Post by Ian on Aug 21, 2007 16:20:23 GMT -5
Arx Fatalis. Chances are, you've heard me talk about it.
Arx Fatalis is an offline single-player RPG. However, this in no way describes it. It is far from most games where you only go into dungeons for loot and experience. In this game, the world is stuck in the dungeons.
Exosta, a world with a dwarf star, watches as it's star fades to black, and the world is chilled. Recently united by a continental war, the city of Arx decides to move deep underground, into the forgotten upper dwarven mines. The conflicted races put aside there differences as troll and goblin, man and dwarf, work together for survival. As the rat-men simply run on into the deeper levels. As the city is finished, the King of Arx dies, and another is born. They seal the mines above them and the chilled air blasts through the vents ominously. The star dies, fading to black.
Years pass, and the races come back to their differences, and live apart from each other. The dwarves go back to their deep mines on the eighth level, the furthest they can go safely. The trolls live only a bridge away from the fortified goblin city, and tensions rise.
You open your eyes.
The first thing that hits your awakening senses is the smell, a putrid odour that seems to creep towards you from all around. Next comes the freezing cold, first biting, from the filthy rocks from under you, and then drenching, from the pungent, musky air that assaults every pore of your near-naked being. Somewhere in the darkness, a blood-curdling scream echoes through the stone walls, and your climb to consciousness quickens. As you force yourself up to your feet, your eyes adjust to the shadows and you notice that you are not alone. A goblin watches you menacingly from behind some bars, as whiffs of metal, the smell of drying blood, continue to assail you from the floors and off the walls. You are in a cell and there is a pile of bones in the corner. You are a prisoner.
The game begins as the player is dragged off to a goblin prison, remembering nothing but his language. He breaks out, kills the goblin guard, and releases the prisoner next to him, who gives the player a name. He breaks out of the prison, and enters a human outpost. It had just been ransacked, and the bodies of guards litter the place. Ortiern, the one in charge of the outpost, orders the player to tell the king that rocks have fallen and trapped his men.
After a while, the player comes to Arx, the city of the humans. The player goes through the game, helping strengthen relationships between the races...or, severs it completely, causing raids of cities.
The player discovers that a cult is rising a forgotten god of destruction, Akbaa, that seeks to destroy this world, by sacrificing humans.
Now for the actual review.
Graphics: 6/10.
The environments do look a lot better than what the characters do.
The game does not shine here, but no part of the levels are the same. For example, the upper levels are icy and chilling, whereas the
eighth level is lava strewn and metal dominant. The characters are not stunning, but believable. Jumping looks so very stupid.
Sound: 10/10.
This is what saves the game and makes it addictive. This game has no music, which makes it realistic. In replacement, you have ambiance. Lots of it. Everything from a limestone cave dripping on a stalagmite to the pitter-patter of distant footsteps, to the howling wind from air vents, even the bubbling of a lava pit. The chattering of rats, the slow hissing of giant spiders, the rumbling of a cave caving in, there are even earthquakes. This game can be very creepy at times, especially when a rat-man is hunting you and nothing else is around and WHAM, a poisoned dagger slams into you.
Voice Acting: 9/10
The game excels at it. Each race has a different dialect, and their own language. Aside from Carlos, every voice is believable. Goblins have a very guttural sound to their voice and speak in broken English, trolls have a very dumb sounding voice, almost like a slow drawl, and humans are your standard affair. As a goblin says, "Trolls strong. Them mine gemstones. Goblins clever, sell gemstones." Rat-men are, well, rat-men.
Story: 9/10
Unique and well-done. For example, you're sent to ask the trolls to clear the rocks blocking a caveway, but the trolls refuse, because they are on strike due to the goblins stealing their Idol that "keeps rocks from faling on our heads". As you go into the goblin city, you search around and find that the King won't listen to you...and he's terribly allergic to wine. So, you go to the chef, wait until he's not around, and sneak some wine into his pies. Or poison, if you want to start a revolution. The King will run to his bathroom, and will allow you to search for the Idol. On your way, you encounter a goblin who tells you not to mess around. After all, the King is retarded and only eats pies all day, and cheated in the goblin election. (coughbushcough) So of course, you go find the Idol. The guard outside the door dies, and Atok bursts through the door, and says "Damn you! If you hadn't found that, I would be king! Alotar is an idiot, and since he can't get off his fat arse even for a pie, the trolls would smash his face in! I would be king." He then attacks you.
