journey again.
I also heartily recommend that you save your game at every turn as using some items could prove to be rather injurious. For example, during an early quest, should you deem to accept such, a wizard will request you to blow away the town's local steam engine in the Shrouded Hills. After taking care of the guard at the engine, I tried using the dynamite on the steam engine. Unfortunately, this lead me to locating several thousand pieces of my character scattered all over the floor. Thankfully, I had the good fortune of being able to reload the game to try all over again.
Arcanum employs an isometric view which provide gamers with a complete view of vision in their current locations. Unfortunately, Arcanum's graphics is not quite as detailed as I would have expected, nor does it possess the depth of some other RPG titles. But the game's graphics are effective. And believe me, when it's dark you can barely see a thing. You might want to combine a lamp and a filament in order to light your way through the darkness. Or, you could always choose to sleep until morning.
Sounds in Arcanum are good but not fantastic. Voices are also used only in major conversations. To converse with others, simply click on the desired character, and a hailing statement appears. You then select one out of several responses for your character’s reply or query. The NPC then responds with varied replies. In some cases this sort of conversation may go on for some time as you learn more and more facts concerning some scenario or mission you must complete. At other times, the response might simply be a simple farewell, as the NPC is not an important contact at this juncture of the game. The music however, is a different matter entirely. If you absolutely enjoy sad and haunting music, then Arcanum is meant for you. In short, the music of Arcanum is fantastic.
Arcanum looks to be pure RPG fun even for the dedicated hard-core RPG fan. Not many recent games have had this much depth as there is in Arcanum. Throw in a dash of magic and technology for good measure, and you have one of the most fantastic games ever written. This is one game that is definitely worth waiting for. If these early indications are anything to judge by, this is going to be one heck of a game. In the meantime, we'll bail you out with some slick screenshots from the game.
