System: Windows 7 PC (XP compatibility)
Year: 2000
Well fresh off the heels of Avernum I’ve started Avernum 2. So beginning impressions. well, first off the graphical style is pretty much exactly the same as the first game so If you didn’t care for the somewhat primitive of PC retro graphics of the first game your not going to like the second either. The story is that basically after assassinating the emperor of the Empire in the first game the Empire was understandably pretty pissed off and begun a full scale invasion of Avernum. Avernites having the home advantage have been putting up a valiant defense but they have been steadily losing ground to Imperial troops and only the Empires inability to transport large numbers of troops to Avernum has denied them a crushing victory. To make matters worse recently strange magical barriers have sprung up across Avernum cutting off entire areas. We start off with the character creation screen where your to make four characters who are new recruits to the Avernite army and are stationed in a remote base in an area recently cut off via the barriers.
So first off you have more choices for species. In the first game you were limited to humans but now you can have Sliths and Nephils (lizard & cat people) in your party. I decided to mix it up and add one of each. At first glance on starting a new game one would think its basically the same game as the first and not even the setting has really changed but fortunitly that is not the case. technically speaking Avernum 2 is a much better game and many of the issues and short comings of the original have been addressed. Very early on in the game the fort your stationed at is attacked. Its a scripted event of the type that was never seen in the first game and it really helps bring the world of Avernum alive. during this battle you’ll also notice that now enemies and yourselves have HP meters so you can actually tell how low an enemies HP are where in the first game it was all a guessing game. Another example of a more live feeling world is later when you infiltrate the attackers fort there is a gate that requires a password to open. I the previous Avernum you may have been required to search a certain area where you would get a dialog box saying something to the effect that the password was found and you “take note of this”. In Avernum 2 you just find a sheet of paper and you actually have to think enough to use the sheet in your inventory and see the password written there in order to discover it. A small difference indeed but more immersive in my opinion. There are a lot of little tweaks such as money automatically being picked up when you search an area and maps of areas being able to be smaller allowing for some smaller areas to explore rather then every dungeon/cave you enter being a full complex. The mouse/movement sensitivity has been toned down is is much nicer now. one click in a direction moves you one click in a direction where as in the first game the movement interface seemed wildly oversensitive at times moving your group past where you wanted, sometimes into traps or lave. The new sensitivity allows for much greater precision and control.
Some old friends
One much welcomed addition is a new quest log. Now instead of simply struggling to remember every quest or copy every conversation into your journal there is actually a quest log that keeps track of active quests and removes quests once they are completed. I cannot stress how welcomed this addition is. There are also new spells and a plethora of new monsters. Some monsters also have area damage, for instance a fire lizard has a heat area around it where you take slight damage when next to the monster. The area dissipates eventually once the beast is slain. The world of Avernum is familiar but still changed around enough that its not a complete retread of the the previous games areas. This is explained by the passage of time as well as many major and minor “cavequakes” that has somewhat reshaped the land. There is some fun though in revisiting cities from the first game and seeing the change or talking to old characters. The blacksmith that reforged the Demon Slayer sword from the first game now brags about it and poor Matrox the friendly dragon that loves to see human visitors is now under heavy guard and given restricted guest visitations after Imperial assassins attempted to kill him.
I liked the art for the previous games giants better, this giant just looks out of place stylistically
The game is also now broken into chapters. This doesn’t mean you cant backtrack and the end of any one chapter is little more then a text screen and a nicely drawn image it does help make the plot feel like its moving along. I spent the first few hours re-exploring the north eastern corner of Avernum much in the same manner as I did in the first game. The big difference is your given a limited amount of space to explore since the mysterious magic barriers have appeared cutting off multiple sections of Avernum. In my quest to discover the cause of the barriers I went to the largest city in the area and was greeted with a nice scripted event where a cavequake occurs and a strange magical being appears and asks for to meet with some humans if they will follow the tunnel created. This was a nice surprise as I was expecting nothing but a complete retread of Avernum but now your given a completely new and vast land to explore. After following the trail downward you embark on a boat and are told to venture downstream to the land of the Vahnatai, a ancient race of magical being that dwell even deeper underground. what follows is a fun river travel section through unknown land with limited resources though admittedly this wasn’t as harrowing as it first sounds as I found it rather easy and was rarely concerned for my characters. After finally getting to the land of the Vahnatai you discover they are a magical race that has just reawakened from a long hibernation cycle. You also learn they are responsible for the magic barriers and blame humans for stealing 3 precious soul gems. Not all Vahnatai believe all humans are evil though and have asked your group down to prove this.
The land of the Vahnatai
The Vahnatai lands aren’t as vast as Avernum but they are different and the monsters are also mostly different with lots of giant insects and hydras. There’s also some new skills and magic you can pick up. It doesn’t take to long to figure out that the Empire is behind the missing soul gems and are supporting a rebel group of Vahnatai. I found a few areas here beyond the abilities of my party and decided I had best save them for later. The rebel fort was especially challenging at spots and figured I needed to level up before reattempting it. Eventually I succeeded via the completion of trials in seeing the high council and explaining the situation. At this point your given a sort of grand quest to retrieve the three stolen soul gems and a portal is created that acts as a link between the Vahnatai lands and Avernum (at the point of the tower of magi). After returning to Avernum and exploring the old tower of magi I left the tower and thus began chapter 4.
I felt this was a good place to stop and write about my beginning thoughts on this game. So far I think its managed to retain the old school charm of the first game while adding new things, giving a fun plot and fixing so many of the minor irritations of the first Avernum interface wise. I look forward to the rest of the game and retrieving those crystal souls (previously I called them soul gems).
Random Battles: my life long level grind 