Arx Fatalis Preview

The things I keep hearing... RPG - one of the most popular game genres of today? Fat chance. When was the last time you saw a proper RPG, or better still FRP appear? Not soon I can tell you. The last decent game along these lines was Arcanum, and before that... gods only know. Well, all you avid RPG players out there, brighten up! For we just got us a beta version of ARX Fatalis, produced by the German-based Fishtank interactive and developed by the French-based Arkane Studios, due to appear on the market Q2 this year.

Now, for the plot... whoa! Hold your horses! There's one thing that I have to share first, only to keep you on the right track, and to scare away those who wouldn't like to play a game like this anyway. Before I actually even saw the game I visited Fishtank's website (and a nice little website it is) and I saw there that the publisher actually decided to compare this game to Diablo for its accessibility? Whatever. One thing I can tell you after I finally got to play the game is that it definitely has nothing in the world to do with Diablo. This is a Role Playing Game in which you get to play a role, rather than a mind-numbing-mouse-devastating clickie. So, all of you who really enjoyed playing Diablo II, I suggest you try out the latest 3D-RPG-RTS blockbuster - MS Minesweeper, and the rest of you just keep on reading.

A bridge too near...

A cozy place!

Ok, back to the plot. Once upon a time, there was a lovely little sausage... Sorry... an ancient and proud town of Arx, ruled by the good and just king Poxelus, who fought bravely to defend his city from goblin invasions. All this doesn't matter one bit, though, as at some point in time, the planet stopped revolving and eternal winter caught the citizens of Arx in its icy cage. All the races in Arx made peace, and joined efforts in building an underground city that would protect them from the cold. Soon after the city was built, the races resumed their petty squabbles and started fighting once again. In these dark days, only the travelers' guild maintains communication between Arx and other cities on the surface. You do not know all this, however, as you just woke up with a bad case of amnesia in a goblin prison (not one of the best places to wake up in, you must agree). All you have in the whole world is a headache and a jockstrap... but soon you will find yourself in the middle of an epic clash and become a mighty warrior (or wizard) who will save the world from impending doom (and a nightmarish plan including some villainous deity named Akbaa). Yup, it sounds pretty stereotypical ... but, as you progress through the game it gets a bit better, and you will even see a couple of nice twists and neatly directed scenes.

As any self-respecting RPG, this game starts with character creation. This had been designed rather neatly. You get to assign a certain number of points to your primary stats (strength, mental, dexterity and constitution), and a certain number of points to your skills (stealth, technical skills, intuition, earth-link, object knowledge, magic, close-combat, projectile and defense). Depending on how you spent your bonus points, the engine will determine your other stats (armor class, resistance to magic, resistance to poison, health, mana and level of damage). After this, you can also choose your appearance. The beta code contained only three skins for the protagonist. These were quite sufficient, but I expect that there will be more of them as the final game would include a multiplayer mode. One more click, and we're in...

The interface makes the game both simple and rich in possibilities. At first sight, it reminded me of Daggerfall, and it definitely has a lot in common with Ultima Underworld. Most of the screen is reserved for action with only the health and mana level indicators at the bottom of the screen and icons for opening your inventory and your diary just above the mana indicator.

Your diary is one of the most useful things in the game. It contains a page displaying your stats (also used for character advancement); an auto-map page which follows your progress and automatically charts explored areas; quest-log which contains all your quests and observations; and your spell-book containing the runes you gathered and spells that can be cast with them.

The controls can switch between something the similar to standard FPS controls and a static view with a cursor in which you can interact with objects you see. Most of the things you see in the game are interactive in one way or another, and I was absolutely thrilled by some details like finding a raw fish and having to roast it before you can eat it.

And the pig goes...

Arr...

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

The dungeons are practically crammed with various items, some of them being weapons and armor, which about brings us to the combat system. There are two ways to fight in Arx Fatalis: by using some of the numerous weapons you can find laying on dead-bodies; and by casting offensive spells. Fighting with weapons isn't all too interesting as it comes down to approaching the enemy and left-clicking to slash him if you have a short-ranged weapon, or aiming and shooting if you decided to use a long ranged weapon. The spell casting system is far more interesting.

The spell-casting system in this game is absolutely ingenious. It is half way between Ultima and Black&White; you collect runes, and spells are created by casting runes in a proper combination and order. You cast runes by activating the spell-mode and then drawing the shape of the rune in the air with your hand. And to make things a bit easier in the heat of the battle, you can also assign hot-keys to several spells. Absolutely flawless.

The in-game atmosphere is fantastic. This is mostly thanks to the great graphic design. So, OK, you may say, the game features some great design and graphics... now... that usually requires an engine that would display them. Arx Fatalis features a great 3D engine which offers fantastic lighting, highly detailed textures and fascinating particle effects, but at the cost of speed. The game was practically unplayable in 1024x768x32bit on a 900MHz T-Bird rig with 256Mb RAM and a GeForce 2. This can be mended by decreasing the resolution and the level of detail, or by purchasing a better computer. From the looks of the game even the latter solution might be worth it. Do not get me wrong, the visual engine is not the best thing I had ever seen, but with all the other things this game has to offer, it is just as good as it should be. Then again what will be a typical gamers' rig for summer/autumn 2002? I guess the guys at Arkane Studios know what they are doing.

There is not too much to say about the sounds. The well-placed atmospheric tunes will warn you of perilous situations, or signal an important event. These have been done rather well. The sound-effects are no worse for that matter, and the ambience noise that can be heard in the background at all times really improves the atmosphere and lets you fully immerse into the world of Arx Fatalis (these somehow made me remember Dungeon Keeper 2). The voice-overs are, unfortunately, not on the same level, but considering the facts that the game is being developed in a non-English-speaking country and especially if we compared them to voice-overs in most games on the market today, they are far from bad.

The most interesting thing is that the developers plan on introducing a multiplayer mode into the game. We unfortunately saw none of it, but from what I've heard, it is supposed to be primarily death-match oriented and focused on spell-casting -- something like the Wheel of Time. And what with the (OK, not too original, but certainly) brilliant spell-casting system, this promises to significantly increase the game's replay value.

The greatest problem, or the greatest blessing, depending how you look at it is that all the downsides of the game that I mentioned (as well as the bugs and crashes I didn't) will surely be dealt with by the time the game finally gets published; and if this game does appear on the market in time, i.e. by July 2002, there goes another Summer.