Arcanum - Is it as good as it's advertised?

John D Ward · September 16, 2001, 13:43

I looked at the website for this game some time before it was released. It looked good. Now it's been released, could anyone please tell me how good is it?

John-SJ · September 16, 2001, 21:03

IMO, No!

The reviews indicate that Arcanum is an incredibly deep game but I never found it due to too many annoyances. For example, the Auto-Save is worthless. If you are ever killed and realize that you forgot to do a save recently, the last thing you want to find is that the Auto-Save file last saved your character 4 levels back. Or, when you are exploring a town or an area it's pretty frustrating to be jumped by monsters that are level 25 when you just got to level 7!

Arcanum for some reason does not scale random encounters to your level, so if you are doing something out of the order intended by the designer (and there is no way to tell) you can easily encounter creatures that will kill you before you can even do 5% damage to them.

A friend said that he had finally come up with a character that served well after a LOT of experimenting and he had made it about half way through the game without too much trouble. But to me, that's not an RPG. An RPG should be winnable by any well designed character and the game shouldn't force you to come up with some secret combination in order to win. To me that means you have to play the game in only one certain way, if that way matches your particular role-playing style, GREAT! Otherwise, too bad for you!

John-SJ

tishco · September 21, 2001, 13:32

i played the demo, pretty smart cos of the good/evil tech/mage stuff but its annoying cos of the saves and hardity (???)
seeing as i borrowed diablo 2 and expaionsion pack i'm happy and i allready have a crowded strategy list of what to get

Imran Siddiqui · September 24, 2001, 22:39

I had to return it. Didn't want to work on my 'puter

. And I was waiting for it too!

connorkimbro · September 25, 2001, 20:00

It wasn't, i also returned it. BTW, the only computer mag review that i trust are CGW (Computer Gaming World). CGW did NOT give it such great reviews. If you want to really know how the game is, i'd suggest reading that review, and if you still want to try it out, then go for it. Either that, or buy it at an EB, they seem to have a really great return policy. (10 day, full refund for store credit, no questions asked)

Grumbold · September 26, 2001, 15:46

I love the game. Easily the deepest and most involving RPG I have ever played. Lots of different quests to choose from that suit your character style and lots of different ways to complete many quests. Characters react to your PC properly, unlike in BG where you get the same dialogue whether you are an ugly musclebound dwarf warrior or a sickly elf sorceror. The free style of the game does mean that if you go to the wrong place too early you'll get your butt kicked, but that is true in most RPG's. If you're a weakling, you need to find some musclebound friends or learn some summoning spells fast, but all character types are very playable once you get used to the game.

There ARE technical troubles encountered on some PC's but the website advice resolves almost everybody's (the leftovers are certain CD's that just can't cope with the latest copy protection gimmick.) Ask for help there nicely and you should be soon inundated with good suggestions even if a few jerks do interfere. Sierra has a no-questions 60 day refund so you can return the game direct to them even if your store won't take it back. I earnestly urge you to try it out.