Torment and Arcanum

Arcanum

So I heard about the game Arcanum in the replaying old games thread and decided to do a google search on it. That came up with the official page of the game, which I thought would be a good start to gather some more information about this game.

Well, I was most delighted to see that there was a demo, excuse me, a PLAYABLE demo available on the site. What's better to check out a game than a demo of it huh?

Anyway, loaded it down, installed it, played it (only a bit, but) enough to be quite enthusiastic about it.

Now my question is the following, is it worth it to get the full version? What are the big downsides of the game? Do the downies and the uppies balance out? So I'm here to ask you guys some advice before I put the time-money-energy in searching and buying it (searching would be the hardest, as I haven't seen it in any stores, and not too many copies are sold on ebay).

Thanks for the replies, guys ;)
 
Sorry for not contributing, but are actually saying you only just discovered Arcanum? The first game by Troika, founded by members of Black Isle?
 
I usually describe it as a spiritual successor to Fallout, though that probably isn't very accurate. There are a lot of similarities between the two RPGs, though Arcanum lacks Fallout's style. It is also incredibly unbalanced with melee combat being way overpowered and guns a masochist's weapon, largely. But it is incredibly deep and allows for a lot of different play styles. I highly recommend this game. Plus, you can get it for pretty cheap now.
 
Re: Arcanum

clercqer said:
Now my question is the following, is it worth it to get the full version? What are the big downsides of the game? Do the downies and the uppies balance out? So I'm here to ask you guys some advice before I put the time-money-energy in searching and buying it (searching would be the hardest, as I haven't seen it in any stores, and not too many copies are sold on ebay).
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Arcanum has a great story, I'm not to keen about it due to the fact that the combat was kinda screwed up. I wouldn't give $30 for it, or even $20, only too bad I already did tho :P

Still it's a fun game to play, I know there are different opinions about the game.
 
Re: Arcanum

clercqer said:
Now my question is the following, is it worth it to get the full version?
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My sources say yes.

clercqer said:
What are the big downsides of the game?
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Wildly imbalanced combat system, favouring certain character builds and punishing most. Oodles of skills, techs, spells etc. that are impractical or pointless. Diablo-style dungeon chopping. Deteriorating equipment. Clichéd story elements. It looks ridiculous when your party runs across the screen.

clercqer said:
Do the downies and the uppies balance out?
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Signs point to no.
 
Shadowbird said:
Sorry for not contributing, but are actually saying you only just discovered Arcanum? The first game by Troika, founded by members of Black Isle?
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I only discovered Arcanum about a month ago. It had a really great concept in my opinion.
 
I'm merging, since there already is a topic dedicated to arcanum.

By the way, the game pwns.

I'm actually helping work on a d20 PnP RPG that is steampunk - Wolsung :) Too bad it's only going to be in Polish :P
 
Shadowbird said:
Sorry for not contributing, but are actually saying you only just discovered Arcanum? The first game by Troika, founded by members of Black Isle?
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Yeah... um... but... well... errr. :oops:

Silencer said:
I'm merging, since there already is a topic dedicated to arcanum.
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Sorry, didn't know and maybe should have looked. :?

alec said:
It sure is.
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I seemed to notice you are quite a big fan of the game yes... :P

alec said:
There is a budget version available, in the XPLOSIV series. It's in a DVD case, though, so I doubt you'll find the excellent manual in there...
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Well, guess that's only a minor problem as they manual is most-likely on the cd in pdf-format. Real manual books are easier to use of course, but what can a man do about it huh? :)

I read through the whole thread, and well, although it's true that my spirits have been dampened a bit, I can't say the arguments persuaded me to give up the idea of getting it. I'm going to play the demo a bit further, and decide then (most-likely to get it).
 
Re: Arcanum

Per said:
Wildly imbalanced combat system, favouring certain character builds and punishing most. Oodles of skills, techs, spells etc. that are impractical or pointless. Diablo-style dungeon chopping. Deteriorating equipment. Clichéd story elements. It looks ridiculous when your party runs across the screen.
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Fallout and Fallout 2: "Imbalanced combat system, favouring certain character builds and punishing most. Oodles of skills, traits, perks, weapons etc. that are impractical or pointless. Lotsa mutated critter chopping. Pretty moronic NPCs. Clichéd story elements. Plus, it looks truly ridiculous when your party runs across the screen."

