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Date |
: Sept 3rd, 2001 |
| Genre |
: RPG |
| Developer |
: Troika Games |
| Author |
: Jin-Ning Tioh |
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Beyond the ability to create your own unique character, Arcanum also features a massive and sprawling story and game world. The main quest is overwhelming in its own right, but the game also offers thousands of side-quests. Some of these side quests include settling a dispute between two seers, freeing the spirit of an old woman, as well as collecting taxes for the king of Cumbria, to name a few. Side quests can help you earn a reputation in towns and cities, helping you to either foster closer ties with its inhabitants, or to earn a notorious name for yourself. While some side quests will later relate to the main story, most of them are just a way for you to gain experience and items. In addition, many of the side quests forces you to make a moral decision, which alters your alignment towards good or evil.
Combat in Arcanum is a very simple and standard affair - Click on an enemy and your character will attack. The followers that accompany you throughout your journey will automatically attack any nearby enemies, and they'll also heal you. Combat comes in two flavors - real-time and turn-based, toggled at anytime by hitting the space bar. Combat is about what you'd expect - enemies attack you in a frenzy and you fight them off. Be alert as enemies can inflict injuries ranging from scars to limps. These can seriously affect your statistics. The game also suffers from serious slowdowns from time to time, and occasionally it will freeze for a few seconds. This is especially annoying since my gaming rig is a Thunderbird 1.2 GHz with a 64MB GeForce2 Pro; slowdowns should be the least of my worries.
Also, playing the game as a magician or technologist can affect your playing style heavily. Several technological items like revolvers and healing salves can be created by combining several items, 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. Magick is the usual fanfare - Just learn em' and cast em'. In addition, a Non-Player Character's reaction towards you will be heavily affected. For example, if you play the technologist, folks 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. Some might even not join your cause! You can however, choose to walk the middle path by keeping a balance on your magical and technological skills. Hell, being male or female even affects the side quests you can take! For example, as a female, you get to 'service' customers for a brothel. You'll also be forced to take other measures to enter the Wellington Gentlemen's Club in Tarant by either killing Mr. Wellington and his bodyguard, or by 'servicing' him and then paying 200 gold pieces.
The level of interactivity within the game is amazing. Use dynamite to blow up those safes who just refuse to open. Take off your clothes to make someone beg you to have the decency to put them back on. Drink wine to temporarily raise your strength to insane heights! Combined with your considerable arsenal of skills and weapons, nothing can stand in your way! Okay, maybe a few technological horrors or well armed brigands here and there, but still...
The game also contains a limited 'cheating' ability, known as fate points. Fate points can be acquired through several certain acts and quests that the player must perform. They can be used to do certain actions that will guarantee 100% success, such as lock picking, pick pocketing, inflicting critical hits and so on. One hilarious situation saw me snatching of the suit a guy was wearing to leave him standing in nothing but his briefs. However, do try to save your fate points for emergency situations, as they are very rare and hard to come by in the game.
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, blessings and curses, 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 requests 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.
For those of you who enjoy adventuring and slashing through baddies with friends, Arcanum offers a multiplayer mode where you can play with or against friends. Though multiplayer is fun, it's ultimately a little disappointing. The multiplayer maps are much smaller than those in the single-player game, the game suffers from lag, and since you can't import your character from the single-player game you have to start off with a low-level character.
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