Gameplay: 8/10
This is once more a unique game, where you have to collect runes for spells. Then, to cast a spell, you must write the runes in the air. Once done, you can pre-cast these, so that they can be cast at the push of a button. There are also scrolls that do this without runes.
Combat is fun, because to really do any damage you have to charge up your strike, then go a direction to direct your strike. However this makes fast opponents hard and slow opponents easy. A Speed spell will greatly increase your chances of survival. Wearing heavy armor will reduce your stealth and magic skills, yet light armor can increase it. With a sword blade, and a decent Object Knowledge skill, you can smith swords, and use gemstones to increase it's value. Speaking of which, you can mine metals and gems with a pickax.
Leveling up, and Skills. 8/10
In most games this isn't mentioned, but in Arx Fatalis it deserves it's own section. Your character will never be the same as another, because there are nine main skills to chose from, each with a max of 100, and you only get 150 skill points. However, most of them start out at 30, and your stats increase certain skills. Such as Intelligence increases Casting, Object Knowledge, and Intuition. The nine skills are:
Stealth: This allows you to pick-pocket and decreases your footstep volume.
Technical Skill: This allows you to lock-pick and repair broken items.
Intuition: This lets you make better deals, and lets you see traps and hidden passages.
Ethereal Link: This alerts you to the presence of enemies, and their health. Also increases mana regeneration.
Object Knowledge: Allows for better repairs on items, creation of potions, identifies items.
Casting: Allows higher leveled spells, increases spell damage resistance.
Close Combat: Increases damage, and allows you to use better weapons.
Projectile: Increases damage for long range weapons, allows you to use better projectile weapons.
Defense: Decreases damage taken, allows better shields.
Probably not as good as Morrowind/Oblivion, but it's good.
Arx Fatalis is an offline single-player RPG. However, this in no way describes it. It is far from most games where you only go into dungeons for loot and experience. In this game, the world is stuck in the dungeons.
Exosta, a world with a dwarf star, watches as it's star fades to black, and the world is chilled. Recently united by a continental war, the city of Arx decides to move deep underground, into the forgotten upper dwarven mines. The conflicted races put aside there differences as troll and goblin, man and dwarf, work together for survival. As the rat-men simply run on into the deeper levels. As the city is finished, the King of Arx dies, and another is born. They seal the mines above them and the chilled air blasts through the vents ominously. The star dies, fading to black.
Years pass, and the races come back to their differences, and live apart from each other. The dwarves go back to their deep mines on the eighth level, the furthest they can go safely. The trolls live only a bridge away from the fortified goblin city, and tensions rise.
You open your eyes.
The first thing that hits your awakening senses is the smell, a putrid odour that seems to creep towards you from all around. Next comes the freezing cold, first biting, from the filthy rocks from under you, and then drenching, from the pungent, musky air that assaults every pore of your near-naked being. Somewhere in the darkness, a blood-curdling scream echoes through the stone walls, and your climb to consciousness quickens. As you force yourself up to your feet, your eyes adjust to the shadows and you notice that you are not alone. A goblin watches you menacingly from behind some bars, as whiffs of metal, the smell of drying blood, continue to assail you from the floors and off the walls. You are in a cell and there is a pile of bones in the corner. You are a prisoner.
The game begins as the player is dragged off to a goblin prison, remembering nothing but his language. He breaks out, kills the goblin guard, and releases the prisoner next to him, who gives the player a name. He breaks out of the prison, and enters a human outpost. It had just been ransacked, and the bodies of guards litter the place. Ortiern, the one in charge of the outpost, orders the player to tell the king that rocks have fallen and trapped his men.
After a while, the player comes to Arx, the city of the humans. The player goes through the game, helping strengthen relationships between the races...or, severs it completely, causing raids of cities.
