Avernum

It is that world that you, and your compatriots are thrust. Survive, find a way out, or die – the choices are that simple.

Avernum: Book of Answers, from Spiderweb Software, has a nice buildup. Unfortunately the game falls apart in the delivery of the game. Much like Spiderweb’s previous release, Homeland: The Stone of Night, Avernum harkens back to a simpler time in computer programs – a type when 3D rendering was only a fantasy and sharply detailed and textured graphics were unknown.

“Avernum is a series of caverns, far below the surface of the world. It is a dark, subterranean prison, a place where exiles like yourselves spent the rest of their lives, far from the light.”

Thus is your introduction to the game. A series of adventurers, four in all, are transported from the world above – an empire ruled by a merciless, and less than nice, king. Whatever your crime, you and three others (who just coincidentally make up your adventuring party and have the skills one would wish in such a group) have been transported down to this world. You will be given a number of mini-quests, and there are three full game-winning quests. The world also features 80 towns and dungeon levels and 42 outdoor regions.

The controls are arranged across the bottom of the screen, and are somewhat intuitive. The combat is turn-based. And you must build up your character in terms of experience points if you have any hope of survival in your initial efforts.

The game launches with four characters: Phillip, a soldier; Melissa, the rebel; Rosalia, cleric; and Mycroft, the sorcerer. There is a character editor program, which will allow you to manipulate their abilities, or change their names.  The unit moves as such when traversing the towns or landscape, but combat is single-character movement.

All character interaction is through screen text, and the program does have a pop-up help bar.

But this game is obviously not in the same league as current RPG/RTS products on the market. It isn’t even a poor second cousin. The graphical elements are antiquated, and don’t even begin to task a computer’s multimedia capabilities. It is a tough game, but there is little graphically to keep a player in the game. The special spell effects are lame.

In a time when games are beginning to ask for almost a gigabyte of hard drive space for the install, Avernum only requests a meager 26.6 megs for the install. But for what it gives you in return, that may be asking too much.

What it boils down to is this: Avernum has a solid concept, but is graphically far inferior to products released today in the same genre. Visual elements do count for a lot, and this game doesn’t have that. But if you can survive without stunning graphics, you might enjoy this program.

 Install: Easy – the game only requires 26.6 megs of hard drive space.

Gameplay: 6. Stuttered movement detracts from the smooth transitions from one region of the game board to the next.

Graphics: 4. Though not the worst seen, the character sprites and landscapes are extremely dated. This game is two-dimensional, and reminiscent of games produced for the Commodore 64.

Sound: 4. The music is solid, but the ambient sounds – walking, door opening and combat – are not very good.

Difficulty: 7. This program does present the usual challenges in building up characters in order to succeed on quests.

Concept: 7. Stuck trying to battle a way out of the underworld, or at least making life tolerable there, is a nice twist.

Overall: 5. What this game may present in terms of concept is negated by the graphical elements. It simply does not compare to role-playing fantasy games produced by bigger companies and thus will have a very tough time in the marketplace.