The Storyline

In Avernum 3 you control a party of four citizens of Avernum, a vast subterranean world which has served as a prison for the Empire that rules the surface world completely. Petty criminals, non-conformists, outspoken critics and the socially unacceptable forged a life in the caves below with the use of alchemy, magical spells, holy rituals and hard work. They struck back at the Empire, assassinating the Emperor, but precipitating an invasion by the Empire army which was fought to a standstill with the alliance of the Vahnatai, an alien species that have always resided in the lower caves. Yet the exile of Avernum was bitter for your people, and until now it has always been permanent.

Now the Avernites have finally discovered a passage to the surface, and your party has been selected for a scouting mission in the hopes of finding a new home for your people. You must explore a place that most of your people have never seen before. You soon learn, of course, that your simple scouting mission has evolved into something much more dangerous and difficult. The surface world is wracked with plagues of monsters, each more dangerous than the last. If someone does not find the source of these plagues, there will be no place on left the surface for your people to resettle in.

There are hundreds of towns to explore in the vast continent above. And this continent is populated not just with humans, but with more than 100 different creatures, some useful, most dangerous, and some indifferent. The sun rises and sets and the nighttime is of course more dangerous for a small party moving about in unfamiliar territory. You can explore the towns, villages and capital cities of each region, the waterways, lakes and islands of this land. You will have the opportunity to join religious communities, sample and trade in illegal drugs, earn some cash working as a merchant or a messenger, steal things, haggle, buy a house, talk to all sorts of people - some friendly and some who hate Avernites - kill stuff, do the right or the wrong thing when no one's looking, purchase boats or horses to help you get around faster, pursue minor and major quests for glory, treasure, and of course to save your world - if you manage to stay alive long enough.


Character Development and Stats

The first task awaiting you in this game is the design of your party. There is a huge amount of variety in the ways you can customize your characters, beginning with names, appearance, trade and special abilities. There are several distinct types of fighting characters as well as mages and priests. Most of the characteristics of your characters (at least to begin with) are determined by the trade you choose, but you are also given a certain number of "skill points" with which to further customize your character before the game begins. You must make sure that all vital skills are represented in your party and this means allowing your characters to specialize.

As play continues and your team explores and gains experience, more skill points accumulate that can be used to upgrade skills. Likewise, your priests and mages can buy training in their spells and increase their effectiveness as their abilities progress. Other talents such as potion making, nature lore and blind luck add nuance and personality to your party.


Gameplay

This is not a twitch game where you blast away at anything that moves as you "progress" Rambo-style from one identical level to the next. Playing this game well requires thought and strategy and it also requires you to accomplish many complex tasks (often non-violent ones) in different places before you can accomplish one small part of the game. Although the "plot" of this game is not quite as open ended as other Spiderweb Software games, it is vast. You'll need to find a certain person who can provide you with a spell or a certain piece of information, or tell you how to find something - always for a price of course - before you can move on to the next challenge. There's a journal feature in the game that allows you to keep track of the discrete parts of each quest and the progress you are making. For instance if someone tells you to talk to someone in a certain town, you can hit a button and this dialog will be saved to your journal for future reference. No need to bother with real pen and paper.

There's also the constant need to make decisions about how to train, equip and deploy your characters. The storyline possibilities mentioned above are often forced-choice dilemmas. The decisions you make are sometimes irreversible and will always have an effect on your party and the way the game plays out for you. Another nice feature of this game is the incredibly detailed dungeons and terrain. Nearly every area is packed to the gills with things to explore and discover. Secret passages and locked doors abound.

Avernum 3 features turnbased play, instead of real-time play. That means that you can get up to use the bathroom or take a phone call and nothing will come and eat your party while you're otherwise engaged. There is also a staggering amount of dialog in this game. A great deal of the game is in fact wrapped up in the dialog with the surface dwellers, monsters, fellow Avernites and the Vahnatai - the cave-dwelling allies of the Avernites. The responses you choose while talking to people will also effect your party. You can be a wimp or a bully, or something in between, and people will react to you in different ways.

