Arcanum:
Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Developer: Troika
Games
Publisher: Sierra Studios
Projected Release Date: February 2001
Platform:

By Mike Schwab

Picture this–as a wizard on a quest to find a holy relic, you decide
to invoke a lightning bolt spell on one of your unfortunate foes. However,
in a sad turn of events, a bullet from his assault rifle suddenly cuts
you down. You drop to the ground–and as you gaze over at the dark, ominous
castle nearby, you see a steam train race off into the distance.

Not exactly your typical adventure scenario, is it? That’s exactly what
Troika Games has in mind for its inaugural title, Arcanum: Of Steamworks
and Magick Obscura. Bucking the traditional RPG setting, Troika is
creating a fascinating world where high fantasy meets the industrial age
and magic collides with technology. This really isn’t surprising–this
title comes from the minds of the designers that created the groundbreaking,
postapocalyptic RPGs Fallout and Fallout 2.

Details on the story remain mostly under wraps so far. The days of legendary
battles with dragons are over. With the advent of good conquering evil,
people have had time to focus on science, thus producing a sort of industrial
or mechanical age. The mages and the wizards are, of course, opposed to
this, as they prefer to rely on their magical skills. In any case, your
find your character en route to a well-deserved vacation one day (via
a zeppelin) when you crash and are suddenly thrust into the position of
having to save the world of Arcanum. That’s pretty vague, but Troika insists
on keeping it that way to avoid giving away the story ahead of time.

We do know that there will be a large number of main quests to complete
(all with multiple paths to victory), as well as what could be up to 100
secondary quests. While embarking on your journey across the gigantic
land of Arcanum (which might take you 20 game days to walk from one end
to the other), you may run across up to 280 different types of monsters.
As impressive as that are the 300 or so distinctive characters (or NPCs)
you can potentially interact with amidst the dozens of towns and dungeons
scattered throughout the land.

Of course, any RPG worth its salt leans heavily toward character creation,
and Arcanum doesn’t disappoint. The game implements an extremely
detailed stats structure that provides great freedom in creating your
own personal hero. Much like Fallout, it works on a classless system.
After picking your race and gender, the possibilities are endless. There
are dozens of skills, spells, degrees and disciplines to learn and choose
from, providing unlimited replay potential. Conversely, a nice alternative
for the nongeek types are the many preset profiles you can choose from
in case you want to skip the prologue and get right to the action.

The world of Arcanum is displayed in the classic up-and-away isometric
view, a la Diablo or Baldur’s Gate. The graphics look
quite impressive with great detail and vivid colors. One feature the crew
at Troika is talking up is the accurate shadow and lighting effects, which
vary depending on the time of day inside the game. These true night and
day cycles serve a greater purpose than just being pretty pictures to
gawk at–they directly affect the difficulty of some skills within the
game. For instance, fighting might be easier during the day, but your
chances of thieving increase at night after the sun goes down.

Arcanum is remarkably full-featured. Fans of both turn-based and
real-time action will be pleased to know that both modes are available
throughout the game. In addition, there are multiplayer capabilities and
a comprehensive editor that allows the creation of whole new worlds and
campaigns. While the game seems extremely striking and packed full of
features, the only concern is whether Troika is trying to tackle too many
areas at once. However, given their track record, I’m confident the talented
folks that created Fallout can make Arcanum a winner.

Minimum System Requirements:
Windows 95/98
Pentium 200 (Pentium 266 or higher preferred)
32 MB RAM (64 MB RAM preferred)
500 MB HD space
4x CD-ROM drive (8x preferred)
DirectX certified video card with at least 4 MB of video RAM (8 MB preferred)
16-bit DirectX(R) compatible Soundcard
IPX and TCP/IP LA, or Modem TCP/IP Internet Connection (optional/preferred)