Avadon: The Black Fortress Review
Avadon: The Black Fortress Review
Review - posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Tue 15 March 2011, 15:19:19
Tags: Avadon: The Black Fortress; Spiderweb SoftwareGear Diary has a review of Avadon: The Black Fortress available, based on the recently released mac version of the game. It seems the game left a pretty positive impression:
One thing I didn’t mention is the length of Avadon. I would estimate it at about 40 hours based on my slow play-style. Jeff Vogel targeted a run through at 25-35 hours based on your own style of play, which is about right. For some, that is short – it is certainly shorter than Avernum 6. But Avadon is a tighter experience – as I said the trash mobs have been reduced, so the hours you spend are actually doing RPG-related things rather than battle after battle … or wave after wave within a battle!
Is Avadon: The Black Fortress perfect? Not at all – the story isn’t the best Vogel has written, and some of the game elements could use more fleshing out. But it also has a great combat system, excellent balancing, great characters, and so in spite of those minor complaints this is my favorite Spiderweb game.
I have been very vocal about my disappointment in recent ‘major’ RPG games and developers: Bioware has been moving towards story-based action games with little RPG content in Mass Effect series, and Dragon Age II also took a major step in that direction. Bethesda did a very similar thing with Oblivion compared to the much better RPG Morrowind – and I truly doubt that Skyrim will suddenly have robust RPG systems. Between Soldak, Basilisk and Spiderweb, RPG fans have three ‘indie’ game studios willing to do the hard work of developing worthwhile and robust games that fill the void left behind. I applaud them in general – but with things like Din’s Curse, Eschalon Book II and now Avadon … I can more specifically applaud their efforts.
Spiderweb took a chance this year – they left behind the established and well-loved worlds of Avernum and Geneforge and set out on a new adventure. Avadon: The Black Fortress is the start of a new franchise, and so far it is looking like we are in for a great series!
Spotted at: RPGWatch
One thing I didn’t mention is the length of Avadon. I would estimate it at about 40 hours based on my slow play-style. Jeff Vogel targeted a run through at 25-35 hours based on your own style of play, which is about right. For some, that is short – it is certainly shorter than Avernum 6. But Avadon is a tighter experience – as I said the trash mobs have been reduced, so the hours you spend are actually doing RPG-related things rather than battle after battle … or wave after wave within a battle!
Is Avadon: The Black Fortress perfect? Not at all – the story isn’t the best Vogel has written, and some of the game elements could use more fleshing out. But it also has a great combat system, excellent balancing, great characters, and so in spite of those minor complaints this is my favorite Spiderweb game.
I have been very vocal about my disappointment in recent ‘major’ RPG games and developers: Bioware has been moving towards story-based action games with little RPG content in Mass Effect series, and Dragon Age II also took a major step in that direction. Bethesda did a very similar thing with Oblivion compared to the much better RPG Morrowind – and I truly doubt that Skyrim will suddenly have robust RPG systems. Between Soldak, Basilisk and Spiderweb, RPG fans have three ‘indie’ game studios willing to do the hard work of developing worthwhile and robust games that fill the void left behind. I applaud them in general – but with things like Din’s Curse, Eschalon Book II and now Avadon … I can more specifically applaud their efforts.
Spiderweb took a chance this year – they left behind the established and well-loved worlds of Avernum and Geneforge and set out on a new adventure. Avadon: The Black Fortress is the start of a new franchise, and so far it is looking like we are in for a great series!
