I love Arx Fatalis, as everybody who visits RPGDot frequently will most probably know. I have played through the German version twice now and I have to admit, even though I usually avoid them and prefer English versions, that it is a masterpiece regarding voice acting. The actors have been chosen in a most excellent way, fit greatly to their role and are all professionals.

Now I have received an English language preview copy and was very excited about it. As usuaul, I expected the english version to be even better than the German. Why? Because it has always been like this and because the English language proves to be more epic, more heroic, simply better fit for fantasy language than German in my opinion. But maybe it is because I got so used to the German voices, I am having trouble getting used to the English version now.

It is not that voices or actors are bad, no, in complete contrary, they are as excellent as their German counterparts, but their voices do not resemble those of the German actors for most of NPCs and also Am Shaegar, the main character. Where movie dubbings try to stay as close as possible to the original voice of an actor, this is not (yet) possible in games.

But enough of that, since it is my personal problem - the game itself is as great as ever. The preview code is at patch level 1.12, same as the latest German version and has fixed most of the bugs. The English (and French) sales version will even be version 1.13 and offer some improvements in controls next to conclusive bugfixing. Among the control improvements are an auto re-equip weapon or armour once they have broken and an auto-arrange inventory.

In the unlikely case, you never heard of Arx Fatalis so far, it is developed by French company Arkane Studios and is more or less the spiritual successor of Ultima Underworld. It takes place completely underground, as the sun has faded away. Arx Fatalis offers everything a good RPG needs to have, starting from a complex RPG System via great graphics, excellent sound and an immersive storyline. You can manipulate the world in many ways, solve mosts of the quests in more than one way (in fact I still find new things in this third run I just have) and you can really actually play different roles in Arx Fatalis as you can finish most of the quests in the whole game in more than one way, for example you can kill everyone and still solve the game or play as a stealthy thief or a wizard or even mix these gameplay options.

On the downside the automap, which doesn't allow notes on it and the journal will most probably not be improved in the sales version. These are minor flaws only, because everything else is so good in this game - they are nothing game disturbing or fun spoilers. Arx Fatalis is the biggest surprise this year so far and I know a lot of people from the JoWood Boards who have installed Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights and Arx Fatalis at the same time on their harddisks…guess which of those they are still playing?