But rest assured, there's also combat aplenty in this game. In combat mode your party spars with other humans or creatures as a team. Your party, fortuitously, always has first crack at the other guys unless you're up against a particularly quick-on-the-draw foe. Each character can perform a certain number of actions in a turn, usually a few strides and a strike or a spell. Then it's your enemies' turn until everyone from one side or the other is dead. There's also the possibility of running away if your enemy is much too strong, but this has its dangers as well. Tactics and strategy are important in combat, especially when your party confronts an equal or superior enemy. An experienced player can do more with a given party than a new player. I won't give away the fun, but suffice it to say that if you play for long you will discover how to go about confronting strong foes. Confronting enemies far too powerful for your party is a very real possibility in this game if you choose to take foolish risks. That can be fun too sometimes.

You can keep track of the damage your party is sustaining in several ways. When in combat mode, all combatants appear with a little bar underneath them indicating the amount of health remaining to them. The stats for each character also appear on the screen as each character is active in turn. Priests can heal characters in combat, or each character can use potions to restore health. Effectiveness in combat does not decline as a character loses health. This makes for edge of the seat combat at times, as combatants can turn the tide in battle even if they are nearly dead. Certain mental and physical states can effect your characters as well. Drink too much and you can fight drunk. Certain creatures have the ability to paralyze, stupefy or addle your characters' brains so that they behave erratically or even attack other members of your party. And then there's always those addictive, illegal drugs. What effect might those have on combat?

Luckily, most of the action for this game can be directed from the keyboard rather than the mouse. The numeric keypad can be used to move your party around and letter keys can accomplish most tasks, thus sparing your ravaged carpal tendons from repetitive motion stress. Another lucky stroke is the character editor, or cheat screen. Here you can resurrect dead characters and remove adverse conditions or bestow super-powerful weapons upon your party, etc.


Winning

I don't want to give too much away in this section. Part of the fun of this game is the process of investigation and discovery that leads to a final confrontation. Suffice it to say that you must find out who is responsible for the plagues on the surface, and you must gain enough skill and experience to confront the responsible party and defeat them. Gaining enough skill to confront this powerful foe requires pursuing lesser tasks which will make your characters highly skilled in both combat and magic. Strictly speaking, there is very little in this game which is absolutely required. You can choose to avoid most any particular mission if you wish. But the completion of most of these missions provides clues and tools which will help you on your way. All in all, this game can easily provide you with more than 100 hours of game time.


My Reaction

I have to admit that I'm probably not the best judge of computer games around. I've played very few computer games in my time other than some freeware solitaire and the games put out by Spiderweb. Personally, I love these games because it's like playing a great Dungeons & Dragons type game without having to roll dice and calculate odds. I appreciate the complexity and depth of the game, the different sound effects and the fact that there's tons more detail than really needs to be there. Spiderweb Software doesn't take shortcuts at the expense of quality. I also like the fact that the game includes mental challenges to go with all the combat. At times, these games have contributed greatly to my impulse towards escapism when term papers and other academic pressures loomed. But for the price, this game and the other Avernum games are a superb bargain. If RPGs are your thing, I think you would really enjoy Avernum 3 and other Spiderweb Software games.


Shareware distribution

The method of distribution for this game reflects Spiderweb Software's niche market. Rather than spending a lot of money for packaging and distribution, they have opted for shareware downloads of their games. This allows you, the player, to download the game and play a portion of it free of charge. When you have explored and progressed to a certain degree a "shareware demon" appears in the game, informing you that you will be unable to continue further until you register the game. You don't have to pay a cent until you already know what you think of the game. After registration, the entire game is available for play. Cheapskates beware: by this point you will already be an addict. So don't think you'll just download the demo and forego the paid portion. Besides, it'll give you a nice feeling of supporting a talented, independent game programmer. Registering the game will cost $25 or $32 if you want to buy a comprehensive hint booklet mailed to you that provides instruction if you get stuck and lots of details on goodies you probably missed.

Spiderweb Software can be found on the web at:

http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/index.html

Currently, Avernum 3 is available only for Macintosh, with a release date for Windows set for late summer or early fall. In the meantime, PC users can check out several other games by Spiderweb Software including Avernum and Avernum 2 and the Exile series of games.

Although Avernum 3 is the final game in the Avernum trilogy, one need not have played the previous games to fully enjoy this one.


P.S. Any techno-jargon in this review was gleaned entirely by reading the archived interviews posted on the Spiderweb Software website. Apologies if any of the terms here were used incorrectly. If so, please leave me a comment and I'll be happy to correct in an update.



This review is a contribution to aliventiasylum's Guilty Pleasures Write-Off. Many thanks to her for organizing this. Below is a list of the participants of this write-off. Please take a few minutes to check out some of the other submissions.


Recommended: Yes