I’m yet to play Troika’s fondly-remembered, industrial-fantasy 2D RPG Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura, despite a) it having basically the best name in the world and b) my owning a copy that’s stared challenging at me from my game draw for years. The release of one Drog Black Tooth’s resolution-embiggening mod for it, a la the gorgeous Planescape high-definitioniser, may be enough to finally lure me over. I can’t personally attest to its reliability just yet, but unlike the Planescape one it doesn’t seem to mess up the UI, plus it purportedly supports any resolution. While Arcanum’s nowhere near as pretty as Planescape’s hand-painted backdrops, it still looks pretty sharp and fresh. Which seems like a good excuse for an Arcanum Retro piece soon….
Ta to sfury for the tip.
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Arcanum and Temple Of Elemental Evil, are two Troika games I haven’t played actually. Well I tried Arcanum, but I was too young at the time to really understand it properly, and now the disks are gone.
GoG, hear our prayers! Get Troikas games!
My God the Gnome Conspiracy! I had completely suppressed the memories of it after years of therapy.
Essentially (and spoilers), the small squishy gnomes in the game are almost always accompanied by lumbering half ogre body guards, despite the fluff claiming half ogre were rare because, well who wants to bed an ogre? You discover, in a well hidden secret area that is all too easy to miss, that the evil little bastards had set up a rape camp with the precise purpose of breeding half ogre slaves and that the wife of a major NPC had died after giving birth to three of them. Possibly the most shocking plot line since Custer’s Revenge?
I bought this after having completed (and loving) Fallout 1 & 2 but it just didnt pull me in quite like those did.
Over the years I’ve tried a couple of times to get into it but I’d get to somewhere around the 1st town/quest hub and stop playing. I forget exactly why, maybe it was the unfriendly UI that someone mentioned earlier?
The release of the unoffical packs and patches had completly passed me by so with those, and the new hi res pack, it might be time to give it another look.
@Maxheadroom
What I didn’t mention earlier is that I also started and left the game irritated around the 1st town – two times, and that was after heavy reccomendations from friends. It really is a very slow starter and the UI doesn’t help either.
But the 3rd time (probably 2-3 years after picking it up, shame on me :}) with some persistance in the beginning – thank our Good Lord the Flying Spaghetti Monster! – this turned out to be one of my biggest favorites, a true spiritual succesor to Fallout as game-mechanics go and so, so much on top of that!
Just clench your teeth for the first couple of hours, because what’s coming after is absolutely worth it. :)
Yes, the beginning ranks up there with Fallout 2’s Giant Ant Happy Fun Time, slowness-wise. I’ve attempted palying this game about 5 times before finding enough resilience to go past those first 3 hours.
Drog’s unofficial packs add a lot of greatly needed balancing to the game, but some features can’t be improved upon (he even mentions this several times). Despite the changes, the Tech path remains weaker, with the Constructor branch being notable due to the absence of high-level automatons, like the Medic or the Machinegunner (they were never programmed into the game, so there’s no hidden/partial code to activate).
Arcanum’s soundtrack is really unconventional and great. It’s sombre chamber music for a string quartet, which gives a very different feeling than all other game soundtracks I’ve ever heard. It’s been released for free, and can be found here. I often listen to it while walking or working.
Argh, the soundtrack download doesn’t work for me. :|
I found a mirror, at last: Clicky here
I got sick last week… i was home… bored to death…so that’s when i’ve remember to started replaying one of my favorites games os all time… Arcanum!
Do you guys know other very good CRPGs just has good and full of possibilities as Arcanum?
Thanks in advance ;)