Arcanum: of Steamworks & Magick Obscura

4 more product images	Platform: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95 Vivendi Universal, 2001, CD-ROM Customer Rating: 145 reviews   Recommend Our Price: $53.98 (Price details) Availability: Usually ships in 4-5 business days. Ships from and sold by Hitgaming Video Games.

• Automatic character management features let you delve into the quest at hand for action-oriented players.
• Explore a huge game environment, with dozens of cities, dungeons, and towns to find.
• Meet more than 300 unique characters and 280 different monster types across the land of Arcanum.
• Multiple paths to victory abound in the scores of quests surrounding the main storyline.
• Accurate day/night cycles affect the gameplay, from combat to thieving skills.

Arcanum is the first game to come from the development house Troika Games, LLC, started by former Fallout team members Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson. This team takes the depth of gameplay and world-building in role-playing games to entirely new levels of realism and excitement. Arcanum creates a compelling new world where magic and technology coexist in an uneasy balance. As Arcanum opens, the mechanical age has only recently arrived in this ancient land where Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and other races have learned to survive in the new sprawling industrialized cities. But this radical shift from magic to technology has created a potentially explosive situation. As the townspeople and other thinkers begin mass production of light bulbs, batteries, eyeglasses and guns, the Mages grow leery. This tightly wound setting is the starting point from which the character must set out on his quest. Classless, point-based attribute system allows for limitless creativity in guiding your character's development. Complex stat system underlies every event taking place within Arcanum

Most role-playing games are set in a fantasy world, and if they're not directly related to Dungeons & Dragons, they at least follow the blueprint of the D&D rules. Not so with Arcanum. Set in the world of steampunk — a genre of fiction that puts forth the idea that computers and other advanced technology existed back in the late 1800s — Arcanum's world is fantastic and instantly recognizable at the same time. The game begins with the crash of the L.F.S. Zephyr, which you were aboard. Things go from bad to worse as assassins try to kill you. Meanwhile, you struggle to understand why people think you are the reincarnation of "The Living One."

Developed by Troika Games — which is staffed by many of the people who created the excellent Fallout games — Arcanum takes the conventions of the RPG genre and turns them on their head. Instead of binding players to a specific character class, such as Paladin or Barbarian, Arcanum lets you create a completely unique character. Experience points can be distributed in any area, so you can create a character that's a thief, magic user, and gunslinger all in one. In addition, you can specialize in either magic or technology, which will impact how the other characters in the game deal with you.

The world of Arcanum is simply massive, and the story is extremely detailed. The main plot will provide you with 30 to 40 hours of gameplay, and the side quests will add another 10 to 20 hours to that figure. The quests run the gambit from fetching items to finding a cure for lycanthropy, and they're all well designed.

Arcanum is viewed from a third-person isometric view — similar to Diablo II and Baldur's Gate II — and the graphics easily compare with any other RPG on the market. The characters are modeled nicely, and the backgrounds and structures are very detailed and really add substance to the game. Unfortunately, even on a high-end system such as an Athlon 1.33 GHz, the game suffers from long loading times, and will occasionally slow down during combat.

Those minor problems aside, Arcanum is a sensational game. The open-ended nature of the character-creation system guarantees replayability, and the setting and story will offer relief for anyone tired of Diablo II's dungeon crawls. — Kilmic Robbins

• Great story
• Numerous quests
• Ability to completely customize character

• Long loading times
• Interface can be overwhelming at times

Imagine a place of wonder, where magic and technology hold equal sway, and an adventurer might just as easily wield a flintlock pistol as a flaming sword. A place where great industrial cities house castle keeps and factories, and home to dwarves, humans, orcs, and elves alike. A place of ancient ruins and steam works, of magic and machines, of sorcery and science. Welcome to the land of Arcanum.

Title: Arcanum: of Steamworks & Magick Obscura
Sales Rank: 5529 in Software
Publisher: Vivendi Universal
Platform: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95, CD-ROM
Recommended Age: From 17 years to 20 years
Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches, 0.05 pounds

• PC Gamer (1-year)

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