How to ruin a good idea.

Have been replaying Arcanum lately, and reconfirming the impression I got the first time around: rarely has a game with this much good material been so bad.

Arcanum should've been a great game. Developed by three of the people responsible for Fallout, one of my all-time favourites, and it looked like it was going to have the same strengths plus steampunk and magic elements. The character creation system was flexible enough to allow a wide range of play styles: diplomat, melee specialist, firearms specialist, sneak-thief, artillery mage, healer mage, mechanic, pharmacist, and more. You could deal with a locked door by bashing it down, blowing it up, picking the lock, stealing the key, or asking somebody nicely to open it for you.

The technology was pretty cool - you could hunt for parts and build your own Tesla Gun - and the magic was quite well-developed. It had a detailed setting, an interesting central plot, several good side plots ranging from funny to tragic, and some fun NPCs (Gar, the World's Smartest Orc, was a lot of fun).

( And yet, it managed to suck. )