:P
 
Did the demo again, and found an online store that sells it for £4.99 (the store you pointed me to only ships within the US I think, alec). Anyway, I just found out one of my buddies has the game and didn't really enjoy it much, so I said: hmm, now I'm kinda doubting, but he was like: well, just buy it and see for yourself. Of course he is right, I mean, it's not like I'm spending €50 on it or something, I can get it shipped to my place for about €12-13.

SO I'MMA GONNA BE DOIN' TEH FONKEY SHIT and just buy that heap! :)

On a totally different note, the PS:T site mentioned earlier with Platter's fix pack on it, has changed, the correct address is now:
http://www.planescape-torment.org/

Thanks everybody for doing your part in persuading me to get it. :P
 
I recently managed to get myself a copy of this game and have been playing it for a few weeks. It's clear the influence FO has had but this game isn't FO.

As others have noted, the game isn't without it's flaws but there's rarely a game which doesn't have one or two niggles. The major disappointment I had with the game was the manual only came on the CD and understanding the way things works aids the enjoyment of the game... but hard to print out a 183 page manual (although I did get the missus to do Pers walkthrough... an inch thick and bound ;))

I've been trying to play a balanced character, niether good/evil or tech/magick since this way you have the greatest options open to you... there are around 10 quests available for the Tarant Thevies Underground alone. The game is huge!


Cheers,

Eric
 
Eric the Viking said:
The major disappointment I had with the game was the manual only came on the CD and understanding the way things works aids the enjoyment of the game... but hard to print out a 183 page manual (although I did get the missus to do Pers walkthrough... an inch thick and bound ;))
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Holy smoke, I don't even remember writing the Arcanum guide. I must have worked on it while drunk and asleep!
 
Per, old chap, he's referring to printing out your guide and how that is a comparable action to printing out Arcanum's manual.
 
Eric the Viking said:
I've been trying to play a balanced character, niether good/evil or tech/magick since this way you have the greatest options open to you... there are around 10 quests available for the Tarant Thevies Underground alone. The game is huge!
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I almost wish Arcanum had been smaller. The amount of replayability in the game is immense do to all the different character types available and the Good/Evil Tech/Magick paths. However, since the game is so big, it's really hard to get through it with all the various character types and I've found myself playing a character up til about halfway through Tarant and then calling it quits again.
 
And as beforementioned, they are unusually unbalanced....
What i prefer ? Well, I'm playing torment as we speak, so take a wild guess....
Arcanum is lying in the pile of dusty cd's in the corner.... :twisted:
 
Kotario said:
Per, old chap, he's referring to printing out your guide and how that is a comparable action to printing out Arcanum's manual.
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Indeed... I should have been a little clearer... your guide, Per, once in Word and then converted to PDF came to 230 odd pages... a bit beyond my little Canon bubblejet but not for the 3000 page per minute (or something like that ;)) laser printer the missus has access to.

SimpleMinded said:
I almost wish Arcanum had been smaller. The amount of replayability in the game is immense do to all the different character types available and the Good/Evil Tech/Magick paths. However, since the game is so big, it's really hard to get through it with all the various character types and I've found myself playing a character up til about halfway through Tarant and then calling it quits again.
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I agree. There is quite simply so much to do and see it's easy to lose sight of what you're doing and where you're going... and just give up in the process. It's not helped by the fact that your actions seem to have very little physical effect on the world. Still, I'd rather have too many choices than too few.

I may play the game again soon but this time rather than being the goodie two shoes I'll be a rat bastard. Buy why is it that all the evil weapons and armour damage the player?


Cheers,

Eric
 
Eric the Viking said:
Kotario said:
Per, old chap, he's referring to printing out your guide and how that is a comparable action to printing out Arcanum's manual.
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Indeed... I should have been a little clearer...
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I understood that actually. :wink:
 
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