Let's see, where to start? Ground Control and choppy cut scenes? Homeworld and desktop crashes? NO NO NO.. RAINBLOW SIX and registry corruption! That's where it all began. I have tried hard throughout my existence as a computer "g33k" to maintain a mid to high range system. Affordable, yet reliable (all things Microsoft excluded) and in almost EVERY instance of installing a Sierra product I encountered and still encounter problems. We won't even mention Tribes 2.

Arcanum - Of Crashworks & Bugs Obscura: For all accounts this SHOULD have been a GREAT game. Inventive character development, allowing the adventurer total freedom to become a six gun slinging duelist with a flare of magic pizzaz or a wondrous Mage with a sniper rifle, (see.. I told you it was inventive) BUT NO! It is not to be.

After a FULL day of attempting to install I finally got to create my character. Then it crashed, and wouldn't re-open. REINSTALL. So an hour or so later I was up and running again after remembering how to jump through the install hoops. Proceeding right along I arrive at the first small town. Crash. REINSTALL (curse). Check the posts.. Nothing about that one... so I downloaded the latest graphic and audio drivers for my hardware, just in case. So I travel onward get my first levels.. Some cool Technology tricks and a spell... now level 5 some neat "stuff" for later LOTS of quests and I'm ready to head to the first BIG city. Tarant.

Tarant, full of wondrous quests, cool "stuff" and experience points just BEGGING to be had by Winters Highmoon (my Technologist/Magic User), but alas I will have to wait FOR SIERRA TO PUT OUT ANOTHER PATCH. Tarant it seems won't load if you have the wrong combination of quests in your log book. What is that combination? BEATS ME!! But why should that matter.. Or maybe I have to do quests in a different order, or maybe I have to rememeber to type in the magic word on the 4th day at the stroke of midnight right after sacrificing a chicken in the garden of good and evil..

WHAT IS HAPPENING AT SIERRA!!! Is it so important to put out a product on time that it arrives unfinished? ( Tribes 2 anybody?) Did I mention the purple and pink tiles with the words "Bad Art" that pop up in various locations??? I mean.. The game REALLY isn't finished. People have talked about quest items disappearing from inventory, NPCs that vanish, Party members that stop... partying... I MEAN GEEZ! Ask TSR for help or something, I never saw these problems in Baldur's Gate (I or II) or Icewind Dale, or Might and Magic.. yes I like adventure games. BG I&II seem quite a bit more complex too I might add.

Graphically speaking Arcanum is pretty.. but choppy. Appearantly all combinations of machines are having stutter issues etc. Did I mention that it is bundled with DierctX 8a? Hmmm.. Speaking of unfinished software. Hey did you hear? Windows XP is the first MS GUI OS that isn't complete crap!

Rev.