The player discovers that a cult is rising a forgotten god of destruction, Akbaa, that seeks to destroy this world, by sacrificing humans.
Now for the actual review.
Graphics: 6/10.
The environments do look a lot better than what the characters do.
The game does not shine here, but no part of the levels are the same. For example, the upper levels are icy and chilling, whereas the
eighth level is lava strewn and metal dominant. The characters are not stunning, but believable. Jumping looks so very stupid.
Sound: 10/10.
This is what saves the game and makes it addictive. This game has no music, which makes it realistic. In replacement, you have ambiance. Lots of it. Everything from a limestone cave dripping on a stalagmite to the pitter-patter of distant footsteps, to the howling wind from air vents, even the bubbling of a lava pit. The chattering of rats, the slow hissing of giant spiders, the rumbling of a cave caving in, there are even earthquakes. This game can be very creepy at times, especially when a rat-man is hunting you and nothing else is around and WHAM, a poisoned dagger slams into you.
Voice Acting: 9/10
The game excels at it. Each race has a different dialect, and their own language. Aside from Carlos, every voice is believable. Goblins have a very guttural sound to their voice and speak in broken English, trolls have a very dumb sounding voice, almost like a slow drawl, and humans are your standard affair. As a goblin says, "Trolls strong. Them mine gemstones. Goblins clever, sell gemstones." Rat-men are, well, rat-men.
Story: 9/10
Unique and well-done. For example, you're sent to ask the trolls to clear the rocks blocking a caveway, but the trolls refuse, because they are on strike due to the goblins stealing their Idol that "keeps rocks from faling on our heads". As you go into the goblin city, you search around and find that the King won't listen to you...and he's terribly allergic to wine. So, you go to the chef, wait until he's not around, and sneak some wine into his pies. Or poison, if you want to start a revolution. The King will run to his bathroom, and will allow you to search for the Idol. On your way, you encounter a goblin who tells you not to mess around. After all, the King is retarded and only eats pies all day, and cheated in the goblin election. (coughbushcough) So of course, you go find the Idol. The guard outside the door dies, and Atok bursts through the door, and says "Damn you! If you hadn't found that, I would be king! Alotar is an idiot, and since he can't get off his fat arse even for a pie, the trolls would smash his face in! I would be king." He then attacks you.
Gameplay: 8/10
This is once more a unique game, where you have to collect runes for spells. Then, to cast a spell, you must write the runes in the air. Once done, you can pre-cast these, so that they can be cast at the push of a button. There are also scrolls that do this without runes.
Combat is fun, because to really do any damage you have to charge up your strike, then go a direction to direct your strike. However this makes fast opponents hard and slow opponents easy. A Speed spell will greatly increase your chances of survival. Wearing heavy armor will reduce your stealth and magic skills, yet light armor can increase it. With a sword blade, and a decent Object Knowledge skill, you can smith swords, and use gemstones to increase it's value. Speaking of which, you can mine metals and gems with a pickax.
Leveling up, and Skills. 8/10
In most games this isn't mentioned, but in Arx Fatalis it deserves it's own section. Your character will never be the same as another, because there are nine main skills to chose from, each with a max of 100, and you only get 150 skill points. However, most of them start out at 30, and your stats increase certain skills. Such as Intelligence increases Casting, Object Knowledge, and Intuition. The nine skills are:
Stealth: This allows you to pick-pocket and decreases your footstep volume.
Technical Skill: This allows you to lock-pick and repair broken items.
Intuition: This lets you make better deals, and lets you see traps and hidden passages.
Ethereal Link: This alerts you to the presence of enemies, and their health. Also increases mana regeneration.
Object Knowledge: Allows for better repairs on items, creation of potions, identifies items.
Casting: Allows higher leveled spells, increases spell damage resistance.
Close Combat: Increases damage, and allows you to use better weapons.
Projectile: Increases damage for long range weapons, allows you to use better projectile weapons.
Defense: Decreases damage taken, allows better shields.
Probably not as good as Morrowind/Oblivion, but it's good.