How Good Are Troika's Other Two Games?

[Q]

After playing Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines to death, I'm currently looking at Troika's other titles Arcanum: of Steamworks & Magick Obscura and Temple of Elemental Evil. Has anybody played these? If so, are they any good and why?

[jawathehutt]

Ive heard the ToEE is fun if you like games of its style, but other wise to avoid it, Ive never played it so I dont have any personal opinion.

[Arátoeldar]

Like Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Arcanum: of Steamworks & Magick Obscura and Temple of Elemental Evil are both good games that suffer from poor QC.

Temple of Elemental Evil Playing this game is the closest I have come to P'n'P D&D. While I do prefer to play this module as P'n'P (Social interaction). This is still an excellent game after you have downloaded the mod pack from Circle of Eight.

Since Arcanum was developed by some of same people that developed the original Fallout. It has a very similar feel. The biggest difference is the setting of course and the combat. The combat while real time-turn based it tougher in Arcanum. You definitely will want the official 1.0.7.4 patch. The best unofficial patch that I know of is here. I would stay away from any mod made by Chris Beddoes especially the Carcanum mod.

[Corinthian]

I don't know much about The Temple of Elemental Evil, but Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is my favorite Fantasy RPG ever and I feel it is superior, story-wise, to Vampire.

[Q]

Well, since the two of you have similar tastes to mine and you both endorse Arcanum, I guess I'll get it. Thanks.

[mur'phon]

I just got Arcanum (thanks to Corinths fanboyism), and it's a blast. Background: Nietzche poster boy brought a smile to my face, and it stayed on thanks to a nice story (behold, this dwarf is the incarnation of an elf) and some rather humiliating defeats (rats).

[Pavlos]

~=

[Q]

OK, I just finished my first playthrough of Arcanum and I really enjoyed it, but I enjoyed it more for it's plot (which was quite good) than it's gameplay. The spells were great (Disintegrate FTW!), but the combat system sucked (do spellcasting party NPCs ever cast any offensive spells?), and the lack of any control over party NPCs (unlike BG2) was a real letdown. The game was also very easy (also unlike BG2).

There were also a few nuances that were present in BG2 that were notably absent from Arcanum such as banter between party NPCs and movement animations while standing still that would have enriched the overall quality of the game. Character development (of the PC, that is) is this game's strongpoint, IMO. The possibilities are practically endless. I rate this game as an 8 overall. For comparison, I rate BG2 as a 9. Arcanum's story was clearly superior to BG2's though.

Drog Black Tooth has done a great job with his patch because I rarely encountered any bugginess aside from the saving indoors thing (which can't be fixed AFAIK), and I only remember seeing two typos in all of the dialogue that I read.

I'll probably play through it again as a gunslinging technologist.

@Pavlos: You are a sick and irreverent man.

[Corinthian]

I don't know, I think Pavlos has a point.

[Q]

Oh, I know exactly what he's referring to. There's no way that you could play through the game completely and not know. It's still sick and irreverent.