Posted June 07, 2010
If you know anything about Troika's portfolio of work, you've come to expect two things from their games. First, that they will be crippled by a number of bugs ranging from the mildly annoying to game-breakingly problematic, and secondly, that the game will be an impressive, endlessly enjoyable romp through an immersive, atmospheric fantasy world, in spite of it's technical issues.
If you are able to forgive (or at least put up with) the clumsy interface (one that almost makes Planescape: Torment's UI look intuitive by comparison), the glaring balance issues (mostly related to combat), and the somewhat lackluster tileset, you will find a staggeringly open-ended game that takes the cliche gaming themes of 'dungeons and dragons' that we've come to know and love and pairs them with a humorous, mature, and masterfully written narrative that turns the entire concept of a 'save the world from a terrible evil' dungeon crawl on it's head.
The bare bones of the story is a fairly typical 'hero is thrust into a conflict between eternally-battling cosmic forces' trope, but the real meat of the plot comes from the staggering amount of sidequests that flesh out the Arcanum universe. During your adventure, you'll wrestle with complex ideas regarding the problems and benefits of over-industrialization and social inequality in a world inhabited by races as diverse as they are are fundamentally similar
Whatever sort of character you like to play as, whether it be a kindly, sword and shield-wielding knight, a haughty and head-strong magician, a cunning, manipulative, pistol-slinging thief, or even a bumbling ogre who speaks only in grunts, the game has a path custom-tailored to your liking. This, coupled with how staggeringly large the game's world actually is, the game's 'replayability' is virtually infinite. I play through Arcanum at least once a year and find myself discovering something new each time. I could not recommend it more for someone who enjoyed games like Fallout or Planescape: Torment and wished there more games were made in that general direction.
It's worth nothing that, as with all Troika products, there are a number of fan-made 'patches' which are worth searching for, as they greatly improve the game's stability by several orders of magnitude.
If you are able to forgive (or at least put up with) the clumsy interface (one that almost makes Planescape: Torment's UI look intuitive by comparison), the glaring balance issues (mostly related to combat), and the somewhat lackluster tileset, you will find a staggeringly open-ended game that takes the cliche gaming themes of 'dungeons and dragons' that we've come to know and love and pairs them with a humorous, mature, and masterfully written narrative that turns the entire concept of a 'save the world from a terrible evil' dungeon crawl on it's head.
The bare bones of the story is a fairly typical 'hero is thrust into a conflict between eternally-battling cosmic forces' trope, but the real meat of the plot comes from the staggering amount of sidequests that flesh out the Arcanum universe. During your adventure, you'll wrestle with complex ideas regarding the problems and benefits of over-industrialization and social inequality in a world inhabited by races as diverse as they are are fundamentally similar
Whatever sort of character you like to play as, whether it be a kindly, sword and shield-wielding knight, a haughty and head-strong magician, a cunning, manipulative, pistol-slinging thief, or even a bumbling ogre who speaks only in grunts, the game has a path custom-tailored to your liking. This, coupled with how staggeringly large the game's world actually is, the game's 'replayability' is virtually infinite. I play through Arcanum at least once a year and find myself discovering something new each time. I could not recommend it more for someone who enjoyed games like Fallout or Planescape: Torment and wished there more games were made in that general direction.
It's worth nothing that, as with all Troika products, there are a number of fan-made 'patches' which are worth searching for, as they greatly improve the game's stability by several orders of magnitude.