Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Underappreciated"

Arcanum is a highly underated game. It seems that not too many people have heard of it, especially in this day and age of Online Gaming such as the highly popular WoW.

Story: 9.0 / 10

Let's start from scratch shall we? When you enter the first person mode, you will have the options to either select a pre-made character, that will add the skill points automatically to whatever the character specializes in. Or you can totally customize your own character from scratch, which is obviously the most fun of the two.
There are many different options when creating a character. Different races such as Dwarf, human, elf, half-elf, ogre, orc, gnome etc. And then you will be allowed to select the gender before selecting a unique "background" for the char. The background is basically the "story" of the your character. It sets up a past, and changes around your stats accordingly. Once you have selected what you want, your on your way.

The game starts out with a cut scene of a zepplin flying through the sky. Suddenly some plains come out of nowhere, and shoot the zomplin down. Then there is a more lively cut scene where you are digging through scraps of metal to find someone who survived the crash. It appears to be a gnome, asking you to take his ring and find the owner. From here the adventure starts.

Gameplay: 9.5/10

The game plays much like the very popular PC game, Diablo. You simply click your mouse to move your character around, engage in battle, or even return to your standard, neutral, stance. However, unlike diablo, this game is much more in-depth.
Throughout the course of the game, you level as you kill creatures and complete quest, exactly like most other RPG's around. However; with Arcanum there are a variety of options to select from to upgrade with your points awarded at levels. You get 1 point per level, 2 points every 5 levels. You can upgrade your standard stats (which you will need to do to progress through other skills), such as strength, intelligence, health etc. There are probably like 8 different stats on this game to increase. Then there are skills you can increase. Unlike Diablo, you don't just simply work your way down through a skill tree. You have to increase the specific stat that goes with the skill. And there are much more skills to choose from than Diablo.
For example: if you want your char to be a thief, then you will want to increase your pick lock, pick pocket and disarm trap skills (just a few that i can remember off hand). To increase these however, you will need to increase the stat that goes with them, which i think is perception, might be wrong though, its been awhile.
Not only do you have to increase those stats, but you must also find someone who can teach you more about the specific area, much like going to college for a degree in a certain field. At first you are an novice i think, then apprentice and finally master. The first two people are not too hard to find, and you usually get hints where to find them. However the thiird person is fairly difficult to find, and from my experiance on the game you have to do a quest to get to them, although i haven't learned ever single skill up to master.

The gameplay overall is awesome. The skill tree and stats are very in-depth and do take some planning out to be succsesful. and there is no resetting them if you mess up. Another fun factor is that you can engage townfolk as well. Once you are strong enough to take on all the guards of course. And if you happen to kill a shop owner, and your pick lock skill is high enough, you can pick lock thier chest and steal all thier gold and items they were selling. Be cautious though, the shop owners do not respawn!
Although i loved the gameplay in Arcanum, there are a couple of downfalls as well. One major downfall is in the skill tree. If you decide to become a mage (which is my personal favorite) then you can become, litterally, unkillable. Really, the only skill you need to learn is a lvl 1 skill called "Harm". Once you learn this skill and build up enough mana to use Harm over and over without running out, then you are set for the rest of the game. You will kill most everything in only 1-3 casts. The final boss even dies before you cast 5 or so harm spells. Don't take advantage of the power of the spell, and you can still have some fun with the game. However the spell does come in handy for when you are facing powerful monsters in the wild that you shouldnt be able to kill yet, or angry level 20 shop owners when you are not even level 10 yet.
One other downfall is the Follower aspect of the game. Now i love the fact that you can create a small army of Followers that accompany you throughout the game. They each have thier own special abilites as well, from healer to riflemen. However, if you gain the right followers and enough of them, then you literally dont have to do anything. Just stand there and watch them go to work against your enemies. If you are a healer, you can let them do all the fighting while you heal them and ressurect if needed.

Music and graphics: 9.5 / 10

The graphics are what you would expect out of an older game like arcanum, though they are much better than the original Diablo...much better. The graphics resemble that of Diablo II as a matter of fact, if not even better than that in my opinion.
The soundtrack consists of classical music. You know, violins and such. I happen to absolutley love the music, even through for the most part its the same song for daytime, battles and so on. But the music is relaxing and really makes the game fun to play after a stressful day.

Overall: 9.5 / 10

Overall Arcanum is simply a good game. The graphics may not be up-to-par with games we are used to now and days, but this game goes beyond graphic values. The storyline is pretty interesting, and will keep you wondering as you go through the game trying to find and elder who leaves you notes telling you where to go next. Several side stories are of course introduced throughout the entire game. And with the open world enviornment, you can run around aimlessly in the wilderness for hours, journey through every house and shop in any of the towns to search for quests, or simply stay on track and complete the main storyline.
The replay value i would give a 9.5 on, because there are so many options you can change from game to game. For example, make an elf and be a mage. Beat the game? Not a problem, next create a dwarf and become a mechanic. Create guns armor traps explosives and other inventions. Or mix it up, create a dwarf mage or an elven mechanic. Make a human bandit or a gnome thief. There are many different possibilites for this game. Arcanum is well worth the money.