![]() There’s a couple of nice character portraits (taken from other recent Spiderweb games), but characters on the screen are tiny blurry sprites with very limited animation – they don’t even walk, they just glide across the floor. ![]() Vogel’s great strength has always been in his storytelling, and that’s just as well because in terms of presentation this game is definitely not up to scratch. Simple survival is the goal in this environment, and it must be said that this theme makes for a lovely change of pace from most modern RPGs, where you feel more powerful at level 1 than you do here when you hit the level cap. Vicious, powerful monsters roam the caverns. NPCs etch meagre lives within downtrodden cities. A desolate, grimy place, Avernum is a glorious place to set a low-power RPG. That plot focuses on one of the more interesting environments in RPG history – the vast underground of Avernum. Everything in this game still makes sense even if you haven’t played the other games in the series, and the sixth game is regarded as the highlight of the series for a good reason – its almost unparalleled in its presentation of a classic dungeon crawler RPG plot. ![]() Questionable business decision aside (I fail to see how a game with a “VI” in the title is going to appeal to any potential newcomers), I hope people can put that initial reservation aside and play Avernum VI anyway. Unless you’re a PC gamer and have played these games in the past, jumping from one to six without playing the games in between might not sound like such a great idea on paper. We already have a remake of the original Avernum game on the iPad, and it’s a little surprising that Avernum VI, the last game in the series, is the second game to be released on the platform. It’s an irresistible formula for anyone with fond nostalgia for the old SSI titles, and of all Vogel’s games, the Avernum series has been the most successful. On microbudgets Jeff Vogel has for years produced massive, sprawling old-school RPGs in the vein of the classic Dungeons & Dragons games.
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