Fell deeply in love with Arcanum (so much so that I wrote a faq for it), the creators of which also made Fallout, so I picked up Fallout 1 and 2 and just finished 1 recently.

These rpgs are just amazing. Everything you can want in an rpg is what they give you.

Detailed character customization starts things off in an awesome way. You can create a vast variety of different characters for different playstyles, and it will actually affect how the game plays for you. It's classless, so as long as you gear your character towards something you can, and you can always make interesting hybrid heroes.

The ingame choices are real. You can fight everyone at the first insult, or insult them yourself, or play the hero of the wasteland and save everyone. In almost every instance there is a clear choice that you can make as a player and change the course of a quest or even the ending of the game.

The combat is turn based which gives it a tactical aspect (hence the tactics game sequel) instead of just send your allies to autoattack while you press a few buttons that dominates later rpg gameplay. There are a lot of different weapons, and usually different ammo types for many weapons. There could have been more variety in enemies and how they fight you (if they used grenades or traps for instance) but that doesn't tarnish the experience too much. It is too easy, however, to do extremely well against foes, even the hardest ones.

The real gem of Fallout is the story and setting. Like Arcanum, everything is well written and striking in its detail and depth. There are many times when they force you into very different and intense situations, such as talking down a crazed soldier who has taken a hostage. Not your average quest there, is it my friends? The story is very developed. Through reading transcripts from holodisks and talking to important figures, you can learn a lot of interesting insight into just what happened to cause the problems in the new American wasteland. A lot of it deals with very important human issues, such as the pursuit of science at all costs, or saving the many at the expense of the few, or downright power-hungry ambition and corruption. Just as an example, the first line of dialogue in the intro is "War. War never changes."

A wonderful rpg whose only true fault is that there isn't enough of it. The game can be entirely explored in about 30 hours.

I was with you up until that last line. I bought Fallout 1 brand new when it was first released and after a decade of playthroughs I was still discovering things in the game. But you are right about the game being too short. Fallout was a game I never wanted to end.

I have never played Arcanum. I enjoyed both Fallouts so much that I was almost afraid to try it out and be somehow disappointed.

You should definitely try out Arcanum. It is still one of, it not my favorite game. The mechanics are a lot different than FO, SPECIAL isn't the same (though it is of course still stat and skill based), and the way that stuff like leveling up and combat works is different. The combat engine isn't great, FO's is much, much better - but as long as you actually are playing turn based I don't think it is too bad.

I really enjoy Arcanum because of the premise of the world, and the story of the game (though it is basically built on your character saving the world - but what game isn't at its core?) I really like some of the characters, especially some of the companions you can have, because you can interact with them differently depending on where you bring them (for instance you can ask them about different cities you are in, and what they think of it; or what you should be doing next in the main quest line).

Basically for $6 you aren't going to be terribly disappointed I don't think. I wasn't when I went the other direction in game terms and got Fallout 1 and 2 on GOG after having played Arcanum tons and tons as a kid when it first came out.

If your going to get Arcanum beware of some major differences in combat specially. The real time combat mode is clunky and get you killed fast if you are not used to it. Its a decant system when you get used to it and I find it funner with a mage then turn based since magic is very very over powered. Turn based is confusing since Action points are not shown and can be easy to abused with say grenades. The character system can be intimidating since you only get one point per lvl up to spend on either your stats, skills or magic/technology. I think you get 2 points every 5 lvls. But once you get the hang of the system it is very rewarding and lets you make different characters that have both strengths and weakness.

The story and setting are fantastic, especially the setting, and is better then fallout in my opinion. Races are treated differently and have different stats at the start. And I personally love how long it is. Its not to long and doesn't have the amount of lulz towns or dialogue that fallout 2 has. You wont be disappointed if you love a good story with good characters. If you liked the combat of fallout over anything else then you may be but the uniqueness of it should help you get past that.

Just to correct you on one thing: you actually can see the number of action points your character has. See [this screenshot. The green dots over the UI are the action points of your character. The button on the right hand side of that bar (with the arrow) is the skip to next turn button. That is true, it is very different from the Fallout games, but the one point a level, except for every five levels thing actually works really well because, it should be noted, you will be gaining levels much more quickly than in FO. The default maximum in the game is level 50 (not 21 or whatever FO's is) and so you do end up with plenty of points to spend.

Sorry I meant that you can't see what an action cost easily. I may still be wrong since its been years since I last played but I remember having trouble what actions cost in the middle of a battle.

Yes, that is true I think. There isn't the convenient anything shown on your equipped weapon/spells or whatever.
Though I would assume (but I can't check right now unfortunately) all spells cost the same amount of action points; while weapons with higher speeds (which you can see in the item description) cost less action points. Though there might also be modifiers based on your weapon skill (but I don't think so). And your dexterity (which modifies your speed, so ultimately speed if you have something else effecting it, like a spell) only gives you more action points, instead of lowering the costs.

Ron Perlman is one smoov mofo!


nice write-up; i competely agree (except i bought this game on release.. and have bought at least 4 more copies since then!) this is an amazing RPG.

I am a big fan of Fallout series and Arcanum, but this two games have so different combat system, that you can not compare it. Fallout's combat system is fantastic, create for turn-based tactics, well designed. In other hand Arcanum has both turn-based and real time (in my opinion real time is crap). Turn-based combat in arcanum looks unfinished, not so well designed and can be really frustrating for Fallout fans. But I bite the bullet, play, discover awesome steampunk world and loved this game! :)

I have to vote for Fallout's combat as well. Arcanum's combat is one of the major problems with the game. If I could play a game with Arcanum setting, etc. but with Fallout combat, that would be perfect

Fallout series combat is simply nice.

I appear to be the only person in the world who actually likes Arcanum's combat. Mind you, Fallout's is better, but Arcanum's isn't particularly bad. Then again, maybe I'm biased because I like Arcanum more than Fallout (both great, though). :)

Try taking Fast Shot, or go Unarmed or Melee combat only.

Same here. Since it was released I probably finished it at least 20 times. Even if you don't find something new every time, you can certainly try something different. For example, during my last playthrough I decided to be a greedy mercenary and when I traveled from Vault 13 directly to Shady Sands for the first time, I encountered a merchant with guards. Most times during previous playthroughs I didn't encounter anything during that trip and sometimes (at best) I would either almost fall off cliffs or find some rats.

Right off the bat the game gave me greedy character the perfect opportunity this time. With a huge amount of effort and thanks to my high EN and some stims I managed to slaugter the merchant party and when I first arrived in SS I was already packing several hunting rifles and even some armor IIRC. And I said to myself then - I completed this game so many times and it still manages to surprise me.

Regarding length I pretty much consider it the perfect game because you can finish it in a weekend if you don't linger.