The GUI is icon and pop-up based. There are icons to click on for inventory and "book" (which holds your map, your spells, your character screen, and your log) or hotkeys if you prefer (I do). Your inventory scrolls up from the bottom of the screen when you activate it, allowing you to continue playing even while it's open (I spent quite a bit of time playing with it both off and on - if you are playing at high resolution, then the inventory hardly takes up enough space to get in the way). The inventory is X-Com style (which Diablo & Shock 2 later used), meaning there is a grid with objects taking up different shapes and sizes. Opening containers gives you a similar inventory display on the side of the screen, allowing you to click & drag items from the container's inventory to your own. Barrels and corpses - both old and freshly killed - are searchable, along with the usual assortment of chests and the like. Additional icons appear on the lower left side of the screen as you take damage. If your weapons or armor are damaged, an icon will appear indicating the stability of that equipment. Thus, if your sword is about to break, you get a red sword icon; and if your leather leggings are slightly damaged, you get a green leggings icon. The icons only appear, of course, if something actually takes damage, and vanish shortly after you leave combat mode.

Which brings me to ...

Combat mode. This is done a bit differently, but is very natural all the same. You enter combat mode simply by clicking and holding the left mouse button on nothing while in mouse-look mode. From there, it's as easy as pie. The longer you hold the left mouse button down, the more powerful the attack (I call this "pull-back", because you are pulling your weapon back in preparation for an attack). Letting go of the button will release the attack. A power gem, just like the one in Ultima Underworld (though the one in UW used color, and this one just uses intensity) shows you how far along your pull-back is. It gets better: the direction you are traveling when you begin the pull-back determines the type of attack you prepare. Some attacks work better with different weapons, and some attacks and weapons work better on different enemies. The player-character is right-handed. Strafing to the left while doing the pull-back will give you a long and powerful horizontal slash. Strafing to the right will give you a much smaller and quicker horizontal slash in the opposite direction (since he is right-handed, he can't pull-back to the right as far as he can to the left). Moving forward gives you an overhead bash, and standing still or backing up gives you a nice honest-to-goodness stab (which Thief fans have been missing out on all these years). Of course, the attack is always adjusted to reflect how high or low you are looking when you let go. Oh, and once you enter combat mode by readying your first attack, you stay in combat mode until you leave mouse-look mode. So if you are in toggle mode, hit the right mouse button twice to get out of combat mode. If you are in "hold-the-bloody-button-down" mode, just release. The other thing to note is that while you are in combat mode, your movement speed is reduced. If you have an attack ready, your movement speed is cut in half. This makes chasing down fleeing enemies a real pain - since they can outrun you easily if you try to stab them in the back.

Note that I figured all of that out just by playing the game and experimenting for a few hours. :)

There is also ranged combat, but I have not gotten a chance to see it yet.

Magic is something else. Most previews already talk about magic plenty, so I won't rehash. I will say this: yes, it works; yes, it is easier than it sounds; and YES, it is very, VERY cool. It adds a whole new meaning to the concept of "memorizing" a spell. While you can memorize three spells at a time for quick use, the idea is that you learn the hand gestures for the spells you use a-plenty with your real human memory, and develop your own personal skill to cast them as nimbly as you can. Incantation recognition is based on the direction your mouse travels and the angle you form - not on the exact shape. So even if you make a retarded looking version of the rune, if the direction of the lines are pretty much right, and measure of the angels are close, it will recognize it. I never once had it fail to recognize the rune I was trying to draw. Again, the in-game tutorial for using magic is very minimal. While I had the added advantage of having read a dozen or so previews which described how the system works in detail, I was still able to get the complete knack of spell casting almost instantly. It really is quite easy to use.

In Arx, your stats determine how hard you hit, and how much magic you can cast. But it is totally a matter of your own personal skill to make those stats actually mean anything at all.

I only tried out stealth briefly, but it seems to work quite well - right down to a light-gem-like device. When you are hidden in the shadows and moving silently, a stealth icon appears to let you know if you are hidden. The indicator itself is simply an icon showing a sneaky-looking chap taking a step, in the bottom left corner of your screen. Unlike Thief, where the light gem has various levels of intensity, the stealth indicator has only two modes (there, and not). Your "stealth" skill points determining just how hidden you really are. Again, it is based on stats, but you have to use your own knowledge of how and where to hide in order to make it work. From my brief use, stealth seemed better implemented than it was in Deus Ex or Shock 2, but not as well implemented as in Thief (what is?). As far as sound goes, it is certainly Thief/SS2 quality, from the different types of footfalls for different surfaces, to the sound of your sword hitting stone, to the interface chimes. It's all very nice. Oh, and with the exception of the ultra-quiet spiders (who like to drop on you from the ceiling) I always heard enemies before I saw them (unless they were standing still). I did not hear very much ambient background noise (except the crackle of torches, or a constant murmur in the tavern) … but hopefully this will change in the final game. I want music!

