"120% old-school"
Personally, I don't have that kind of prejudice, because it's so much better to enjoy both sides of the hamburguer like the mixed salad upper side, and the... beefy unknown organic meat underside, and whatever, I think I should stop using lousy fast food metaphors to illustrate my point.
So, as expected from Spiderweb Software's philosophy, you won't find any groundbreaking role-playing computer game coming from them, since their work is targeted at a niche market of old-school gamers with fond memories back to those good ol' days of Lord British Ultima series...
I must be getting really old if you have no idea what I am talking about...
Anyway Avernum 4 is basically one huge dungeon crawl spanning a huge underground realm filled with a dozen cities and countless ruins, caves, castles, mazes and generic towers of magic.
There's so many side-quests, and stuff to do that this harmless underdog could easily suck up 3 months worth of your life. And surely it's not because of the recycled isometric Poser-adapted little graphics, nor the complete lack of music and sparse sound effects, or the somewhat uninspired story
compared to other Avernum games and fantasy universes.
I mean how many of those monster attacks, ancient mad wizards, and conspirancies of disgruntled secret societies can there be, right?
The redeeming factor about Avernum is the gameplay, it's streamlined to some sort of relative perfection, easy to use interface, bug-free engine, and the satisfying feeling that comes with each gang of helpless bandits and
other evil-doers crushed beneath your heel.
Psycologically, it also fills your hunger for gold, fame and of course the management of hundreds of "borrowed" items from innocent NPC's.
That's about it, if you are looking for some decent underworld adventuring, which will last a really awfully long time, then just download the demo, and explore freely the first quarter of Avernum. At least for 25 bucks it's much cheaper than WoW.