By now I should mention combining objects. The most adventure-game-like element present in Arx (and truly, Arx has all the elements that make any adventure game an adventure game) is your ability to combine objects, both with items in the game world, and in your inventory. When I say "combine objects," I mean using one object on another to create an effect - usually having to do with the two objects joining to create a new object, but not always. For instance: rope + pole = fishing pole, and when used in water = fresh fish + fire = cooked fish = yummy treat for you! And if you want to get even more extreme, then flour + water + rolling pin (the rolling pin does not combine, you just use it on the dough) + apple + fire (you drop it into a fire, not use it on the fire) = apple pie. Pointless? Yes. Cool? Sure. Easy to do? Of course. The system has, as you would expect, much more important uses too. Most of these have to do with the various puzzles you will find in the game (no more will puzzles be limited to flipping switches!) but also your day-to-day activates. Use the toolkit on the door to pick the lock. Use the sword on the anvil to repair it. Use your torch on the torch on the wall to light it. Use the poison on your sword to poison your enemies. Use the gold on the barmaid to get a stein of ale. Use the pickaxe on the weak wall to knock it in. It's pretty fun. :)

Next up: conversations! There are three types of conversations. One, you double-left-click (same as use) an NPC and they will babble a random line - either to you or to the room in general. Two, initiating conversation (sometimes the NPC initiates with you) takes you to 3rd person for a little in-game conversation cinematic. The third way happens when, during the conversation, it loads up some 2D hand-drawn artwork to better illustrate what the NPC is telling the player. Sadly, there does not seem to be conversational choices. The player-character's stats, combat style, magic style, tendencies towards stealth or lack thereof, all belongs to the player. However the player-character's personality is all his own, and you'll have to accept it - like him or not. (I doubt many people will dislike him; he seems a right a-okay chap.) All of the conversations I have heard thus far were well written, did not drag on, and featured Thief-quality voice acting. The player character's voice seems like the type of voice which most will find appealing, and few will find irritating.

The role-playing system is simple - and simple I like. In my mind, the role-playing mechanics need to be as invisible as possible. Arx comes pretty close to that. There is no player class, only attributes, which act as skill modifiers, and the skills themselves, which calculate how things work in-game. For instance, a player with no combat skill can still fight well if they are strong - and a player who has no stealth skill can still sneak if they are nimble. Contrariwise (props to Tweedledum for that cool word), if you have a weak character, it will take longer to build up your combat skills. When you get enough EXP, you get new points to allocate to your modifiers and your skills. I am personally, going to go for a jack-of-all-trades. It will be the most challenging, but I don't want to miss out on anything.

The auto-map in the version I played was not working properly yet, so I can't comment. :)

The greatest thing about putting on new armor is that you can actually see it in the game world. Open up your character screen and drop the new leather tunic on your chest. Boom- there it is. Pull out your sword, and wow - there it is on your arms just like it was on the character screen. Put on new leggings, and then look down at the ground - there are your legs, covered with the same as you see on your character screen. Perfect. And, of course, when you enter into one of the 3rd person conversation sequences, you can admire your snazzy outfit. Oh yes, and in case you did not get that, your legs are fully visible when you look down at the ground.

So that's how you play the game. Exciting, eh? :) It's awesome how they managed to cram so much complexity into such simple and often invisible procedures. In the end, it really comes down to one question: toggle mode, or default mode? Of course I'd be doing the game a great disservice if I did not mention that the player maintains freedom to what he or she wants and can go where he or she wants, at all times. The developers have made a great of effort to ensure that player choice is king … so you not only have a choice of what to do when, but how to do it, and who to leave still standing when all is said and done.

Now comes the part where I get a little excited. Don't say you were not warned. I'll be brief: Arx is beautiful. The environments in Arx are a combination of extremely high scene complexity using a mesh-based terrain engine; textures of astounding quality and perfect application; very high object counts providing lush settings which truly feel real, lived in, ancient, and dirty; and as frosting on the cake, bump mapping which actually looks bloody fantastic. I often found myself drawn away from my tasks at hand to simply admire the way the torch-light interacted with the textures, or to examine the multitude of junk strewn about the dirty abandoned mine floors. Rats scurry across the ground. Torches flicker and crackle. Darkness is provided via a fog effect which shrouds everything more then several dozen feet away from you in pitch blackness - save for the halo of distant torch light. It really is well done! So well done, in fact, that two recently released Quake 3 engine games looked bland and primitive in comparison. Sadly, all of this comes at a price - recommended specs are 700 Mhz. That's something that has my frowny face weeping. (The machine I did the testing on was P4 1.7 Ghz, and it ran perfectly … but that doesn't mean much. Hehe.)

The game has some silly quirks, which I sure hope get fixed in the final release. For instance:

And since I have pestered the developers about all of these things, they assure me that all of these problems will be fixed. :) Good thing they have folks like me to bug them. ;)

The last thing I will say is ... your opinions really do go a long way. If this report made you interested, then the best thing to do is make sure Fishtank knows about it. The more interest they see in this game pre-release, the more likely they will be to endorse this product wholeheartedly. Arkane Studios needs your support. Please express your interest in Arx wherever you can. The more people who know about this game, the better.